[OSM-talk] RFC - OSM contributor mark

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Wed Jan 16 22:49:52 GMT 2013


Hi Christian,

On 16.01.2013 23:33, Christian Quest wrote:
> The current legal requirement is only about a text because no official
> icon was existing.

The current legal requirement is not about a text specifically; as Paul 
has written, the current legal requirement is:

"notice ... reasonably calculated to make any
Person ... aware that the Content was obtained from the Database ... and
that it is available under [ODbL]".

It is not for us to upgrade these requirements (it would require Open 
Data Commons to issue a version 1.1 of their license with changed wording).

What we could do is agree that a certain logo/icon/wording is 
"reasonably calculated to make any person aware..." and so on. OSMF does 
have a little bit of leeway there; if they were to say "this counts" 
then it would be hard for anyone to construct a case against it. However 
it is important to keep in mind that contributors have only authorized 
OSMF to redistribute their data under ODbL (via the contributor 
agreement), not under "ODbL with any fancy interpretations that OSMF 
would like to add". If OSMF were to stray too far from the path, 
contributors could claim that OSMF violated the contributor agreement 
and OSMF's right to distribute the data was therefore void. I wouldn't 
want to go there!

I think the "reasonably calculated...." is is a relatively high hurdle. 
Especially when an icon is newly introduced, it can hardly be said to be 
"reasonably calculated to make any person aware..."! Personally, I think 
this is practically impossible without including at least the word 
OpenStreetMap spelled out in letters (if not ODbL 1.0 as well). Even 
our, relatively well-known, current logo would be a difficult sell as 
"reasonably calculated" because it isn't *so* well known.

This does, however, border on the "discuss in legal-talk where you're 
likely to find more expert answers".

Bye
Frederik

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



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