[OSM-talk] Licensing Working Group

[Richard Weait]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 10:19 AM, Greg Troxel <gdt at ir.bbn.com> wrote:
> I agree.   I don't particularly dislike the ODBL, but I am not
> comfortable with CT that grants the project permission to relicense
> under non-share-alike terms later.
>
> [ ... ] I find that the (pushy, in my perception) relicensing issue makes me
> less inclined to participate.

It's an inoculation.  A bit of a pinch, and a sore spot on the arm for
a day, but we're all better off afterwards.

ODbL gives us the real share-alike, open data license that we wish we
had available to us when the project started.

CT future-proofs the project so that we can keep up with the Open Data
environment that we are changing.

Share-alike was the right approach when OSM started and share-alike is
the right way to continue now, and likely for a very long time in the
future.  But at some point, when all data is Open perhaps, a
re-balancing the terms of the OpenStreetMap license will make sense to
the contributors to the project.  They'll be able to address that,
even if it is generations from now.