Andy Allan <gravityst...@...> writes: >> Even if you agree that CC-BY-SA is less than ideal, > >It's not "less than ideal". It's dreadful. The OSMF license team have >created a document explaining why. We've had lawyers confirming that >it probably doesn't work. Even the people who created it say that it >should not be used for data. That is, Creative Commons have advised >us, and everyone else, to not use CCBYSA for data.
This is a little bit disingenuous; they have also advised you, and everyone else, not to use ODBL either. >But that hasn't stopped you from having your own opinion, which is >that you aren't swayed by all the evidence to the contrary, and >whenever you ask for such evidence and it's provided, you seem to >shrug it off anyway. I'd be a lot more persuaded if there were evidence of a real, occurring problem rather than a theoretical one. The OSM data is by now rich and detailed, and has been for several years. Yet to my knowledge, not a single map vendor, data vendor, search engine, or anyone else has successfully copied all or part of OSM, flouting CC-BY-SA. They are quite happy to use public domain data, so if CC-BY-SA is really as ineffective as is claimed, why are they not using OSM data too? Could it be that their lawyers are telling them something a bit different from what is asserted on this list? Or, even, that legal opinions and the threat of court action are not the be all and end all of how people will behave, and a licence like CC-BY-SA might be an effective way to make people share-alike even if it's not bulletproof? I accept that the legal situation with OSM and CC-BY-SA is not as clear-cut as, say, a published novel or a computer program and the GPL. I understand that when lawyers are asked for an opinion, they suck their teeth and point out flaws and question marks over enforceability, as they always do. But strong claims require strong evidence. To claim that CC-BY-SA is 'dreadful' requires, IMHO, evidence of real rather than theoretical cases where it's holding back the goal of free map data. You might tell me that the fence around my field is completely ineffective and I should upgrade to an electric fence, but I might ask on what particular occasion my livestock have managed to escape. If they haven't ever done so, perhaps the fence is working after all. It was mentioned that some potential users of OSM data have been put off by CC-BY-SA after their lawyers inspected it. I accept this as a real, existing problem with the current licence and one that might motivate a licence change. It would be good to know more details, and whether these same lawyers who were unhappy using data under CC-BY-SA would be content to use it under ODBL. >>After all if we go through one big data deletion >>and relicensing, what's to stop it happening again later? > >Have you read the proposed contributor terms? You're right, the new terms would allow OSMF to relicense the data. I had forgotten that point. -- Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com> _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
