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

David Groom reviews at pacific-rim.net
Fri Apr 15 13:19:19 BST 2011


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frederik Ramm" <frederik at remote.org>
To: <talk at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 begins Sunday


>
> Hi,
>
> On 04/15/2011 10:13 AM, David Groom wrote:
>>> 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.
>
> It would be very hard to construct something of that kind. The most common 
> thing is certainly going to be the above "third" case, where you have the 
> right to distribute data under CC-BY-SA or maybe even ODbL or maybe you 
> even have the right to distribute it under any license with a BY 
> component, but you do not have the right to authorize a third party (OSMF) 
> to perform such distribution.
>
> For data of your "fourth" kind you would have to have a data provider who 
> says "you can use my data under CC-BY-SA or ODbL, and you have the right 
> to sublicense not only under these licenses, but you also under these 
> licenses plus the additional privilege of further sublicensing". I'm not 
> aware of such a situation even existing.
>

Surely all you need is a data provider who says  "you can use my data under 
CC-BY-SA or ODbL but you dont have the right to grant a worldwide, 
royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence to do any act 
that is restricted by copyright , in respect of my data"


>> 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?
>
> The best was to deal with such situations is to identify the affected data 
> and remove only that. Ideally, users should, when agreeing to the CT, 
> notify OSMF of those past contributions that are not CT compatible.
>

So your "ideal" is that people should agree to the CT's even if they know 
that they are in breach of the CT's!

That's not my idea of "ideal", but I guess we will have to agree to differ 
on this point, and wait to see what the official OSM position is on dealing 
with people who are in breach of the CT's

David


> The idea of accepting selected individual contributions without CT 
> agreement - i.e. contributions which are "CC-BY-SA or ODbL only with 
> sublicensing option" - has been floated over half a year ago, and this is 
> a real possibility for cases where data loss would be too great otherwise. 
> This would essentially defer data loss - the loss would not happen right 
> away but at some later time if the license is changed again. This will 
> always have to be a case-by-case decision by OSMF because it has the 
> potential to cause trouble in the future and puts holes in the shiny new 
> license regime we're hoping to have.
>
>> 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?
>
> As I said, there might be *selected* *individual* cases where we say "oh 
> well, we'll rather have your data now and accept that we have to remove it 
> if we should ever change the license again, than not have your data at 
> all". But just because we say so in one or two cases, doesn't mean we 
> abandon the idea of a simplified later license change altogether.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
>
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