[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 begins Sunday

[David Groom]

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Frederik Ramm" <frederik at remote.org>
> To: "David Murn" <davey at incanberra.com.au>
> Cc: "Talk Openstreetmap" <talk at openstreetmap.org>
> Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 12:08 AM
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 begins Sunday
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
> David Murn wrote:
>> What about if you become aware that once youve got someone, who has
>> agreed and who has contributed tainted data?  Will you (or someone else
>> wielding the magical OSMF+3 wand) reverse it?
>
> If data is "tainted" in a way that makes in incompatible with the
> currently used license then it will have to be removed in order not to
> put the project at risk (e.g. data copied from proprietary sources).
> This is independent of the license change.
>
> If data is "tainted" in a way that makes it compatible with the
> currently used license, but it is likely that the data will have to be
> removed should OSM ever change to a different license under the CT "2/3
> of active mappers" clause, then things are difficult - it would
> certainly be better in the long run to replace such data by data that is
> fully compliant, and I would estimate tools to be developed that would
> aim to gradually phase out such limited-release data and make sure such
> data is not used to "build upon" if it can be avoided. But I don't think
> it would be removed outright - I guess the decision will be delayed
> until such time as anyone actually proposes changing the license again.
>
> There's also a third kind of "tainted" that sits in the middle of these
> two, namely data that has e.g. been released CC-BY. Such data looks
> compatible at first, but closer inspection (see current discussion on
> legal-talk) reveals that CC-BY explicitly forbids sublicensing, and
> sublicensing is what the new scheme is all about. So in that case we'd
> have a legal outcome (data being distributed with attribution) but an
> untidy process that took us there. I don't know if this is a minor
> problem that can be ignored, or a showstopper.
>

There's also a fourth kind of "tainted" data.  Data that might be compatible 
with CC-BY-SA, and might be compatible with ODbL, but is incompatible with 
the CT's.

In which case the question becomes, if someone who has accepted the CT's, 
is in breach of the CT's  because some data they have contributed in the 
past is incompatible with the CT's, will all their data be removed and their 
user account blocked?

Or is OSM happy to allow those people who are in breach of the CT's to 
continue to contribute to the project, in which case why bother having the 
CT's in the first place?

David


> Bye
> Frederik
>
> -- 
> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>