Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CTs and the 1 April deadline
Hi, On 01/04/11 16:02, Anthony wrote: But what could we do? Let people remove their data if they don't agree to future licensing terms. No, that is not acceptable to me. Someone who participates in OSM must have the willingness to accept what the majority wants, or else they should not participate in the first place. I don't want "provisional" contributions that can be withdrawn at any later time. Such would only lead to a "better to delete what others have done and re-make it than to build on their work" attitude. Such an opt-out clause would mean: We're not a community building something together, we're a pot where everyone can temporarily put their personal contribution but remove it at any time. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at theBing TermsofUse?
Steve, On 12/23/10 01:57, Steve Bennett wrote: That's another area wide open to discussion; my interpretation of "I consider my contributions PD" has always been: "I don't claim any rights in what I contribute." - not: "I vouch for nobody holding any rights in what I contribute." (The latter position would not allow me to delete and re-upload an object that has been edited by someone under CC-BY-SA, something which I sometimes do e.g. if a relation has 1000 versions or so.) Just curiosity here, but you're saying you intentionally delete the history of objects? No, you cannot delete the history of an object from the database through the API. Doesn't that breach the "BY" part of CC-BY-SA? I usually put a "note=created from relation xyz" or so on the new object, so anyone who wants to make the connection to the previous object and its history, can still find out - it's just not possible *automatically* anymore. But then this whole thing is a damage limiting exercise that I do when the API times out on retrieving the history (a 1000-object relation with 1000 members as a *very large* history), so it's not that I'm making anything worse ;) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at theBing TermsofUse?
Hi, Ian Sergeant wrote: So, the question is, when MegaMap adopt OSM maps, which are generated from Bing traces, what will Microsoft think then? Do they really understand what allowing contributions to OSM means? This leads us to the terrain of who determines what megacorps "think" or "understand". But generally, we have to assume that this deal has been struck after intense talks with Steve Coast who has been at, or very close to, the epicentre of the whoe licensing debate basically since it started 2007. So unless he has cunningly misled his now employer (why would he do that?), we have to assume that all parties actually do what they do in the fullest possible knowledge of the consequences. I've always considered my personal contributions to OSM PD, from both yahoo and GPS traces. I've just done that via the wiki declaration box. I guess if I trace Bing imagery, I can't consider those traces PD, can I? That's another area wide open to discussion; my interpretation of "I consider my contributions PD" has always been: "I don't claim any rights in what I contribute." - not: "I vouch for nobody holding any rights in what I contribute." (The latter position would not allow me to delete and re-upload an object that has been edited by someone under CC-BY-SA, something which I sometimes do e.g. if a relation has 1000 versions or so.) In fact if we follow this line of reasoning, my trace would be under a Microsoft licence which permits me to only upload it to OSM, and after that is done, it is then available under CC-BY-SA to all? I guess so - more precisely, "available under whatever license OSM uses at that time". Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at theBing TermsofUse?
Anthony, Anthony wrote: On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote: This rule means that everything that is traced from Bing before OSM stops publishing under CC-BY-SA will be available to the world, forever, under CC-BY-SA. But a hypothetical CC-BY-SA fork would not be allowed to accept newly traced data after the license change. I certainly didn't read it that way. The Bing license says you must contribute traced data to openstreetmaps.org, but it doesn't say you can't also contribute traced data to a fork. I believe you could also do other things with traced data but that would then be subject to the normal license, not the special license they granted to OpenStreetMap. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at theBing TermsofUse?
Phillip, On 12/21/10 16:43, Barnett, Phillip wrote: So people who have not (yet) accepted the CTs can't use Bing? Is that really the case? I think Rob was slightly wrong when he said: We do not have permission from Bing to licence the data differently anywhere else. And contributions to OSM should be under the CTs. We do indeed have permission from Bing to trace the data and incorporate it in OSM, whatever OSM's license, and independent of the CT. (This means they put quite some trust in us not doing stupid things because if OSM were to change its license to the dreaded "everything belongs to Frederik" license then so would the data traced from Bing until that time.) This rule means that everything that is traced from Bing before OSM stops publishing under CC-BY-SA will be available to the world, forever, under CC-BY-SA. But a hypothetical CC-BY-SA fork would not be allowed to accept newly traced data after the license change. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at theBing TermsofUse?
Hi, On 12/21/10 11:51, Andrew Harvey wrote: I am having this conversation because I contribute to OSM on the basis that the database will be licensed CC BY-SA and will not be filled with data which conflicts with that license. If tracings from Bing imagery cannot be distributed under this license, then the OSM community should be made aware of this, so we can treat such edits as vandalism. If tracings from Bing can be distributed under a CC BY-SA license then again the OSM community should be made aware of this so we can use this as a mapping source. I.e. you are not happy with applying your (rather skewed IMHO) interpretation of legal matters to your own work, but you would prefer to force it on everyone else in the project, stopping them from using Bing until the available documentation matches your personal interpretation, is that right? Have you applied the same rigor to other data sources that were widely believed to be usable, e.g. Yahoo? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at the Bing TermsofUse?
David (& some others), David Groom wrote: I've repeatedly asked where is the explicit permission to use Bing Imagery to create derived works, all the only answer is "we have it". As I've said before if its there please show us where it is. Just out of interest; why are we having this conversation? Is it just to determine who is right and who is wrong and who was right in the first place and who gets extra points for being super nitpicking (hello 80n, have you never written a "final" document and later made a v2 of it?) and who gets to sit on the golden seat in lawyer heaven? Do you *want* to use Bing imagery but feel you cannot? Or do you not want to use Bing imagery and are looking for a reason? I mean, every now and then I enjoy being a tongue-in-cheek smartass myself, but somehow I have the impression that not only has this discussion left the ground a while ago, no, meanwhile someone has cut the tether as well. By all means, if that's what floats your boat, continue - but you'll excuse if meanwhile I'm a little bit pragmatic and trace some aerial imagery. I'm sure it is wrong somehow, but I like the outcome. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at the Bing Terms of Use?
Hi, Andrew Harvey wrote: Where is this direct statement from Microsoft that says derived information from aerial imagery delivered through their map api can be licensed under a CT compatible license? Strange wording - we're not looking for data that can be "licensed under a CT compatible license", we're looking for data that can be uploaded to OSM under the CT which then means that future re-licensing is possible. It is absoultely clear that the statement we have from Microsoft (or Bing) was made in full knowledge of the CT. So even if it does not directly spell out how OSM works and how the CT work, it is clear that the permission given to us was given in that light. They will not be able to come back later and say "wait a minute, when we said you can trace we didn't mean you can actually upload to OSM under CT". You may be right in that in the absence of a very explicit legal statement or contract, there is a residual risk of Bing backpedalling. This risk is small enough for me to use my spare time to trace houses (and some roads in unmapped places) from Bing; if it should indeed turn out to be a giant misunderstanding, then that work will have been in vain. That's my risk, I have thought about it, and I think it's acceptably small. (Personally I think that this risk is smaller than others incurred when using aerial imagery, e.g. the risk that the imagery used is too old and thus your work is next to worthless in a recently re-developed area.) Now if you judge that risk to be much greater, it might tip the balance for you so that you say it's not worth investing any time tracing from Bing because it is in fact very likely that it will turn out to be in vain. That's not an idea I share but I respect it - I will not demand that you spend your time tracing from Bing when you believe it's a waste. I really don't see where the problem is. We have a strong culture of being cautious with licensing etc., i.e. we wouldn't trace from Google without Google allowing us to do so even if some scholars say that there's no legal basis for that caution. And that's ok, I fully support that kind of caution. On the other hand, if we're told that we can use certain sources, and we even find that in the official Blog of that source, then I think our caution need not stretch so far as to respond with "You say we can use your data? I don't believe you." Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at the Bing Terms of Use?
Dave, Dave F. wrote: I'm just catching up with this thread & can't believe what I've just read. You bleat & whinge ... thanks ... about people talking legal in other threads & yet here, in legal, you admit that your advice to others that's it's OK to trace Bing (under any license) has no foundation other than a guess & a feeling. We have a direct statement from Microsoft saying it's ok to trace. If that's "no foundation other tahn a guess & a feeling" for you then you're free to refrain from using Bing imagery - however I think that's bad judgement on your part. I'm looking for concrete evidence & it would be better if you kept quiet until you had some Absolutely not. I have written that what we have is enough FOR ME to start tracing, and that's what it is (in fact, I have already traced a number of buildings and roads and am continuing to do so). If it's not enough FOR YOU, then you're free to do other things. However, as others have pointed out, what we have from Bing now is already *much* more that we ever had from Yahoo in terms of written permission - and I cannot remember you being equally over-cautious about Yahoo. Why? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Change - Jakob Altenstein Bachelor Thesis
Hi, Dear LWG, Oops, mis-sent this - was supposed to go to LWG only and not to list. Anyway, no secrets in there - if anyone has interesting comments, feel free to share them and I'll forward them to Jakob. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] License Change - Jakob Altenstein Bachelor Thesis
Dear LWG, this is just for your information - not a request or action item. There's a cartography student here in Karlsruhe who is doing his bachelor thesis at Geofabrik. From a number of possible topics I offered him, he chose this: "Development and implementation of an alogrithm to evaluate and visualize the effect of the planned OSM license change on the data." His task is more or less to produce a "license change map" like the red-green-orange-yellow maps we already have (that wasn't available when he started - I underestimated the speed with which the OSM community got that implemented). He will also have to produce a systematic write-up of the various possible "orange/yellow" situations where parts of an object are available for relicensing and others are not. I also expect him to develop an algorithm that will somehow "filter out" what remains of an object after non-relicensed information has been stripped away. If he's good he will also take into account complex cases like a way having been split (which is then not visible from the object history). All this is expected to be configurable so that you can e.g. define minor kinds of changes that don't yield copyright and see how the change in definition changes the output. His thesis is supposed to be finished end of February. I guess I'll see some interim results in January and would of course share them with you. As always, there's no guarantee that what he produces will have any use in practice. I assume that a lot of what he does will be duplicated by the community (most likely Peter Koerner who is doing similar work without an academic background) or by members of the LWG in the mean time, simply because people want answers to questions. Even so, I have mandated that his code and thesis be published under an open license so maybe once he has something to show we can use some his analysis/figures/code/whatever. If not, then that's not a problem - I told him and the professor beforehand that there's no knowing what OSM is up to and that there's no reason to assume the results will acutally be used in practice. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Francis, On 12/14/10 10:38, Francis Davey wrote: Anyway, this is a governance issue rather than a legal one. As drafted the CT's will require 2/3 of all active contributors, not merely those who vote. As written in another message, I believe that in this case an active contributor is one who votes (or, at least, replies to the email - the CTs don't say whether the email used to verify active-contributor status is the vote email at the same time, but it might be). Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi, On 12/14/10 10:28, Jukka Rahkonen wrote: I do not really believe that the turnout percentage in any OSM poll would reach 66.7 percent, even if we count just the active contributors. The turnout percentage in the kind of poll mandated by the CT will be 100%: "An 'active contributor' is defined as [someone who] has maintained a valid email address in their registration profile and responds within 3 weeks." This means that anyone who does not at least reply to the email is not an active contributor. Now of course, when asked by email to respond either "yes" or "no", people could also respond "bugger off" but that would simply count as a "no". Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi, On 12/10/10 03:09, Simon Ward wrote: We are expected to give OSMF broad rights and trust them to do what’s good, yet if a contributor should attempt to assert their rights it is deemed unjust, unfair to the community, or whatever other daemonising you can think of. The balance is wrong, and it needs to be more towards the people than any central body, including OSMF. This is not how I see it. I think the balance needs to be towards the project as a whole, not towards the individual and his whims. The OSMF doesn't need to come into this at all - if you want to formulate a CT that lets 2/3 of the project force OSMF's hand in any possible license change, I'd have no problem with that. You speak of "asserting rights" and make it sound as if this was the natural thing to do. Instead, what we are discussing here is the opposite; we are discussing the granting of rights, without which the project would not be possible. We are currently using one way for the individual to grant rights to the community (the CC-BY-SA license), and we are transitioning to another way for the individual to grant rights to the community (the CT with license change option). I think it is obvious that the more you "assert" and the less you "grant", the less you trust the community. I've been called a communist for this but I believe that in our project, it is necessary to drop the selfish thought of your contribution being your personal property that you need to "assert rights over" because you cannot trust the community to do the right thing with it. If you are not prepared to *give* your data to OSM - if you'd rather only *lend* your data so you can sit and watch how the project develops and withdraw your contribution should they take what you view to be a wrong step in the future - then maybe you aren't ready for a large, interconnected, collaborative project like this. You can close your account on flickr at any time and take down your photos with it without hurting anyone in that community - but except for the most exotic cases you cannot remove your contribution from OSM without causing damage that is larger than your contribution. Maybe, then, the community should view your contribution with the same suspicion that you seem to view the community: "Let's rather not take his data, who knows what he's up to." Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi, On 12/10/10 00:15, Ed Avis wrote: Well, 67% of 'active contributors' however defined. The definition of active contributor can probably be altered by the simple expedient of blocking contributions from those who don't click 'agree' to any proposed new policy. Or OSMF could simply sell off the servers, have a grand board meeting on the Maledives with all expenses paid, and declare bankruptcy afterwards. Oh wait, they can do that even now. Of course the current OSMF management act in good faith and would never do such a thing, but in theory it is possible. O the things that are possible in theory! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi, David Groom wrote: Your above paragrapgh neatly sums up to me why the CT's are incompatible with CC-BY, or CC-BY-SA, or indeed many more licences , in that compatability of the CT's could only be ensured if: (a) There was some technical mechanism for fallginf data which needs to be removed , and there is no such mechanism; and (b) There was a guarntee that usch data "WOULD" be removed, and there is no such guarantee. As I understood it, the old CTs basically required the contributor to guarantee that his contribution was compatible with the CT, while the new CTs only require the contributor to guarantee that his contribution is compatible with whatever the current license is. You're right in that nobody guarantees that data would be removed in the event of a change of license, but I don't think that this puts the contributor in legal peril. I don't see any problem on the contributor's side. Where I see the problems with this approach is on the OSMF side. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi, pec...@gmail.com wrote: Don't want to argue but it is what confuses me - from one side, you accept that data is published under ODbL which is attribution/share alike, but you can't request to keep this clauses in the future. If that's a story, then it is not fully explained to community. ODbL has lots of properties - it is a contract, a license, it is share-alike (according to some definitions!), it is free and open, it is maintained by an institution in England, it is based (in part) on database right, it does not cover patents... If a future license change should be deemed necessary by 2/3 of the active mappers according to CT, they will choose a suitable replacement. The CT says that the "free and open" property must be kept. The others need not be kept. It makes sense for the CT to list the required properties of the potential new license, instead of listing those that ODbL has but which are not required of the new license, or else the CT would become too long. If you think that some people do not fully understand section three of the contributor terms - namely that *any* free and open license can be choosen by 2/3 of the active mappers - then maybe the contributor terms need in fact be made more explicit. I would however not recommend to put something in there that says: "For the avoidance of doubt, such license does not necessarily have to have what, at the time of writing this agreement, is known as an 'attribution' or 'share alike' clause" because that would unnecessarily upset people; they would think there's a secret plan to go PD at the next possible opportunity, when in fact the non-requirement of share-alike is more something that gives us greater flexibility for the future. Personally I'd expect any future license to be something similar to ODbL which is share alike at the core, but makes some exceptions where things are deemed unimportant. Any such license would probably not pass a strict "... must have a share alike clause ..." unless one was being cheeky and saying that "having a share-alike clause" is already fulfilled by a license that has a clause regulating the effect of share-alike. You see, even speculating about potential wording gets us into a mire of definitions. And that's all from our (today's) point of view. 10 years ago, I believe, the term "share-alike" wasn't even used; people said "copyleft" back then. Who knows what we will be talking about in 2020? Well, there is a problem - I create map for *today*. Now, we need a good, solid map. OSM is way to do it. Yes, there are sources which are PD and free and you can do whatever you want with it. But there are also very valuable sources which comes with restrictions. For time these restrictions matched our current license. Now we have to abandon and clean out these sources because license of OSM might change in the future. Many of these sources will also change their licenses over time. It is a very interesting topic, maybe for another time, what happens if you import data from a share-alike source today but in 5 years the data source goes PD. Will the data you have imported now have to be deleted and re-imported to take advantage of the greater flexibility, or can it just be "switched"? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi, 80n wrote: Share alike is a very simple thing to define. If you receive something you can only distribute it under exactly the same terms that you received it. According to *that* definition, ODbL is not a share-alike license. The poster to whom I replied, however, seemed to be of the opinion that data he receives under the provision "share alike only" was ODbL compatible. Not even CC-BY-SA is a share-alike license according to your definition because you may distribute data received under CC-BY-SA under a higher version of the license, which may contain whatever terms Creative Commons deem suitable. So either your "simple" definition of share-alike is correct and everyone in real life is doing it wrong. Or maybe it is too simple. Which was precisely the point I was trying to make. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag
Kevin, Nice post. Your comparison with contributions of effort to voluntary organisations is a good one, and has changed my view on the inclusion of a clause that allows the licence to be changed. Thank you for writing that. Now I have something I can point people to when they say that participation in legal-talk is useless ;) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag
Simon, Simon Ward wrote: On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 07:58:26PM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote: ODbL is not a PD license, so you do not have to be afraid. The Contributor Terms effectively change the licence. My statement above arose from a discussion in which pec...@gmail.com wrote: "I know that ODbL team talked about changing description of "free license", but I don't see any official statements about that. I'm afraid that PDists got their way all over again." I.e. he said he was "afraid" that somehow the "PDists" had achieved something (why he wrote "all over again" I don't know). My point is that the license that is now on the table, ODbL, is not a PD license. Anyone who would like OSM to be a PD project has not "achieved" something. The Contributor Terms provide a way for future generations of "PDists", "Share-Alike-Ists" and whatnot in OSM to take the project's fate in their hands, battle it out, discuss it, whatever. This is good; it is not a win for anyone on any side in the license debate. (The best thing is that nobody loses either.) I reject outright the claim that the Contributor Terms "effectively change the license". They leave a door open for future improvements, for an adaptation to changed circumstances or a changed mood in the community. But that is just a chance for change, not a change in itself, and any future change is possible only under strict rules. If you take an extremely individualist view then you will say: This is my data, I have contributed it, and I want to have every say in how it is used. This is not practical; you will always have to grant broad, general rights about your contribution to the project or downstream users. This is what happens today where you choose a license. In the future we expect you to not choose one particular license, but instead allow OSMF, together with the active project members of OSM, to choose a suitable license within certain constraints. In my eyes, this is not much different from the license upgrade clause in ODbL itself, only that the decision will in the hands of the future project, rather than in the hands of an elect few writers of the next license version. I think that it is morally very questionable to try and pre-emptively override a future 2/3 majority of active people in OSM. Those will be the people who shape, who maintain, who advance OSM, and they should have every freedom to decide what their project does; when we tell them that "you cannot do X even if all of you are in favour", then "X" had better be the absolute essence without which OSM cannot continue under any circumstances. I think that "you cannot choose a license that is not free and open" matches this absolute essence pretty well. Now if someone says: "I have firm beliefs and even if OSM in the future has 10 million active mappers and 2/3 of them decide they want a license that I don't like then I want to withdraw my contribution at that point" (and that's what it boils down to - if we have no license change clause in the CT then you will have to be asked at that point) - then that is a very individualistic view; a view in which your data always remains yours, and never fully becomes part of the whole; a view in which your contribution is always provisional, in which you only "lend" the project something but not "give". If you spend your time in, say, the local cycle campaign, improving the lot of cyclists, working long hours for many years, but then they snuggle up to a political party you don't like, then you can leave - but what you have contributed all those years will not be in vain, the effects will remain and be useful. Many people spend their spare time on voluntary work of some kind, and it is very unusual to have a clause that says "if times change and suddenly I find myself in a minority in this project then I want the right to retroactively remove all my contributions because they are mine and mine only." Neither will you demand a written guarantee that the organisation is never going to change - most will have statutes, but those statutes can usually be changed by a certain majority. I am trying to take this discussion away from whether PD is better than share-alike and whether or not there is some secret PD campaign at work here trying to liberate (in their sense) OSM. I do not think it should matter. I don't want to engage in legal nitpicking either. I want to make a moral point. I belive that: * OSM is a collaborative effort. Licenses and copyright aside, what I contribute becomes part of the whole and cannot, should not be viewed as separate. Others will use my contribution and build on it. Withdrawing it later means ruining their work too. OSM is not the place for "ownersh
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag
80n, On 12/07/10 10:08, 80n wrote: So, the const-ness you're looking for is in fact there - just not on the level on which you are lookign for it. Not at all. A 2/3rds majority of *active* contributors can change the license under which everyone elses content is published. Yes. But no majority in the world can change the rules under which you will have contributed your data (the contributor terms), even if you're long dead. Your data will always be under these terms, which allow OSMF to choose the license for redistribution providing they meet certain criteria that you have agreed to. There is *no* way for OSMF to, for example, * license the data under a non-free or non-open license * license the data under a license not agreed to by 2/3 of active contributors * change the definition of "active contributor" without asking you. These parameters of your agreement with OSMF are fixed and cannot be changed without renegotiation with you personally. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Unsetting CT flag
Hi, On 12/07/10 09:24, ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote: However, I believe the license is different. Contributors give OSMF a licence to use their data in a particular way. That licence is to their personal rights. I think it is wrong that this licence can be changed in the future without the consent of all contributors whose data will be affected. Maybe it is just a problem with concepts and wording. Where you say license, I think CT: The contributors grant OSMF the right to use their data under specific rules. These rules can never be changed without their consent, and it would be wrong (like you say above) to try and retroactively change these rules. These rules include the right for OSMF to redistribute the data under certain licenses, the choice of which must conform to a set of criteria which are defined *in advance* by the contributor and are *not modifiable*. So, the const-ness you're looking for is in fact there - just not on the level on which you are lookign for it. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Someone already had a look at the Bing Terms of Use?
Andrew, Manuel - On 12/06/2010 10:28 AM, Andrew Harvey wrote: I feel that it is not safe at this point. I have raised my concerns in this thread http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-December/005299.html The situation is sufficient for me to use Bing imagery for tracing. I'm not looking at the legal side of it, I'm just looking at the size of the PR disaster should Microsoft attempt to backtrack in any way. PR is more important than legal. As most people on this list know, with CC-BY-SA being next to invalid for Geodata in the US, any of the big US players could long have taken our data an run. Why haven't they? Because they fear a PR disaster. But luckily this is something that everyone can decide for themselves - if you're happy with the situation, start tracing; if you're not, then don't. There's enough mapping to be done without reliance to Bing images. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT, section 3
Anthony, you seem to be missing context. I have re-added the quote from Mike to which I replied: On 11/26/10 16:53, Anthony wrote: If you have a license, then make it closed, dont leave any loopholes or blank check rules in there that involve trusting some unknown set of people that can change at any time. Make simple rules and I will be happy. How can we have the hubris to say "we know what's best for OSM in 10 years"? Preserving the right to opt out of future changes doesn't say that. On the contrary, it is an expression of uncertainty over the future. The above statement was about creating fixed licenses without any loopholes - Mike said we should do it, I replied it was a bad idea. This was not about opting out of future changes. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT, section 3
Hi, On 11/26/10 16:24, Mike Dupont wrote: Do you *really* think it is right to say: What's mine is mine, and if those 100 people in 10 years make any step that I don't like then I will withdraw my work from under them? please stop at this point. We are not talking about withdrawing anything here, some people have decided to make an unpopular decision to change the license to something incompatible here. No one is withdrawing anything. But wasn't Olaf's whole point that he wanted to retain his right to withdraw his contribution from OSM if at any point in the future the project should decide to change the license to something he does not like? If you have a license, then make it closed, dont leave any loopholes or blank check rules in there that involve trusting some unknown set of people that can change at any time. Make simple rules and I will be happy. But that's what I am saying: "OSM in 10 years" is an unknown project in an unknown environment. How can we have the hubris to say "we know what's best for OSM in 10 years"? The problem that I see is that you dont have the terms worked out and you want us to agree that you will figure out the problem in the future, because of some vague fears that someone might abuse the current license. I think the terms are worked out quite well. The new license is ready for use. It may have bugs but we won't find them until we try. The reason we have the relicensing clause in there is not only that ODbL may be found to be buggy, but also that the environment in which we operate may change. For example, it might happen that first the EU, then every other country in the world agrees to release their geodata under a new free and open data license called, say, "FODL". Data released under FODL would be interoperable and every geodata user in the world would get used to dealing with FODL data. FODL would become the de-facto licensing standard for open geodata. Only OSM would still use an outdated license named ODbL that nobody really understands anymore and that it not interoperable with FODL data, because, 10 years ago, they decided to sign that license with blood for eternity. ODbL might be the best license there currently is for geodate - but it might not be so forever. Well let me tell you , I think you should work out your licenses, make it really nice and tight and then present it for review, don't ask us to sign away all future rights. Nobody is being asked to "sign away all future rights". You are asked to grant OSMF a very clear and limited right to do certain things with the data you have contributed, under certain conditions. There is nothing unsure or unclear about this. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT, section 3
Hi, On 11/26/10 15:24, Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer wrote: My thought experiment was based on being locked out of the server, being unable to contribute, and thereby loosing the right to vote. I agree that the CT currently seem to have no provision to make sure that someone who *wants* to be an active contributor can indeed do that. This could be fixed. Your thought experiment was based on the idea that OSMF could quickly change the CT to require something else than a 2/3 majority. I hope I managed to make it clear that this was a misunderstanding on your part; even if they managed to lock you out, they could not change the terms to which you have agreed. This is pure speculation. I think that very people will be so short-sighted that this is an issue for them. I mean, you can be for or against anything right now, but if you are not blinded by ideology of any sort then you will have to accept that times change, and that *anything* you try to enshrine for eternity will hurt the project. I do not see any reason to continue the discussion with you after these ad-hominem attacks. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I am just trying to make you, and others, understand that in 10 years time the project will likely have 100 times as much contributors as we have now. Picture yourself next to 100 people who have come after you, who have taken what you have given to the project and who have built on it, improved it, made it "their" project. Do you *really* think it is right to say: What's mine is mine, and if those 100 people in 10 years make any step that I don't like then I will withdraw my work from under them? Because they will have built on your work in good faith, thinking that we were all creating something together; they will perhaps find themselves in a situation where they feel they need to make a change in the license to adapt to changed circumstances - nobody can foresee what the world will be like then. And you request the right to command them, to threaten them with withdrawing your 10-year-old contribution and all the interest it has accrued (by others building on your work, improving it). It may be *legally* possible to have a right to take your contribution away then, but I think it would be morally wrong, and I would sincerely ask anyone who feels the desire to pull the rug from under the project's feet in 10 years time if the project doesn't do what one likes: please recosider, and if you still cannot trust the project enough that you can let go of your contribution, then leave. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT, section 3
Hi, On 11/26/10 13:13, Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer wrote: I am sure that each part of the thought experiment is allowed under the current CT rules. Or do you see something that violates the CT? Your thought experiment was built on OSMF *changing* the CT. Now changing the CT doesn't violate the CT, but of course your agreement is to the old, not the new CT. So if they want to change it and continue using your data, they will have to ask you. Your thought experiemnt was invalid because you assumed that they could change the CT and continue using your data. "A free and open license" includes Public Domain, which is just a small step away from proprietary. Under the CT, OSMF will never be allowed to change to a proprietary license, *even if* 2/3 of contributors agreed. And under the current CT rules I am not guaranteed to be allowed to even participate in the vote. You are guaranteed a vote if you are an active mapper. I do not think that you have a moral right to continue determining the course of the project after you have left. Remain active and have a say - or leave the project, but then also leave it alone. 4. Force all contributors to accept CT terms that allow a license change to PD without out-out clauses. Some people in group "c" will leave OpenStreetMap. Those that remain might be too few to stop a PD license change when a vote comes up and will then leave at a later point. This is pure speculation. I think that very people will be so short-sighted that this is an issue for them. I mean, you can be for or against anything right now, but if you are not blinded by ideology of any sort then you will have to accept that times change, and that *anything* you try to enshrine for eternity will hurt the project. Both choice "2" and choice "4" make it very likely that all people in group "c" will leave OpenStreetMap in the long view, which greatly damages the project. Speculation. Choice "3" might be a good compromise. No, choice 3 will create the exact same problems we have now around any future license change. With the CT as they are, if anyone ever wanted to change the license, the process is clear and easy: Convince OSMF to initiate the process; hold a vote among active mappers; if 2/3 agree, the license is changed, if not, it's not. End of story. What you request here, giving the individual a way to opt out of a license change with whatever is considered "his" data, would mean that we would again have to deal with data loss; with the question of who owns what; we would see people in favour of the license change voting with "no" because they fear the data loss; we would see FUD & agitation on all sides. Not good. I do not know, however, whether people in group "b" are interested in a compromise or whether a fork of OpenStreetMap is seen as inevitable anyway. This is not about people in groups, about ideology, about a fork, or about who owns what. What we do is a huge, collective work. As part of your commitment to this project, you have to accept that you cannot always have it your way; and that you will occasionally have to follow what a large majority wants. Either you take part in the project or you don't. You say you want to be "asked". I think it is simply an illusion to believe that you could take part in this but have a veto. If the technical team decides to switch to Oracle you won't have a veto. If the majority of mappers decide they want to change everything from "highway=" to "road=" you won't have a veto. If they decide to rename the project "Whuzzit" instead of "OpenStreetMap" you won't have a veto. In all these case you will not only not have a veto, you will not have a legal basis to disallow that the project continues to use what you have once contributed. You say you want to retain "control". It is not normal for the individual in this project to have any kind of control. We have had cases where somebody contributed data and later changed his mind, leaving the project and removing his data. The data was then promptly re-instated by others. Is that what you would call "having control"? If you participate in OSM, you are adding water to an ocean. It does not make sense to want to hold on to "your" bit of water. If this is important to you, then I think you should think twice about participating in a project like this. My view is this: You should look at the project today. Look at its community, its dynamics, everything. And then decide if you want to be a part of it. And "it" may well include the millions of mappers who join after you and who might turn the project into a direction that neither of us can now foresee - that's the nature of a collaborative effort. You can engage in the project, try to shape it and give it direction through various means. Any data you contribute becomes part of the project - just as everything else. You write a posting on the mailing list, you influence the opinion of ot
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT, section 3
Hi, On 11/26/10 10:57, Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer wrote: I would never have contributed under a license that says: "All your work is now ours. You give up all control. Bugger off if you disagree." I think you have misunderstood the issue at hand. But let me change my thought experiment to something less absurd: Let us assume the OSMF have a vote to change the license of OpenStreetMap to Public Domain some time in the future. [...] The OSMF therefore releases a new version of the CT replacing the 2/3 majority with a simple majority. This is not about assigning ownership of your contribution to OSMF. We are talking about allowing OSMF to use and license your contribution under the terms of the current CT. You do not give up all control, you say: "Dear OSMF, as long as you play by the rules in these CT, you can use my data." If OSMF stops playing by these rules, they lose the right to use your data. If they want to change the CT like in your example, they would have to come and ask you if you're all right with that. So while you cannot control which "free and open" license 2/3 of the project may choose to use in the future, it will always be a free and open license, and it will always be 2/3 of the active mappers, and the definition of "active mappers" will always be as written in the CT. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] JOSM and spam
Erik, On 11/25/10 00:30, Erik Johansson wrote: And I'm very disappointed that people think mass mailing is ok, it's not informing people in any useful way. I don't think mass mailing is ok, and we should not encourage it. On the other hand, even after the process has been going on for far more than two years, we *still* have people who complain that they have not been adequately informed, so we will certainly not *reduce* the amount of information about the new license. This does not mean we should tell people to mass-mail, but we should not remain silent about the license change either. Grant has quoted the current text in the JOSM startup message, and it is no different than what we have on every Wiki page, or the article on the openstreetmap.de front page, or elsewhere. This is information and not incitement to mass mailing, and will not be removed. I don't know why the wording "OpenStreetMap is changing its license. This requires user affirmation. ..." would be misunderstood by some as "please email lots of people and tell them". Maybe you have a suggestion for a better choice of words? I have no problem with changing the wording (although I am neither the person who put it there, nor the person who has the last word on it). Also, using the OSM user-to-user messaging system for true mass emails is not the intended use, and has led to banned accounts in the past. I have no doubt that if someone were to send out a significant number of messages that way, they would at least be in for questioning by the admins. If you feel harassed by another project member, let me know who they are and what they did and I'll talk to them. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] JOSM and spam
Erik, Erik Johansson wrote: Yes I'm sure it has to do with JOSM Why are you sure? Have they told you so? I still don't see what it is about JOSM in particular that is a problem. As I said, the license change is advertised in many other places too. I don't think we should stop informing people of the upcoming license change just because this makes some people send messages to others. It's not that JOSM says "please write messages to everyone who hasn't yet signed up". and it seems like you think it should continue? On the whole, I think it is better if people are asked to relicense by a fellow mapper than if they get an email from OSMF. Of course I wouldn't like to get several such emails per day either. The problem we currently have in this regard is that you cannot publicly make a final decision "no, I won't relicense and I'm ok with my data being replaced". Thus some people, when finding lots of "red" areas, might decide to write an email to the mapper in question (maybe he simply hasn't yet heard of the license change). Once we have such a public "no, certainly not" option, the same mapper can simply start fixing the "red" stuff rather than wasting time with emails. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] JOSM and spam
Hi,
On 11/24/2010 10:57 AM, Erik Johansson wrote:
It would be great if someone could convince the JOSM people to remove
the ODbL blurb in JOSM, people get scared and spam everyone who hasn't
agreed to the new license.
I do not appreciate getting lots of ODbL FUD spam,
Are you sure this has something to do with JOSM? I mean, we've been
saying it for half a year now on EVERY wiki page ("OSM is changing its
license"...) and it's been on the JOSM startup page for quite a while
now. Is it not likely that what you're seeing is the effect of a much
more recent development, namely maps like
http://osm.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/map/ where people can see which
areas have been edited by people who haven't yet agreed to the CT/OdbL?
I would not want people to send messages to "total strangers" but if it
is someone from an area where you have edited a lot, then I can
understand that if they find a large section of his city or quarter not
relicensed that they become concerned and send you a message. - When I
map somewhere, I know that this might result in me being contacted by
"total strangers", i.e. other members of this project who care for the
place I've edited.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Use Case
Rob, Rob Myers wrote: What do you mean by "private addreses"? Which clause(s) of the ODbL would require you to publish them? Xavier is taking up a 2-week-old thread about a hypothetical application of his where users can upload photos and supply addresses where the photo has been taken, and the application would OSM to geocode the addresses and show "photos in the neighborhood". He's worried about having to disclose the addresses. Xavier, a few random thoughts on how you might deal with your problem: 1. You don't have to release what you haven't got. So if the only thing required for your application to work is the *location* then just store the location and not the address. You can still dump the address to a log file on input, in case you need to follow things up manually later, but if the only thing in your database is the location then that's all you have to release. 2. I'm not sure if individual geocoding results really trigger any sort of license reaction as they are so trivial. Maybe the application could be structured in a way that would never even create/contain a substantial extract of OSM. 3. Assume your customers have uploaded 10.000 addresses and 10.000 pictures. You could have one database with the columns "picture_id" and "address", containing what the users have uploaded, and another database with the columns "address", "lat", "lon" which contains the geocoding results for these 10.000 addresses. Now if you only mix these databases for display (i.e. you do a SELECT from the geocoding table to find all addresses in the vicinity, and JOIN that with the other table to find the photo IDs), then it is my opinion that you'd only have to release the geocoding db and not the photo db, as the photo table is not derived from OSM in any way. The geocoding table would allow users to see which places you have photos for (but you could add another 100.000 records to that table if you don't want people to know for sure). Maybe you wouldn't even store the address in plain text, but just a MD5 hash? This is of course highly theoretical, as people are unlikely to even request that geocoding table from you. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] openstreetmap in some flash advertising
Hi, Mike Dupont wrote: I just saw this , very interesting. http://osmopenlayers.blogspot.com/2010/11/httpmobilespyde-is-using-unattributed.html Mobile Spy and Akamai are using unattributed osm tiles in flash ads. More precisely, "Mobile Spy is using a single image of ca. 250x100 pixels that looks like it might come from OpenStreetMap in an advert". I don't see evidence for the plural but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough. Akamai (and edgesuite.net) are just content delivery networks; they are "using" that image in the same fashion as blogspot.com are "using" it after you created the page you have linked to above ;) Legally they might have to attribute OSM but I'm really thankful they don't, because what they have to sell is some shady software that claims to be able to "locate" people when in reality it's just an x-ray pornocam style rip-off and I would't want to see OSM mentioned in that context. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] yakaz.com Partial Map data CC-BY-SA OpenStreetMap contributors
Mike, Mike Dupont wrote: Hi, there, the site http://www.yakaz.com has an osm map and displays "Partial Map data CC-BY-SA OpenStreetMap contributors" on the webpage, but not on the map. Nobody says it has to be on the map. Luca has posted a comment about this and sent this to my attention : http://blog.yakaz.com/2010/11/welcome-on-the-new-yakaz.html#comments any comments? They're not following the letter of the recommendation that Luca quoted but they're attributing uns *and* giving the license on the page where they display the map which I think is perfectly fine. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] proprietary data formats and ODbL
Hi, Ulf Möller wrote: The file is not encrypted and they don't use any DRM, but of course the map can only be used on their type of devices (just as a gmapsupp.img can only be used on Garmins), and of course without a specification of the file format it's going to be very difficult to make any changes to it. The boundary between "just a difficult file format" and "encryption" is probably rather grey. The'd surely be on the safe side if they distributed the contents of that file on a parallel channel in an easily readable form. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?
Hi, On 11/19/10 15:38, Ed Avis wrote: That's one reason why I think a dual licence under both the proposed new licences and the existing CC-BY-SA is a good idea - because it provides a guarantee beyond doubt that all currently allowed uses of the map data will still be okay. For me, as a PD advocate, the more licenses you license the stuff under the better as it will combine the loopholes of every single one. If, however, you intend to "protect" our data by putting it under a share-alike data, then any additional license you add weakens that "protection". Your suggestion would effectively kill the relatively strong share-alike element of ODbL that requires people to share the database *behind* a produced work, rather than just the work itself. Anyhow - the contributor terms would technically allow OSMF to dual-license as you request, even without asking the mappers, so you just stand for election to the board and then effect that decision. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?
Anthony, On 11/19/10 14:38, Anthony wrote: If the latter, then no, it doesn't, in itself, allow you to make a produced work, because a produced work is made from a substantial extract of data. You know what? After the license change I'll make a few produced works that way and see if OSMF sue me. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?
Martin, M?rtin Koppenhoefer wrote: But a map is (this might have to be looked at for the individual case) not only a work but can constitute a database at the same time. If you are able to reconstruct a database with substantial parts of the original database by re-engineering if from the map, you must admit that the database somehow still was in the map. Otherwise you could simply create a SVG-Map, publish it under PD, recompile the db from the svg and you would have circumvented the license. The first version of ODbL hat an explicit clause about reverse engineering, saying that if you reverse engineer a produced work the resulting DB will fall under ODbL. That has been scrapped because lawyers said that this was implicit - i.e. you *can* indeed have a produced work that is, say, PD, but if you use that to re-create the database from which it was made, that database is protected by database right once again and you need a license to use it. Otherwise, only the most obscure works (certainly not a printed map) could fall under the "Produced Works" rule. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?
Hi, Anthony wrote: One thing I should point out, though, is that the ODbL does not *say* "you can make Produced Works and release them as CC-BY". I think it does, at least if taken together with DbCL as planned for OSM. In fact, what it says is: "You may not sublicense the Database. Each time You communicate the Database, the whole or Substantial part of the Contents, or any Derivative Database to anyone else in any way, the Licensor offers to the recipient a license to the Database on the same terms and conditions as this License." To the extent that you are allowed to offer a license on a Produced Work, that license only applies to *your contribution* to the Produced Work. It does not apply to the "preexisting material". The license you have for the preexisting material, i.e. the Database, is given by the original Licensor of the database, and is ODbL, not CC-BY, or CC-BY-SA, or anything else. I think you're completely wrong here. Not just a little wrong, but drive-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-motorway kind of wrong. The only reason that you're not being told so by a hundred people is that they have grown tired of telling you. ODbL gives you the right to use the data to create a Produced Work. A Produced Work is not subject to ODbL because it is not a database; in so far as any copyright subsists in the Produced Work, one would have to look to DbCL for guidance on what happens with that, and DbCL says: "The Licensor grants to You a [...] license to do any act that is restricted by copyright [...]. These rights include, without limitation, the right to sublicense the work." Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Best license for future tiles?
Hi, On 11/18/10 14:47, Richard Fairhurst wrote: (I believe that the "reasonably calculated" in 4.3 imposes a downstream requirement as part of this: in other words, you must require that attribution is preserved for adaptations of the Produced Work, otherwise you have not "reasonably calculated" that the attribution will be shown to "any Person that views, accesses [etc.]... the Produced Work". At least one person disagrees with me here. :) ) And he's watching. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [DRAFT] Contributor Terms 1.2
Hi, Ed Avis wrote: This doesn't really counteract the main thrust of the contributor terms which state that you grant a perpetual licence to do any act restricted by copyright, database right etc. That needs to change to say that you grant just enough rights to distribute the data under the currently-used licence, but you are not required to give carte blanche for future changes. I agree with Francis Davey that the current draft says this clearly enough. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [DRAFT] Contributor Terms 1.2
Hi, On 11/17/10 10:46, ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote: Looking at this the eyes or a data-holder, say the OS, who is considering allowing data to be used this would be a big concern as the term means they would lose control over how their data is licensed. No, the data contributed to OSM can come under any terms as long as they are compatible with the *current* license; the onus is on OSM to remove it if a license change makes continued distribution impossible - quote from draft: "(b) If we suspect that any contributed data is incompatible [(in the sense that we could not continue to lawfully distribute it)] with whichever licence or licences we are then using (see sections 3 and 4), then we may [suspend access to or ] delete that data temporarily or permanently." To me, this is the exact opposite of "losing control over how their data is licensed". Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [DRAFT] Contributor Terms 1.2
Richard, On 11/17/10 03:30, Richard Weait wrote: There have been several revisions to a new draft of the Contributor Terms from the LWG over the last few meetings. https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_933xs7nvfb The language sounds more human now which is good. I like it how parts of the document now say "We..." instead of "OSMF...". However this has not been done consistently, e.g. it should read "you grant us..." instead "you grant OSMF..." in clause 2. There's a stray "or more" at the end of clause 5. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [talk] New site about the license change
Hi, On 11/17/10 04:26, Anthony wrote: They left what process? The goal of the process was not to find a license like the ODbL. The goal of the process was to address the sui generis database right within the CC framework. This is not a contradiction. The ODbL could well have been "the way to address data in the CC framework". I'd avoid talking specifically of the "sui generis database right" because that was clearly not an issue in the beginning; the issue they tried to solve was that "no one understood the legal aspects of data very clearly, no one could figure out an algorithm for when copyright applied and when it didn't, and everyone wanted a solution." I'm not a CC insider; I have my knowledge mainly from stuff that John Wilbanks has published. The above quote is from http://blogs.nature.com/wilbanks/2007/12/ which tells a story that starts in October 2006. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [talk] New site about the license change
Hi, Anthony wrote: If Creative Commons had been more friendly towards the data licensing issue, a similar window could have been opened in a hypothetical CC-BY-SA 3.1 If Creative Commons wanted to support the export of sui generis database protection, there wouldn't have been a need for ODbL in the first place. It was Creative Commons who started the process of looking for a license that led to ODbL. It's just that Creative Commons left that process along the way. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [talk] New site about the license change
Hi, Rob Myers wrote: As does OSM's existing CC-BY-SA 2.0 licence. I believe such an upgrade path was how Wikipedia changed from GFDL to CC-BY-SA, wasn't it? They got the makers of GFDL to release a newer version of GFDL that would provide an upgrade window. If Creative Commons had been more friendly towards the data licensing issue, a similar window could have been opened in a hypothetical CC-BY-SA 3.1; alas they had their own plans (and saying to them "You guys have more money than God, and I think you want to own this space, and I think you're trying to stop dissent from your Vision." when they popped up here to discuss probably didn't help). Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [talk] New site about the license change
Kevin, ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote: The difference in my mind between the CTs and the ODbL is the provision that allows the license to be changed at a later date, potentially without further approval of the license. I don't believe this in ODbL. The CT allow the changeover to any other free and open license under the conditions that (clause 3) * the OSMF decides to do it * a 2/3 majority of active mappers are in favour. That's quite a lot of "further approval" I should think. ODbL in itself has an upgrade clause, too; it allows derived databases (including of course a complete copy) to be licensed under (section 4.4) * ODbL 1.0, * a later version of ODbL "similar in spirit" to ODbL 1.0, * a license compatible to ODbL 1.0. Now who exactly decides when to issue a "later version of ODbL" or what makes a license "compatible" isn't made explicit, but I think it is safe to say that an upgrade along that path would be possible with a lot less eyes watching than an upgrade under the upgrade per clause 3 of the CT! Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Existing data
John, you should really discuss license topics on legal-talk and not here. To give the briefest of responses: I don't see anything to prevent this from happening. Merging a future ODbL-licensed OSM with a (then) old CC-BY-SA licensed OSM dataset and publishing tiles made from that database would force you to release the whole database under ODbL which would violate the terms of CC-BY-SA. There are ways in which data could legally be combined but that's really going too much into detail for talk. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] license change map
Hi,
it occurred to me that it might not be clear to everyone why I
objected to NE2's comment on talk. The discussion started with the
license change map http://osm.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/map/, and
someone said that "the bits that are red on the license change map will
be deleted". That person was asked to use "would", not "will". NE2 then
replied:
If we go by what the JOSM introduction page says ("OpenStreetMap is changing
its license"), "will" is correct.
This is of course wrong, because even if the license change is a given,
"will" would only be correct if between now and then not a single person
would agree to the CT/ODbL which is certainly not the case. Seeing that
we were yet again descending into some kind of license change FUD on
talk, I wrote
Please stop this immediately.
promting Florian Lohoff to say
The above shows me there is no place for dissent in this project.
which, again, is not the correct conclusion; it's just that the license
change topic is quite serious and people discussing it should apply
minimum intellectual prudence instead of throwing around soundbites that
might upset others (a.k.a. "FUD").
There's a place for dissent, but there's not place for bullshit. The
notion that everything currently painted red on that map is going to be
deleted certainly deserves the latter label.
I assume it was NE2's aim to question the JOSM startup notice which
basically portrays the license change as a done deal, but so does the
Wiki banner we're showing and personally I believe the only way to pull
this through is indeed to make it very clear that we're committed to
making the license change, rather than dithering around (a point on
which, astonishingly, 80n seems to be on our side).
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Use Case
Hi, Xavier Loiseau wrote: Do the pictures distributed through the web site have to be licensed under the CC-BY-SA license ? Later, will the pictures distributed through the web site have to be licensed under the ODbL license ? I think the answer is no in both cases. However, you might have to share the database that contains your picture IDs keyed against locations in the ODbL case since it could be argued that that database is "derived from OSM" and "publicly used" in your service. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Waiving attribution illegal in any country/-ies?
Niklas,
Niklas Cholmkvist wrote:
Previously I've been wanting a Public Domain("PD") map multilicensed
under various PD licenses like CC0, WTFPL etc...but is this even
possible? (waiving attribution requirement)
The "PD is not possible in your country" is a canard that comes up every
now and then. My suggestion is to ignore it as an irrelevant technicality.
In many countries your right to be identified as the author of a work is
inalienable (provided the work passes certain minimum requirements).
This means that you cannot sell this right to someone completely (i.e.
you cannot sell the fact that you are the author of the work).
You can usually sell away most of the other rights that stem from
copyright, i.e. you can sell an exclusive license to use your work to
someone else, and from then on you can't even use your work yourself
without asking them. But this is, in many countries, not possible with
your right to attribution, i.e. the other person cannot buy from you
your right to be named as the author.
But that does not prevent you from granting others a perpetual
non-retractable license to use your work without naming you as the
author - which is something completely different!
Thus, no problems with CC0, WTFPL etc. on that side.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] legal FAQ license
Hi, Richard Weait wrote: Is there some OSM contribution or edit that is so mechanical and/or so insignificant that it need never be considered for copyright or database right? Any edit made by a robot - e.g. one that fixes spelling mistakes - certainly qualifies for "never be considered for copyright" because copyright needs humans to do something; I'm not sure about database right though. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] legal FAQ license
Andrzej, andrzej zaborowski wrote: You may also want to take into account the automatic database rights in some users' contributions (even if not copyrightable), which iirc are not disclaimed by CC-By-SA 2 unported. If we assume there to be such rights (and there might well be!), would this not mean that we'd have to remove their contribution from OSM immediately because the required permissions for re-use/distribution have not been granted? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] legal FAQ license
Jukka, Jukka Rahkonen wrote: And of course we are using the same rules for taking and giving, or? Same amounts of data we consider non-copyrightable and keep therefore in the database can be taken out from the new ODbl-OSM database as if they were PD? And even store masses of separate extracts into one database because that's what we would do ourselves? I'm not sure I quite understand. Our new license does have a provision that allows using non-substantial extracts without regard to the license. This can be viewed as similar to what I described above, although there is a big difference. If one million users each make a non-copyrightable contribution to OSM under CC-BY-SA then I can take those one million contributions and use them in any way I want because if they are not copyrightable then CC-BY-SA doesn't have any effect. However if I put those same one million contributions into a database protected by ODbL, then they are likely to form a "substantial" extract and thus they cannot be extracted outside of ODbL terms. (On the other hand, it is well possible that there is an individual contribution which is copyrightable but still doesn't form a "substantial" extract.) ODbL's concept "if you take a lot of insubstantial extracts and combine them then they again form a substantial extract" does not apply to copyright of individual contributions made under CC-BY-SA - if you take lots of non-copyrighted bits submitted by various users and combine them then they don't suddenly become copyrighted - or maybe they do, but then it's your copyright and not that of the original contributors (think of tearing a magazine to shreds and then gluing together a nice picture from the coloured pieces of paper). Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] list of user IDs having accepted the contributor terms
Hi, Anthony wrote: If the contributor terms change, will there be two separate lists kept, or does the list get reset, or what? No, the will not be reset. If the terms should be changed, then we will have two groups of contributors, one having agreed to terms "A" and one having agreed to terms "B". As long as any future action by OSMF is within the intersection of "A" and "B" - and this is what it would have to be -, it does not matter who signed which. All suggestions that I have heard of were about narrowing down the contributor terms, i.e. "B" would be a subset of "A", so that the intersection of both would always be "B". Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Legal or not? user srpskicrv and source = TOPO 25 VGI BEOGRAD
Hi, On 10/03/2010 04:31 AM, John Smith wrote: None of those examples applies since it was a question about copyright ownership. I don't see why we should treat a nation state's laws about copyright any different than a nation state's idiosyncratic laws about maps or surveying. If you are in Serbia and violate their copyright you'll end up being questioned by the authorities just as if you caught making a map in China. Of course you're welcome to try out for yourself whether or not these examples "apply". Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Legal or not? user srpskicrv and source = TOPO 25 VGI BEOGRAD
Hi, On 10/02/2010 03:43 PM, Ed Avis wrote: This is pretty clear, then: OSM also needs to be usable on Serbian territory, so it can't use the maps. Right... and OSM needs to be usable in India too, so it must show Kashmir as belonging to India as it would otherwise be illegal. And of course OSM must be usable in Pakistan so it must show Kashmir as disputed territory otherwise it would be illegal. And in China of course, we must only include mapping that as been supervised by local goverments and done by mappers who are approved by central government. And as for N Korea, we should probably delete that altogether. I'm not taking sides in the issue at hand; I just want to point out that "strict adherence to every national law in every country" is not out no. #1 priority, or even achievable at all. In all likelihood, OSM does and always will violate laws in some countries; we have to make a sensible choice about which laws we want to violate and where. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license
Kevin, ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote: (b) that there is a very clear (and legally sound) description of the effect of the new licence when the time comes to vote so we can make an informed decision which way to vote based on the effect it will have. I don't know how long you have been following the process, but the vote is long past. Members of the OSMF have had such a vote last year and agreed to go ahead with the new license. The switch to ODbL is already decided; further votes are not planned. All mappers will be asked to agree to the Contributor Terms, thereby effectively agreeing to the relicensing. At that point they have the option to not agree, in which case OSMF will stop distributing their data; but this is not a vote, just an individual opt-in. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Usage of ODbL
Hi, 80n wrote: I doubt data from either of these sources would be compatible with OSM's implementation of ODbL. I don't think that it was Emilie's intent to point out that there is data "compatible" with OSM's implementation of ODbL (any PD data source would be - hardly news!). In fact I'm not even sure if these databases would contain anything of interest to OSM. This is about the ODbL being adopted by others, thus showing that it is not just OSM who believe that it is good. The changes that the dataplace people made to 4.2 and 4.3 seem to have been intended to clarify how they'd like their attribution to be; I agree that this seems to be some kind of misunderstanding on their part, as they should just have given that as a separate copyright notice which would then have required everyone to keep it intact as per 4.2c, rather than including it verbatim in 4.2b. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license
Hi, Dave F. wrote: As I asked you before, will I be able to use this data under the proposed new regulations? Why, of course! You will be able to use OS OpenData under the rules they come under. This is completely independent of OSM. Even if OSM's and OS's licenses were totally incompatible that would not reduce the usefulness of one or the other. If you mean "use this (OS) data to create new objects in OSM", please don't! I utterly, totally, fail to understand why one would want to copy OS data into OSM. If you think that OS data is good for you, just draw your map from OS data. If you would like OS data for your base map but cycleways from OSM - go ahead, it's a simple matter of rendering rules. There is a near infinite amount of free geodata on this planet, believe it or not; there is no way that OSM will ever be able to import all of this - and why should we? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license
Ed, Ed Avis wrote: And vice versa. "I want to import and that's why we cannot use " is tail-wagging-dog as well. Are you saying that any argument based on data imports is irrelevant to the choice of licence? What, then, would be an admissible reason for not using , in your view? In my opinion, the license must be chosen according to what's best for the project in the long term; short term considerations should not apply. Admissible reasons for not using would be, for example, that doesn't work, isn't enforcable, leaves too much doubt, runs the risk of sidelining OSM in the long run, or such. "We already have some data that is not compatible with " is not one of them. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license
Hi, Kevin Cordina wrote: What's important is that the licence choice be not used as a stick to enforce a particular policy about data imports or other aspects of mapping. And vice versa. "I want to import and that's why we cannot use " is tail-wagging-dog as well. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license
Hi, Dave F. wrote: When you joined OSM, was OS Streetview tracing already available then? Becasue you make it sound as if OSM without OS Streetview wasn't worth your time No I have not & you know that. Most of my posts have been questions which I notice you've been unable to answer. The post which I replied to did not contain a single question, Your general question was whether OS data is interoperable with OdbL+CT (you asked whether somebody could "confirm" or "deny" that); in further posts you made it clear that you would find it "sad" and "hard to conceive" if it were not so. I cannot confirm or deny your original question; but I wanted to say that it is in no way "sad" or "hard to conceive" if the license that OSM chooses is not compatible with a handful of government data licenses around the world. We are certainly not going to let the OS dictate the license we choose for our data. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license
Hi, ke...@cordina.org.uk wrote: Which would be true if I had the technical ability to render the data. I don't. However, some kind soul has written a renderer for OSM data that does it for me. See, that's exactly the problem we're having. "There's this nice data set which I'd like rendered/on my Garmin/... but sadly I don't know how to process that sanely. Let's just import into OpenStreetMap because once it is there, I automatically get nice maps." OSM is not the "we render anything for you because you can't do it yourself" project. Statements like yours above make me even more determined to say no to imports - you openly admit that you have no desire in actually maintaining the data, you just want to use OSM as a giant rendering engine. That's really sad. We must really endeavour to better enable people to draw in non-OSM data at the rendering stage so that they don't feel tempted to drop their rubbish into OSM just so that they get a nice map rendered. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata & the new license
Hi, Francis Davey wrote: My suggestion - which I believe has been/is being chewed over by the LWG - is that the CT's make an alternative arrangement for contributors who want to contribute material that is licensed under some other licence. Any future license change would then be constrained to the common denominator of all these licenses *or* risk repeating all the data loss whining that we're seeing now. The question I am asking myself is: Is the ability to import as much government data as possible really worth the hassle? And my personal answer is a clear no; because to me, the value of imported data is very small, almost neglibile compared to data contributed by members. I am not against imports in general; I believe there are some isolated cases where a government or other dataset has really helped the project. But I don't see any individual import, or the ability to import data at all, as crucial for OSM's success. I am especially surprised about the mood in the UK community. The UK is where OSM started because David didn't want to be bossed around by Goliath any longer; it is this "let's show the OS what a bunch of hobby mappers can do" attitude that has given OSM much of its energy in the early days. But today, it seems to me that half of the UK community is of the opinion that OSM is dead if it cannot use OS "open" data. If that had been the mood from day one, OSM would never have started at all. I firmly believe that collecting third-party geodata into an user editable pool is NOT the main purpose of OSM, and even detracts us. Thus, I would never accept future liabilities in return for being allowed to import a third-party data source. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] SRTM data
Hi, Grant Slater wrote: The NASA SRTM filled dataset is PD licensed. No issue. The 3rd party void filled SRTM is often not PD licensed. Some sets are explicitly non-commercial. This is the case with the map that Martin mentioned, it uses the noncommercial CGIAR dataset and thus cannot make combined tiles. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Does importing data give you a copyright?
80n, 80n wrote: Dave Hanson relicensed the TIGER data under CC-BY-SA when he contributed it to OSM. If you received it from him you have to comply with his license terms. Just to be clear again, we're only using Dave as an example here; the real Dave Hansen has already agreed to the contributor terms so we're not worrying about him. Generally, CC-BY-SA is a license based on copyright. I can only license something CC-BY-SA if I have a copyright in the first place. Since I do not automatically have a copyright on everything I touch, I'm afraid things are not as easy as you make it sound. If I cut and paste a page of a Shakespeare play and put it on my web page, and write "CC-BY-SA 2.0" below it, that's null and void. Copying a page of text doesn't give me a copyright on it, and where I don't have a copyright I cannot license it CC-BY-SA. (I can perhaps say it but it isn't legally binding.) If I download a TIGER file from the US government and mirror it on my web site, I cannot claim copyright or relicense it. Anyone who receives that data through me can do whatever he pleases with it, just as he can if he downloads the file from the government. The question is, how much do I have to do with that file before I can legally (or, if someone fancies going into that, morally) claim a copyright. What if I convert line endings or use an automated process to convert from one character set to another - does that give rise to copyright? Or is it too trivial an action? What if the action I do on the file is highly complex (such as converting from a shape file to OSM format or compiling from C source code to binary), but the action is done by a program where my only input is pressing a button and naming a file? Does copyright then lie with the author of the complex program, or is actually pushing the button on the software in this case non-trivial enough to warrant copyright? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Does importing data give you a copyright?
Hi, with my eyes firmly on the upcoming license change, I wonder how we are going to deal with people who have imported data which is suitable from a license point of view, but whom we cannot reach or who do not agree to the CT. For the sake of argument, let's assume that Dave Hansen (who ran the TIGER import) wouldn't agree to the CT. I know he has agreed already, I'm just using this as a what-if example. The original TIGER data is PD, so there's no license problem with keeping it. But Dave certainly has invested a lot of time in planning and executing the import, and he has certainly created copyrightable software in the process, thinking of how to match features in the original data to OSM tags and so on. We know that facts are very unlikely to be protected by CC-BY-SA in the US, no matter how many times you convert them into something else, but let's assume for a moment that Dave was operating out of Europe. Would his act of converting and uploading public domain data to OSM give him rights in that data, so that we'd have to remove it if he does not agree to the CT? Or do we say "PD data is PD data, no matter what the person uploading it to OSM says"? It may be even easier to think about this if one splits the process into two steps - person A masterfully creates a piece of data conversion software, then person B installs that software, grabs a PD dataset, and hits a button on the software. Who "owns" the resulting data in OSM? A, who devised the algorithms? B, who pushed the button and used his computing time and network bandwidth? Both? Neither? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Garmin Maps / Produced Works
Hi,
80n wrote:
Ironically, for most people it is much easier to reverse engineer a .png
than it would be to inport a dataset.
It really depends on the situation. OSM has no concept of precision, so
if I give you a list of 100 POIs on a 1024x2048 map of England, you
simply wouldn't be able to place them in OSM because they would be
hundreds of meters off.
Firstly, the publisher can distribute
it in any arbitrary format, removing IDs, modifying tags, etc. There is
no incentive for the publisher to make it easy to use.
It must still be the database from which he has produced his produced
works. Granted, there is potential for obfuscation here, but if what it
published is sufficiently interesting, the community is going to take
note ("oh look, this guy wants to make it hard for us to use the data...
let's see what we can do").
Thirdly, the publisher can simply refuse to agree to the contributor terms.
Indeed; the publisher could even be completely oblivious of them.
Bye
Frederik
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[OSM-legal-talk] Garmin Maps / Produced Works
Hi, in a recent discussion on the German OSM Intertubes, we discussed whether ODbL would give a map producer the freedom to license his work under a noncommercial license. My take was "yes of course", because I always thought of "a map" as a produced work. (The background was that we have some staunch anti-commerce people who see ODbL as the devil's work because it will allow commercially licensed produced works, to which I usually reply "yes but currently you have no way to prohibit commerical use of things you make from OSM, whereas in the ODbL future you will have that option.) However, some of these people create *Garmin Maps*, which are essentially a vector database and thus it seems that they would be a derived database rather than a produced work. This, however, would reduce their options (and of course at the same times those of the evil commercial users) - as a derived database, the Garmin map would have to be published under ODbL. Now given the recently quoted definition from the Wiki: "If it was intended for the extraction of the original data, then it is a database and not a Produced Work. Otherwise it is a Produced Work." I wonder if a Garmin map would really count as a database. The purpose of the GMAPSUPP.IMG file is to display the map on the Garmin device. In doing so, the device does extract data from the file (but so does a PNG viewer). The GMAPSUPP.IMG file is not a container for transporting OSM data, but it is possible to use third-party software to extract the data from it. Three(ish) questions: 1. Do you think that a Garmin map is a derived database or a produced work? 2. Do you think that this is good, or would it be better if it were different? 3. How will we deal with such questions in the future? Is the OSMF board the ultimate arbiter? Can the definition be changed to be clearer? Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Would The ODbL and BY-SA Clash In A Database Extracted From a BY-SA Produced Work?
Hi, Anthony wrote: Then again a PNG that simply contains a coded version of the full database would certainly be a database as far as we're concerned. Why would it matter? I think it is meant as an added safeguard against reverse engineering. ODbL already says that if you extract the database from a Produced Work then what you get is an ODbL database, so even if someone encodes the full database into a PNG then releases that CC-BY, someone else who extracts the database doesn't gain anything (he doesn't suddently end up with a non-share-alike database). However it is even better if we have a theoretical means to stop people from distributing such special PNGs under CC-BY. "If it was intended for the extraction of the original data, then it is a database and not a Produced Work. Otherwise it is a Produced Work." See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Produced_Work_-_Guideline. LOL, I hope you go with that definition. Actually, I liked an earlier version better: "If someone makes something from an ODbL dataset and declares it a Produced Work, then it is considered a Produced Work." - It is refreshingly simple and doesn't actually open any loopholes because even if you took the full DB and put the PostGIS dump on a CD declaring it a Produced Work, someone who used it would fall under the reverse engineering clause. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Noise vs unanswered questions
Hi,
andrzej zaborowski wrote:
That's why I think the issue of whether we really want the ability for
the license to be changed completely should be discussed first.
Obviously those who created the current version of CT think that it is
a good idea, and Frederik thinks so too and is very vocal about it.
Being able to relicense is certainly good. And if that means less
imports that's even better ;)
Honestly, and maybe that debate should have been had in more detail long
ago, I think that imports are generally bad with only a few limited
exceptions, and my vision for the future OSM is not that we are some
kind of collection point for other peoples' datasets. The past has shown
that imports have a short-term wow effect and very little else to offer.
Despite that it does not seem the majority thinks so, please see
http://doodle.com/5ey98xzwcz69ytq7
If we have the CT as they currently stand, we can *still* import
datasets by granting an exception (i.e. import a dataset for ODbL
distribution only with no license upgrade clause for that dataset).
Should we ever change the license in the future, that data will be lost,
but we *can* make such exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
However, if we decide against the relicensing clause in the CT then we
don't have the same option ("ok let's relicense at the cost of losing
that imported data").
Imports are overrated and should be strictly limited (and controlled
more than they are today). But imports under ODbL do not become
*impossible* with the CTs as they are suggested - they just require OSMF
approval. So the question is not put very well.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Would The ODbL and BY-SA Clash In A Database Extracted From a BY-SA Produced Work?
Hi, Anthony wrote: Ah, if you meant "Covered Database" you shouldn't have said "database" :). Produced Work and Covered Database are mutually exclusive. Produced Work and database are not. The ODbL itself does not draw a clear line between Covered Database and Produced Work. A common definition of the term "database" as given e.g. in the EU database directive would apply even to a PNG fie, whereas we clearly do not want a map tile to be considered a database. Then again a PNG that simply contains a coded version of the full database would certainly be a database as far as we're concerned. This is something that we the project have to define, and the current suggestion of LWG is "If it was intended for the extraction of the original data, then it is a database and not a Produced Work. Otherwise it is a Produced Work." See http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Produced_Work_-_Guideline. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] ODbL vs CC-by-SA pros and cons
Hi, Anthony wrote: C'mon, that's what "weak copyleft" means. Not viral for some types of derived works. If that is indeed the definition of "weak copyleft" - and I'd like you to cite a source on that - then we're changing from one sort of weak copyleft license to another sort of weak copyleft license. But (a) I don't think you have the definition right, and (b) I don't even know why we're debating which labels from software licensing are applicable to ODbL. You can call ODbL "blue copyleft" or "mint copyleft" if you want, it doesn't help the discussion. If you make a produced work based on a derived database under ODbL, you have to share the database but not the work. If you do the same under CC-BY-SA, you have to share the work but not the database. Which license is "strong" and which is "weak"? The differ in where exactly share-alike is applied, but they do not differ in strength. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing
John, there's hardly a single message of yours in which I fail so find something inappropriate. For example this: John Smith wrote: On 1 September 2010 21:21, Rob Myers wrote: "The devil is in the details." CT+ODBL has a lot of fine print... is just unsuitable for a "debate" (your word) between grown-ups. It is 100% rhetorics and 0% content. Reading statements like these is a waste of time. As for debate, your point has been made and understood: * Your No. 1 priority for OSM is to keep the data you and some of your fellow Australians have mapped and imported. * In your particular case, while most of that data is compatible, or could be made compatible, with ODbL, things are more difficult with potential future license changes (CT clause 3) Until here, you are probably not alone and your cause is understandable. While others in the same situation might take a more progressive stance and try to make things work, your conclusion has been: * You are against CT clause 3 or, depending on the situation, against the new license altogether (being under the impression that CC-BY-SA is good enough in Australia). Even this is, while probably not the best option for the project overall, something you're not alone with. You've said it, your point has been made, no need to repeat it 20 times a week. But here things start to go wrong. You're screaming, you're kicking, you're accusing everyone of sinister motives, secret plans, evilness of all kind. You're crying foul, you're writing acid comments and getting personal on almost any mailing list you have access to. You're the no. 1 poster on legal-talk by a large margin, and your messages haven't had anything new in them for the last four weeks. For all I know, you joined OSM when the license change process was already well under way [1][2], so it really is a mystery to me how you could completely overlook that when you did your tracing and importing. My personal impression is that you have an XXL problem with admitting mistakes. You cannot bear to admit to yourself, and to those who may have congratulated you on your tracing and imports, that there is a license problem now which was forseeable, but not foreseen by you, when you did it. So you're looking for someone else to take the blame, and that's essentially all we're seeing here. You cannot admit a mistake, so the others must be doing things wrong. I also have the impression that you have an XXL problem with competition. You're trying to make a "win or lose" situation out of something that wasn't one, and then (publicly, loudly) fight to "win". This is a trait commonly found in 15 year old males of our species, and it is really very unhelpful. In addition, but this has already been said by others, your behaviour in our online community is bullish and obnoxious, and if made aware of your mistakes you're just trying to make this into a new battle in which to stand ground before your friends rather than admitting it and making amends. JohnSmith, you may have contributed a lot of data, but that data comes at a very high price for our community, which is having to put up with your arrogance and general disruptive behaviour. So you condone the actions of people committing character assassinations, muck rack, abuse of statistics to achieve set outcomes and all the rest of it? I'm sad that in addition to having to put up with your messages and your endless scorn, I now have to read "80 m" and "Jane Smith" as well, and I think they're rather childish. I don't condone these actions but someone who throws as much shit at a community as you do should not be surprised to see some of it flung back. *Despite* paying attention I haven't seen anything that substantiates your claim of "dirty tricks" on the part of the people you don't agree with. I have no problem with debating the issues, Neither have I, but I won't debate them with a paranoid individual like you who is likely to take an argument, rip it out of context, and put it a screaming subject line on talk with my name attached to it. Unike you, I have debated all aspects of re-licensing with various people for the last three years, and I'm willing to continue doing so, provided it occurs in a civilised manner - one of which, sadly, you do not seem to be capable. For you, this is not a debate but an ego contest. I passionately disagree with 80n over relicensing but at least I have the impression that he is fighting for a principle, and I respect that. You, JohnSmith, are fighting for yourself, your data, and your applause from your audience. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing
Hi, John Smith wrote: On 1 September 2010 17:30, Frederik Ramm wrote: only the most presumptuous person would believe that a license they choose today will automatically be the best license for the project for all time. The sheer arrogance of all this is astounding, you and others are telling all the current contributors that you know best, because you are trying to speak for both people now and people in the future without even asking people what they want. I think there may be a misunderstanding here. The clause 3 in the contributor terms is precisely there because we want to *avoid* speaking for people in the future. Anyone arguing against that basically says: "Well of course you can change your mind about the license at a later time but you'll have to go through the same procedure again; effectively I and everyone else demand a veto on that, and if we should be dead, uninterested, or unreachable by then, well, tough luck." - The "après moi le déluge" stance if you will. In my eyes, *that* is a stance of astounding arrogance but it seems that we have different perceptions. - What exactly is, in your eyes, humble about dictating to future members of OSM exactly what they can do with the project? Remember we're talking about future members - those who do all the work and keep the project alive. Remember also that they are likely to outnumber us, vastly. Why again would it be our moral right to tell them what to do, and why should we have reason to believe that we know what is best for the project in 10 years? I think it is nothing but selfish. You don't even know if you'll be in OSM in 10 years. Neither do I. But in exchange for every puny node you add today you want the future OSM to do your bidding, to stick to a narrow set of conditions of which you have not the faintest idea whether they will allow the project to flourish or whether they'll strangle it in the future. I think that endangering the future of the project just to be able to keep a little data on board (and along with it some people who seem to care far more about themselves and the soapbox they stand on than about the project) would be stupid, to say the least. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing
Hi, John Smith wrote: On 1 September 2010 16:04, Jane Smith wrote: John Smith and I know the Truth. Frederik's books should be burnt. He is an Apostle of the 'new license'. I would have said apostle of the CT because I highly doubt he'll be content with the license... Thank you both for being so concerned about my personal license preference. Contrary to what John seems to believe, I would be quite content with the new license - not exactly "in love with it", but "content" is a good word I think. - As for the contributor terms, some parts of them are necessary and some are not necessary but prudent, among them the much-discussed clause 3; only the most presumptuous person would believe that a license they choose today will automatically be the best license for the project for all time. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing
Hi,
80n wrote:
An ODbL fork would not have same rights to the data as OSMF would have.
It would be a somewhat asymmetrical fork. You cannot fork the substance
of the contributor terms.
True, but I believe this discussion was about whether you can fork the
future ODbL OSM without having to ask OSMF, and the answer is yes.
If the community chooses to exercise clause 3 of the contributor terms
and change the license from ODbL to something else, that something else
must be "free and open". It is probably open to interpretation whether
"free and open" implies "freely forkable" but I have yet to see a
license that is free and open but does not allow forks,
What you can *not* do is fork the project, let yourself and two friends
be the "community" in the new fork and then decide to relicense to
public domain ("but two thirds of the community have agreed, we're only
using clause 3 of the contributor terms!").
I think that most people would say that's a feature, not a problem.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing
Hi,
Russ Nelson wrote:
> I've re-thought this, and I think that the proper course of action,
> which will do the least damage to the community, is to stay with
> CC-By-SA.
I think that this makes sense if you view it from one country alone. If you
are in the US and only concerned about the US community and the project in
the US, then that's fine - CC-By-SA is unlikely to work but hey, as you
correctly point out, share-alike is not cool anyway.
If you are in Germany and don't care for anywhere else, then CC-By-SA will
likely afford some protection there and that's fine too.
But as an international project, I think not having a harmonised license is
going to do damage to the community because it threatens the unity. Someone
in Germany might contribute data under CC-By-SA and be bound by it, and
someone in the US might extract that data as quasi-PD and to what he likes.
The guy in Germany cannot do the project he wants because of a license
restriction, and the guy in the US can do the very same project with no
trouble.
Rules are worst if they are only valid for some people and not others. With
a leaky license like the CC-By-SA, the project as a whole gets the worst of
both worlds, PD and share-alike.
If a conscious decision is taken by OSMF to abandon the relicensing process
in the full knowledge that CC-By-SA is effectively like PD in many parts of
the world, I would like OSMF to publicly declare that they do not consider
OSM to be a "share-alike" project any longer:
"The OpenStreetMap Foundation has evaluated the applicability of the
CC-By-SA license to Geodata and has come to the conclusion that it is not
providing the desired attribution and share-alike protection in many
countries. The OpenStreetMap Foundation has suggested to OpenStreetMap to
use a better-suited license, ODbL, however this was rejected by too many
people in the community to be ignored. As a result, the project officiall
retains its CC-By-SA license. However, as the OpenStreetMap Foundation
considers this license unworkable, we wish to inform all project members
that their contributions to OSM are effectively unprotected, and under no
circumstances will OSMF take or even support any action against users of the
data who are seen to ignore the provisions of the CC-By-SA license."
When talking about OSM in public, we could henceforth drop the concept of
share-alike as central element of OSM, and instead add it as a footnote ("in
some countries of the world you might be required to ... if you want to use
OSM data").
OSMF would make a clear statement to stay out of any legal business between
an individual mapper and a data user that this mapper chooses to sue for
breach of license. (Until this day, OSMF never took part in such legal
activity, indeed to my knowledge it has never happened at all, so this would
not change anything. But until now the OSMF claimed that OSM was a
share-alike project so if someone sued for share-alike they could at least
point to that statement to support their cause, whereas in the future OSMF
would actively reject giving such support.)
The worst thing that could happen is the license change failing and OSMF
afterwards pretending that we were still a share-alike project.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing
Hi, Russ Nelson wrote: Mostly it's about community, which is why it's here and not on le...@. Unfortunately in my rebuttal of this I have to discuss legal stuff so I'll do it in legal-talk and invite anybody who is interested to read it there. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] ODbL vs CC-by-SA pros and cons
Duane, I wonder how Frederik is going to rationalise having the Kosovo information removed, I haven't made a statement about the Kosovo information. I'm sure that whoever has imported it has made sure it would be compatible with future license changes as suggested on the imports Wiki page for ages. The license change is not my personal hobby so I'm surprised you should single me out in the way you do, even using my name in message subjects. I'm sorry if I should have hurt your feelings by pointing out that Nearmap-derived data is only a minuscle part of OSM as a whole; I think that it is important to refer to facts once in a while when emotions run high. Removing data that is incompatible with our license is something we do almost every day. People accidentally import batches of "noncommercial" data - sure it hurts to remove it but should we change our license to "noncommercial" just to keep it? People in Germany have traced tons of buildings from sources that were incompatible with out license, and we removed them. Sometimes those who did the work left the project as a consequence because they felt that we shouldn't take legal issues so seriously. I don't think that there is data in OSM that is so precious that we need to risk OSM's future just to be able to hold on to that data. Anyway I hear there's an excellent group of people planning a "continuity fork" so any data OSM cannot continue to use would be safe with them. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] To calm some waters - about Section 3
Hi, Kevin Peat wrote: Well I think someone wanting a PD project would need to start from scratch anyway as it would be hard for them to demonstrate that any existing data wasn't encumbered with other licenses given the wide use of imports and tracing in lots of countries. I think so too, but I think this is a problem that we don't need to solve now. Should the project want to change their license in 10 years, then they will have to think about that then. It is quite possible that a data source which we have used for tracing and which makes certain demands at the moment, stops making these demands in the future (eg there might be a source that currently says "CCBYSA or ODbL use only" but in 5 years the company has another product which is twice as good, and thus decides to lift any license restrictions on the old, which would of course also lift the restriction on the data in OSM). There's no reason to limit the options of a future OSM by perpetuating some currently existing outside restrictions which may cease to exist at any time. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] To calm some waters - about Section 3
Hi, Simon Ward wrote: OSMF have chosen DbCL for individual database contents. That leaves quite some flexibility in how individual contents may be used and distributed without taking into account the extraction from the database that is covered by the ODbL. I would be interested to discussing that flexibility further. Can you give examples for using and distributing individual contents that way? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] To calm some waters - about Section 3
Hi, Simon Biber wrote: I and many others need a firm commitment to ensure contributions continue to be protected by attribution and share-alike in the future. -1 (I mean, you may "need" that but you shouldn't get it. As an aside I also want to point out that the use of "continue to be protected" in your sentence does not fit with current wisdom about CC-BY-SA and our data.) I am against trying to force our will on "OSM in 10 years". OSM in ten years will have a larger community and a larger data volume by orders of magnitude. I don't think it is right to force their hand in any way over and above the necessary minimum just because a few of us think so. What exactly the necessary minimum is, is subject to discussion; I could imagine that the necessary minimum perhaps includes that we fix an attribution requirement, but a share-alike requirement would certainly be going too far. It is bad enough if the share-alike minority force their will on the rest of the project now; we must not allow them to force their will on everybody who is in OSM in 10 years' time. Oops. That wasn't exactly calming the waters, was it. But it needs to be said. There is also a very practical reason against fixing anything, and *specifically* a share-alike requirement, in the CT, and that is that in order to make *clear* what you want you will have to write half a license into the CT. Imagine that we put the phrase "a free and open license with attribution and share-alike" into the CT. Imagine further that, at some point in the future, a change to ODbL 1.1 is debated, and that ODbL 1.1 only had minor changes over ODbL 1.0. Then someone comes along and says: "Sorry guys, the CT say that the new license must be share-alike. But ODbL is not properly share-alike, see, it allows non-share-alike produced works, and it allows non-share-alike extracts if they are not substantial!" Bummer. At that time, we'll have one hell of a discussion about what exactly qualifies as a share-alike license and whether ODbL 1.1 is covered by the CT. To avoid that, you would have to write into the CT exactly what you mean by share-alike. By doing so, the CT would become much longer and more complex, and drastically reduce the choice of license in the future even within the pool of share-alike licenses. Inevitably, we would write what we *today* think is right into the CT - but the whole point of allowing future OSM communities to choose their license is that they may adapt. Trying to force their hand - when their contributions will vastly outnumber ours, and they will be 10 or hundred times more than we are now, would be overbearing. I don't think it would be morally right. The amount of data we have collected and the amount of time we have invested will, in 10 years' time, be minuscle compared to what the project is then, and using that contribution to justify wanting to have a say in OSM for all time is just greedy. I am aware that this is a moral statement and that it will be required to do slightly less than what is morally right, for practical reasons. And that's ok; we're all pragmatic. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Future relicensing in the contributor terms and data imports
Hi, David Dean wrote: I'm a little worried about the impact of the Contributor Terms have on the ability of OpenStreetMap users to import data. The Contributor Terms don't explicitly mention importing at all, and seem to be focused on the user-as-mapper rather than the user-as-data-importer. Not only the Contributor Terms - the whole project is. Data importing should always be the exception and not the rule. I'm concerned that even if a user-as-data-importer agrees to the CTs under the assumption that it is compatible with, for example, CC-BY data, then that data could become a noose around OSM neck if we want to perform a future relicensing (such as Mike's recent example about relicensing to release 10+ year old data under CC0 - this wouldn't be possible if any of the old data is CC-BY). CC-BY compatibility is being worked on, see Mike Collinsons posting from yesterday. The reason why this is a problem is, alas, more the already existing imports and not the idea of keeping OSM as open as possible for future imports. Any significant future relicensing is going to find some data imports that, regardless of their importers agreement to the CTs, is not going to be compatible with the hypothetical future license. I don't think that this is how things are meant to be. The person having done the import is not expected to agree to the CT if his source is not compatible with the CT: 1) Don't allow any imports from data that aren't completely compatible with the CTs (which would most likely just be explicit licensing under the CTs and PD) That's the way forward, with the provision that CC-BY (and other wishy-washy "attribution" licensing like OS OpenData) compatibility is somehow ensured. 2) Allow imports under licenses compatible with the current database license (CC-BY-SA/ODbL at current) provided that the import changesets are tagged appropriately (including a license= tag) and waive the relicensing terms for the imports. This is something that, as far as I understand, might be considered for some exceptional cases where imports under, say, CC-BY-SA have already been done but as you correctly say, these can become a liability later. It will almost certainly (IANABM, IANALWGM) not be considered for future imports. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] New license for business: meh
Hi, I'm sort of sick of allegations that what I say and do in the community is somehow tainted by myself doing business in OSM. Here's a quote from talk a while ago: Chris Browet wrote: The fact that many key players (SteveC, Frederik, Richard(?)) in the project also have commercial interests in the OSM data also make me nervous and doubtful. I assure you it does not have to make you nervous. Just because someone earns money doesn't automatically make him an asshole with no morals. Basically, everyone who writes what you wrote above somehow seems to want to say: "We must always consider that he might be lying to us because he wants to make more money." This makes me sad; I spend a lot of time with OSM stuff, and I could certainly be making a lot more money if I'd take a job in some IT consultancy. But I chose to work in OSM because that way I get to do what I like. Hear? WHAT I LIKE. I have found a way to earn a living from doing what I like, and helping to move the project forward while I'm doing that. Until now, I have had exactly one prospective client who, after I had explained the CC-BY-SA to him, want away with a "no thank you", and I have had exactly one prospective client for whom the CC-BY-SA would have been fine but his project wouldn't work with the ODbL (forcing him to release a database he would not have wanted to release), so he went away too. So the ODbL isn't really better or worse for business - it depends, or at least that's my view. In a way, of course, I have a "business interest" in OSM growing and becoming better, but can you hold that against me? You could also say that I have a "business interest" in the license matter being resolved one way or the other becaus that saves me from having to explain *two* licenses to every prospective customer which is a bit painful sometimes. And as for me being a "key player" - I am writing a lot on the lists, I am mapping a bit, I have written some software, and I am on the data working group. I am not essential to anything OSM does, don't hold an OSMF post (nor have I ever sought one)... Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Size of NearMap Contribution
Hi, John Smith wrote: (Not, of course, this particular version of the CT, if that's what you're Exactly... you are trying to sell us a particular happy meal that isn't making us happy... "us" being...? And I'm not trying to sell anything. If you agree that some for of CT is required, and you have a better idea, then why don't you try to "sell it to us". My main problem is that we're having this discussion now, when the CT were finalised in December last year, and we started to have new users agree to the CT in spring this year. What new facts have arisen since then? Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Size of NearMap Contribution
Hi, Francis Davey wrote: Has anyone given much thought to how this works for the sui generis database right of the European Union? Certainly the EU hasn't, the whole database right is written for a world where company X pays employees to gather data. I am wondering (as others have wondered) where the "substantial investment" is? Fair question. I'd say the substantial investment lies in operating the servers and generally rallying the community. I am certain that the number of man-days invested by OSMF in its entirety (i.e. all working groups, board, technical team etc.) is "substantial" compared even to the most prolific individual mapper. But then again these people would probably do what they do even if they were not the formal OSMF but just a bunch of hackers! Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Size of NearMap Contribution
Hi, John Smith wrote: In my eyes the ODbL and CT are part and parcel and I refer to both as "the license change". I don't think that you can separate them. Is that because you don't think people will swallow the CTs unless they are a package deal? No, my statement above is not politically or rhetorically motivated. I believe, and have explained the message from which you are quoting, that it is not legally possible for individuals to contribute non-database data to a database without a contractual agreement - the CT in our case. If you are employed in a company that produces a database, then that is probably either written in either your employment contract or in the labour laws of your jurisdiction (that the employer gets to do with the data what they want, and thus can release the data as a database under a license of their choice). But mappers are not employed by OSMF, so we need some sort of contract that says "I, the mapper, allow OSMF to make a database from my data and publish it". The reason is that ODbL is a license for databases, and what the individual contributor contributes is not (or at least: not usually!) a database. I know what they are, but they don't have to be joined at the hip... OSMF cannot publish any data as part of OSM without permission. The CT is about getting that permission or assuring that it has been given; so yes, I do believe that both are "joined at the hip". (Not, of course, this particular version of the CT, if that's what you're getting at - *some* sort of CT that enables OSMF to publish the data as part of a database.) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Size of NearMap Contribution
John, John Smith wrote: But in the grand scheme of things, not changing the license (I *knew* this would become a license discussion ;) is, in my opinion, likely to alienate Because you keep making it a license issue, but of course it's not and you know it. In my eyes the ODbL and CT are part and parcel and I refer to both as "the license change". I don't think that you can separate them. The reason is that ODbL is a license for databases, and what the individual contributor contributes is not (or at least: not usually!) a database. This means that whereas we currently have a situation where each contributor simply agrees to license his data under license X, without any mention of OSMF, and OSMF then comes and aggregates that data using the rights granted by that license, we cannot in the future have individual contributors say "I license my data under ODbL" and OSMF then just makes a compilation (because the ODbL cannot apply to single edits). So you *need* CT in which the contributor basically signs over his data to OSMF who then make a database from it. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Size of NearMap Contribution
Andrzej, andrzej zaborowski wrote: So 300 mappers' work is not something we should make a fuss about? Let's put it this way: If 300 mappers are enough to put in a veto against the CT or the license change then we can stop right now, because I am pretty sure that *whatever* you do (even if you propose "we stay with the current license, do you agree yes/no"), you can manage to find 300 people opposed. Also, as I just wrote in another mail, in the case of NearMap the number seems to be more like 120. If ways can be found to accommodate everyone then those ways are certainly preferable, and I am (as Anthony has pointed out) on record for saying that the community is more important than the data. There are probably not many ways to better alienate someone than by saying "sorry we have to remove your data". So if it can be avoided then it should be avoided. But in the grand scheme of things, not changing the license (I *knew* this would become a license discussion ;) is, in my opinion, likely to alienate many more people (or keep them away in the first place), so we are willing to pay a price for being able to proceed with the license change. And personally I don't think that losing 5% of mappers (I'm thinking: A mapping party with 19 people attending instead of 20) would be too high a price to pay, provided that they're evenly distributed. I wouldn't want to lose 5% of world-wide mappers and lose them all in Australia (leaving nothing), or lose 5% of world-wide mappers but only the most prolific 5%, etc. Hopefully people who will make the switch decision have a different opinion. Those who will make the switch decision so far have refrained from saying numbers, and that's a sensible decision I think. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Size of NearMap Contribution
Anthony, Anthony wrote: I think that the people count more than the data they contribute. That's a good statement. I'm happy that you have finally come to understand what this project is about! I was beginning to think you might just be here for the fun of the argument, whatever argument it was. Actually, that's a quote. Oh. Never mind the above. Anyway, the number of people who have submitted "nearmap" changesets is 121, the total number of people who haved edited in Australia is 2752; so while NearMap-affected data may be up to 10% of Australia, NearMap-using users only make up 4.3% of those who edit in Australia. (NB: The 2752 is a quick count in the planet file and will also include the occasional world-wide bot etc.) World-wide, we have ~ 130k users who have contributed data, so in terms of users, around 2% of them have edited in Australia, and NearMap-using users make up 0.095% - which is not far away from the 0.125% of data I counted in my last post. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Size of NearMap Contribution
Hi, to give some perspective to the debate about whether or not existing NearMap-derived objects will have to be deleted, I have summed up the number of edits in all changesets that said anything about NearMap in any tag (comment, source, etc). I arrived at a sum of 1,057,549, slightly over 1 million. The total number of objects in Australia is 10,234,567. That means that roughly 10% of data in Australia might be affected by NearMap. At the same time, the total number of objects in OSM is roughly 800 million, so Australia makes up for only 1.25% of OSM data (NB: not to be confused with mailing list volume, of which Australia has something like 10%). Only 0.125% of OSM data worldwide is affected by NearMap. That obviously explains why NearMap is very important to the community in Australia. But for the project as a whole, one million objects is really not something we should make a big fuss about. For example, we had a time-limited "loan" of aerial imagery for a small region here in Germany last year (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/DE:Luftbilder_aus_Bayern), and the community traced ~ 2 million objects within 3 months *in addition* to normal mapping going on everywhere in Germany. After the Haiti earthquake, 1 million objects were traced by 300 people in two weeks. My statistics are of course flawed - they do not capture objects individually tagged source=nearmap rather than on the changeset, and if an object has been modified more than once in a "nearmap" changeset, it has been counted twice. Also, I counted ALL objects for any changeset that said something with nearmap, so if someone put "comment=tons of POIs from GPS plus one road from nearmap" that counts them all. And probably lots of other errors. I'm posting this to legal-talk because even though this posting does not deal with anything legal, I have a hunch that follow-ups will. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] New contributors and some data sources are not allowed under the CTs but too easy to access.
Hi, Kai Krueger wrote: That is different, as the PD vs non-PD is "within the system" and thus there is full accountability due to the history. That is not the case when I a bring new data into OSM by tracing from other sources. You should always attribute those other sources properly, thus bringing them "into" the system. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] New contributors and some data sources are not allowed under the CTs but too easy to access.
Hi, Kai Krueger wrote: That however does still leave the substantial portion of mappers who have ticked the "I declare my edits to be PD" option, which surely makes them no longer compatible with these sources. These mappers therefore then presumably can not use those sources without being in breach of contract or license. Dunno - according to your logic, a mapper who declares his edits PD would not be allowed to edit an object that a non-PD mapper has created (because what the PD mapper uploads would be based on a non-PD source). Personally, I view the "I declare my edits PD" button as reading "I hereby declare that I will not pursue copyright on any copyrightable action I might make in OSM" which does not mean that all third-party copyright in something I touch become automatically void. 388 users have declared their edits to be PD on the Wiki for a long time, and I don't think any of them have restricted their editing to PD sources exclusively. So it seems editors will need to keep track of background image licenses anyway and with what they are compatible in order to warn or prevent the user in an adequate way. No, I don't think so. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] I don't want companies stealing OSM data that I contribute!
(moving this thread to legal-talk) Valent: AFAIK with new Contributor Terms [1] all data entered into OSM can be taken by some company, closed and they could create a product made profit on it. Grant: No, they have to make the data available. The data is share-alike. http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/ Felix: Nope, they don't have to. Only if they use it as one database. If they use it to publish maps, or create a product that afterwards uses two databases seperately, they don't have to publish their own data under Odbl. Grant is right in saying that they have to make the *data* available - not the end product but any OSM-derived database they create in the process. For the data, this is a *stricter* requirement than CC-BY-SA has (which requires you to make the end product available and not the data). Also, Felix is right in claiming that if you manage to create a product by using two separate databases, one OSM and one not, you do not have to release the "not-OSM" database. This is the same as with CC-BY-SA, which does not require you to release *any* of the two databases. While CC-BY-SA forces you to release the final product, anything that can be done by "using two databases separately" is very likely to be doable using the multi-layer technique we use today when we take OSM maps and overlay proprietary data - even today that does not make the proprietary data CC-BY-SA. So I fail to see where exactly the sudden outcry comes from. This has some positive sides, i.e. you could use CCBYNC data inside a map (which is a product) whithout that data loosing its NC status, on the other hand basically anyone can do whatever he wants now with OSM data, whithout giving a penny back. For me this is unacceptable and I won't agree to the new license, and also tell other people to stay far away from odbl. Whoever makes a finished product from OSM data has the choice of license for that finished product. It could be CC-BY-SA (if you like that), or if you don't like commercial users you can license it CC-BY-SA-NC (a liberty that nobody who creates stuff from OSM has at the moment). Or it could be a commercial copyright license - which will only hold if your product really adds that much value, otherwise, since the raw OSM data is available openly, anyone else can come and make the same product at a lower price, or for free. For me Odbl means that the quest for free data has failed, if you push Odbl license, you push data that is incompatible to CCBYSA terms as we know them. ODbL clearly is a free and open license (whereas, for example, the CC-BY-SA-NC is clearly not). I don't know if your personal quest has failed but it cannot have been a quest for free data. You are mixing up the data (which will always remain free under ODbL, and even under stricter rules as before), and stuff produced from data (which in many cases will *not* be data!). OSM is a project about free geodata, and ODbL serves that purpose well - much better than CC-BY-SA. OSM never was a project about "free creative works produced from geodata", and thus, CC-BY-SA was the wrong license from day one - it just took us 6 years to notice. That what we do now to fix this is "incompatible to CC-BY-SA terms as we know them" should not come as a surprise; after all, CC-BY-SA is about creative works and we are not. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] I don't want companies stealing OSM data that I contribute!
Hi,
Emilie Laffray wrote:
While I am not a legal expert, I will try to answer that one.
Companies can already make money from OpenStreetMap: there are plenty of
examples around (Skobbler, Cloudmade, Geofabrik, etc). There is
nothing preventing a company from using the data. However, they are
bound to make their data available.
People often claim that "I do not want somebody to make money from OSM
and give nothing back."
I would like to point out that there are a number of perfectly legal
ways, today, of making money from OSM and giving nothing back. A very
simple example would be a large organisation with many sales
representatives, where the organisation issues OSM maps to the sales
reps instead of buying from Garmin. That can easily give them five-digit
yearly savings, and nothing is "given back".
They can also start building something on top of OSM, e.g. add their own
POIs to the map, or hack the TomTom map file format to be able to
generate TomTom maps from OSM - all without "giving back".
You can, today, legally, couple OSM data with software you sell ("buy
AutoNav 1.0 with free OSM data"). Of course the data can be copied under
CC-BY-SA but why would anybody copy it since anyone who has the software
to read it also has the data. Then you offer a data update, but sadly
(due to added features) that update only works with AutoNav 1.1 which
you have to buy for 5$ extra. Of course the update is free but...
And, of course, if you are in a country where CC-BY-SA doesn't work then
you can just completely ignore CC-BY-SA and produce dreived works to
your heart's content without giving anything to anybody.
Bye
Frederik
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL and duration of IP protection
Hi, TimSC wrote: 1) The duration of the lapse of OSMF's exclusive right is probably different in various jurisdictions. This creates complexity in reuse for PD and therefore legal uncertainty. Yup. But then again, by the time data has lapsed it is very likely to be utterly useless. I am 99% certain that in 10 years time you *will*, for most use cases, be able to get data that is more current than OSM and has less restrictions. Nobody will be interested in x-year-old lapsed OSM data then. So I think this problem is of theoretical nature. 2) The duration claimed under the ODbL in some jurisdictions seems to be perpetual, which is imposes an unacceptable transaction and license interoperability burden on future creators. A long while ago I suggested in the license discussion that we could easily be content with protecting our data for a year or so, because anything older than a year would be worthless to "serious" users anyway. But that idea did not have many friends. Btw, the solution that "OSMF will fix it later" is not really good enough for me; what makes the future better for fixing problems when we have the present? Sometimes it is good to do one step at a time, rather than trying to build up so much energy that you can jump 7 miles in one go. I'm worried that if we tried to fix all problems in the present, there will be no future because the present extends to eternity. Also, as you must surely be aware, your recommendation would create a new incompatibility with any copyright-based license. As I understand it, LWG are currently considering how the contributor terms might be modified to accomodate CC-BY data sources (e.g. by saying that any future license change must be to an attribution license, whatever that is). - A clause in the ODbL that lifts protection after a period which is shorter than the CC-BY under which the source came would make the source inadmissible. I like your idea but I don't think now is the right time for it. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Is tracing from Yahoo allowed under the CT's
David, David Groom wrote: Secondly from the second line of http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Yahoo#Legalities you will see the phrase "Yahoo! have agreed to let OSM use their aerial imagery" [ under the old licence terms], and large parts of the remainder of that page go on to mention the agreement with Yahoo etc. I fixed that page. If you read the page closely, it already said further down that "It seems to be more a case of agreeing an interpretation of their Terms of Use.", and the Yahoo! guy quoted did not say anything about an "agreement". Truth is, Yahoo were approached by us and basically said: "Yes we think it's ok if someone traces vector data from our maps, that would not be our copyright anymore". Which meant, *specifically*, that OSM could trace and release under CC-BY-SA, and since that was all that was of interest to us at the time, we put that wording on the wiki page. If there ever was an "agreement" it was not about who can use the data under what license, but instead - and that took us a while to sort out - how exactly we were allowed to display Yahoo data in our editors. Mikel Maron did the talks with Yahoo at the time. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Simple question about CT
Hi, David Groom wrote: However from a legal point of view the CT terms say is is an agreement between "you" and OSMF. Interesting, and probably true. But since making the second account forces you to use a different email address, how will we ever know with certainty that "you" and "you" are the same person? - Sometimes I wonder. We're joyfully ignoring the world before us in the area of cartography, confessing to utter cluelessness in GIS affairs and still doing great. Nobody has ever recommended employing professional GIS consultants because, hey, "we're just geeks an programmers and they are GIS experts". We're also self-taught in most other aspects of running OSM, blissfully ignoring the professional world. Isn't it sad that when it comes to "legal", we've meanwhile almost reached the point where we send away 12-year-old mappers because they are not old enough to legally agree to the CT? (Why don't we, by the way?) (Oh no, sorry, delete that last question.) Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
