Hi,
On 06/16/11 12:31, Dermot McNally wrote:
Does that not effectively rule out any future relicensing because the burden
of checking existing data is just too high? I mean, how would one even
*begin* to perform such a check, given that nobody is actually obliged to
tell us what license restriction his externally-sourced data might be under?
Not quite, based on what Richard is saying. It would allow future
relicensing but only if the new licence remained compatible with the
terms seen to be required by the OS (currently attribution, if I've
understood correctly).
Almost ;) replace "terms seen to be required by the OS" with "sum of
terms seen to be required by anyone whose data we are basing our
contributions on".
And while it is not certain that this sum of terms is equal to ODbL, it
might be; we don't really have a way to know since we do not force or
even expect our users to *tell* us what terms their contributions come
under, except that they are somehow compatible with our current licensing.
So after a few years we might have data in our database that was given
to someone with the explicit restriction that it may only ever be
distributed under OdbL. Sufficient for the person to contribute the data
to OSM under the current CT. A future license change would then need a
crystal ball to single out that data set (the contributor might not even
be available for communication any longer) and determine that it has to
be removed.
This situation could be made a little less of a problem by requesting
that anyone who contributes data that is not available for arbitrary
relicensing under the CT (i.e. any free and open license etc.etc.)
should flag such data in a well-defined way. Then, in a future
relicensing process we could assume that any data not flagged can be
relicensed at will, and only data that is flagged needs to be more
closely investigated.
It is too late to upgrade the CT with such a requirement, but we could
still set up a community norm to that effect.
Bye
Frederik
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