[OSM-talk] Let's talk Attribution

[Christoph Hormann]

On Wednesday 29 April 2020, Kathleen Lu via talk wrote:
> [...]
> After researching this question, I found no commercial data provider
> that required data attribution as prominently as the FAQ suggests.
> Industry standard would suggest a *much* less strict interpretation
> of what is "reasonable" under the ODbL.

For clarity once again - although i have said this many times in the 
past and it is frankly annoying that i have to repeat myself this way 
because corporate lobbyists continue presenting/implying alternative 
facts.

OSM data is subject to the ODbL.  How it needs to be attributed is 
determined by the wording of the ODbL in the context of how OSM data is 
being produced through volunteer work (i.e. the contributor terms).

Geodata used by Google, Here, TomTom etc. is distributed and used under 
proprietary, non-open licenses which are very different from the ODbL 
and do not contain attribution requirements in any way comparable to 
that of the ODbL.  Hence attribution on use of such data sources 
(assuming it is actually attribution for the data source - which as 
Alexandre points out is not necessarily always the case) has 
*absolutely nothing* to do with attribution of OSM data use.  What you 
call commercial data providers depend on the economic viability of 
their licenses.  OSM does not.  If your business model does not allow 
using OSM data and complying with the ODbL at the same time you cannot 
use OSM data.

And what i have also said several times before is that the only way you 
can consistently interpret the ODbL attribution requirement - what 
Martin quoted as:

„You must include a notice associated with the Produced Work reasonably 
calculated to make any Person that uses, views, accesses, interacts 
with, or is otherwise exposed to the Produced Work aware that Content 
was obtained from the Database,...“

is in the way that the determination if any Person that uses, views, 
accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise exposed to the Produced
Work becomes aware that Content was obtained from the Database from the 
attribution provided needs to *be based on reason*.  So far no one has 
even attempted to explain the reasoning behind the expectation that a 
user of an application with hidden attribution becomes aware that 
Content was obtained from the Database.

But even completely disregarding these points of fundamental logic - the 
point the OSM community primarily needs to discuss in the context of 
providing practical guidance on attribution is what expectations 
mappers have when they agree to the contributor terms regarding the 
attribution provided by data users.  Any guidance the OSM community 
provides to data users regarding attribution needs to be fundamentally 
based on and compatible with that to have any social legitimacy.  And 
so far i have not heard any active mapper stating they expect anything 
other than clearly visible (or more generally: directly perceivable) 
attribution.  There are lots of mappers who state they don't care about 
attribution but not caring does not mean not expecting.  When there is 
talk among mappers about seeing OSM data use 'in the wild' people 
almost always are interested in the attribution - even those who would 
prefer if OSM had chosen PD as license.  The only defense of 
insufficient attribution i have heard from mappers so far is the 
willingness to settle for less (like because they don't care, because 
they would prefer a more liberal license anyway and are therefore fine 
with data users violating the ODbL or because they feel pity for the 
hardships of corporate data users in developing a business model that 
works while providing sufficient attribution to OSM).

-- 
Christoph Hormann
http://www.imagico.de/