Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms review
On 26 August 2010 22:02, SomeoneElse wrote: > > Thanks Mike. Here's hoping m'learned friends can be prevailed upon to > accept that something a little closer to standard English could still be > used for the CTs! Its not my call, but I have a preference for British English for a contract whose applicable law that of England and Wales. Speaking as a practising lawyer, there is _no_ reason to use archaic or obscure English, nor to use overly complicated structures or phrasing. Some technical language is useful or necessary, such as "copyright" (which has a specific statutory meaning) or "licence" (which is a useful concept that would be rather clumsy to avoid), but that aside, it should be possible to write any contract in good English. Two remarks on any contract writing exercise: [1] There _is_ a conflict between "clear and easy to understand in plain English" and "short". Too many of my clients seem to think they go together and "shorter is better". Anyone who has seen the results of an obfuscated C contest will see that is not a general rule. Lawyers can be expert at pithily saying something quite complicated, but the result may be extremely obscure for the same reason as for the C. [2] All a lawyer can properly do is convert what the client (or parties) want into a legal document. All too often clients ask lawyers to draft contracts for them without realising that they have to decide what the contract is going to say, before the lawyer can draft it. I am sure OSMF gets this, but I think the point bears repeating. You have to say what you want it to do, otherwise the lawyer has to guess something to send back to you All the best with this. -- Francis Davey ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Compatibility of new license with old
Hello, I would like to know if the new license is compatible with the old one. will we be able to use CC-SA-2.0 licensed data or we will have to get new contracts with the donators of data? for example, we have gotten much of the data for Kosovo donated under written contract for CC-SA-20, many users helped import this data into osm. even if those users agree to relicense, it does not mean that the original data can be relicensed. please advise, thanks, mike -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova and Albania flossk.org flossal.org ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms review
On 26/08/2010 10:20, Mike Collinson wrote: The License Working Group met Tuesday. Most, if not all, comment at the moment is on the Contributor Terms. Therefore we will devote next week's meeting (Aug 31) entirely to going though each issue already raised. We will then pass these on to legal counsel for review. When we get a response, we will then look whether they can best be dealt with by clarificatory statements or clarificatory changes to the Terms themselves. We are not at this point looking to making any major changes to the way the Contributor Terms, but of course cannot completely rule that out. Mike License Working Group Thanks Mike. Here's hoping m'learned friends can be prevailed upon to accept that something a little closer to standard English could still be used for the CTs! ___ 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
Anthony wrote: > Another possibility is to assign the task of deciding what share > alike means to Creative Commons. Of course, that isn't likely > to work if you want to go with the ODbL... I suspect CC's answer would be similar to http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2009-February/001982.html cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/Re-OSM-legal-talk-To-calm-some-waters-about-Section-3-tp5459411p5466160.html Sent from the Legal Talk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ 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
On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 4:56 AM, James Livingston
wrote:
> On 25/08/2010, at 5:41 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> 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.
>
> I completely agree - if you want to add a clause requiring that future
> licenses be "share alike"
> you'll need to come up with a good definition of what that means, and once
> you do you're
> probably made it impossible to relicense.
Or you could just assign the task of deciding what it means to
someone. "Whether or not a future license is share alike shall be
determined by a vote of the OSMF board."
Yes, that means a future board could conceivably conspire to vote as
share alike a license which wasn't. Of course they'd then need 2/3rds
of active contributors to conspire with them to pull off the rouse.
I highly doubt there are enough people in OSMF (and among the active
contributors) with such lack of integrity that a switch to a PD-like
license could occur under those conditions.
Another possibility is to assign the task of deciding what share alike
means to Creative Commons. Of course, that isn't likely to work if
you want to go with the ODbL...
> The whole point of the relicensing clause is that we don't know what we'll
> need in the future.
Some people don't know.
Others do, at least, aside from fixes to the license which are
propagated by the originator of the license ("License X or any later
version").
With all the trust that's being put into ODC's lawyers, I'm surprised
there isn't more trust that "ODbL 1.0 or any later version published
by ODC" will be adequate.
Of course, some people are pushing for a relicensing clause because
they want PD, and don't actually want ODbL in the first place.
> Consider for example if OSM had originally had the CTs along with the
> CC-BY-SA license. I
> would argue strongly that we couldn't then re-license to ODbL under the CTs
> because ODbL's
> version of share-alike isn't what people would have assumed it meant when
> they signed up.
And you'd probably lose that argument (even though I'd agree with
you). ODbL has been sold as a sharealike license from the get go, by
Steve, by the LWG, by the statements attached to the poll... I was
surprised they got away with it, but they did.
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] To calm some waters - about Section 3
On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 4:44 AM, James Livingston wrote: > On 26/08/2010, at 2:12 AM, Simon Ward wrote: >> I don’t know if that’s how legal types read it, but couldn’t it also be >> taken transitively as follows: >> >> 1. CTs allow licensing under ODbL 1.0; >> >> 2. ODbL 1.0 allows licensing under a compatible licence, or later >> version of the ODbL; >> >> 3. By (1) and (2), CTs allow licencing under ODbL 1.0, which includes >> licences compatible with ODbL 1.0, or a later version of the ODbL? > > I believe so, via: > 1) OSMF releases a copy of the data they collected under the CTs with a ODbL > 1.0 license > 2) Someone takes that copy and then re-releases it under ODbL 1.1 > > There is no reason that someone in step can't be the OSMF as well. The reason would be that they've contractually agreed not to release the database under any license other than ODbL 1.0 or CC-BY-SA 2.0, without a 2/3 vote. ___ 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
On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 06:56:15PM +1000, James Livingston wrote: > On 25/08/2010, at 5:41 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: > > 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. > > I completely agree - if you want to add a clause requiring that future > licenses be "share alike" you'll need to come up with a good definition of > what that means, and once you do you're probably made it impossible to > relicense. The whole point of the relicensing clause is that we don't know > what we'll need in the future. The best way to avoid such problems with a future licensing clause is not to have such a clause at all, or stick to explicitly named licences. If share‐alike needs to be defined, then so does “free and open”, because many people have different ideas of what that means, and we haven’t referred to any standard definition. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms review
Mike thanks for the update. Regards David - Original Message - From: Mike Collinson To: Licensing and other legal discussions. Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 10:20 AM Subject: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms review The License Working Group met Tuesday. Most, if not all, comment at the moment is on the Contributor Terms. Therefore we will devote next week's meeting (Aug 31) entirely to going though each issue already raised. We will then pass these on to legal counsel for review. When we get a response, we will then look whether they can best be dealt with by clarificatory statements or clarificatory changes to the Terms themselves. We are not at this point looking to making any major changes to the way the Contributor Terms, but of course cannot completely rule that out. Mike License Working Group ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms review
The License Working Group met Tuesday. Most, if not all, comment at the moment is on the Contributor Terms. Therefore we will devote next week's meeting (Aug 31) entirely to going though each issue already raised. We will then pass these on to legal counsel for review. When we get a response, we will then look whether they can best be dealt with by clarificatory statements or clarificatory changes to the Terms themselves. We are not at this point looking to making any major changes to the way the Contributor Terms, but of course cannot completely rule that out. Mike License Working Group ___ 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
On 25/08/2010, at 5:41 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: > 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. I completely agree - if you want to add a clause requiring that future licenses be "share alike" you'll need to come up with a good definition of what that means, and once you do you're probably made it impossible to relicense. The whole point of the relicensing clause is that we don't know what we'll need in the future. Consider for example if OSM had originally had the CTs along with the CC-BY-SA license. I would argue strongly that we couldn't then re-license to ODbL under the CTs because ODbL's version of share-alike isn't what people would have assumed it meant when they signed up. If I agreed to the CTs along with CC-BY-SA, I would expect that "share alike" meant rendered images would have to be under the same license, but ODbL doesn't require that. For the people who want a share-alike requirement in the CTs, how do you want it defined? If we want to require Derived Databases to be under the same license, but not Produced Works or Insubstantial Extractions, you'll have to define those terms. In addition, you'll probably need to define Publicly Use and many of the rest too. Once you've defined all of those in the CTs, then realise that it means we probably can never use the CTs to relicense because the target licence has slightly different definitions of those terms or doesn't have the exact same requirements. ___ 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
On 26/08/2010, at 2:12 AM, Simon Ward wrote: > I don’t know if that’s how legal types read it, but couldn’t it also be > taken transitively as follows: > > 1. CTs allow licensing under ODbL 1.0; > > 2. ODbL 1.0 allows licensing under a compatible licence, or later >version of the ODbL; > > 3. By (1) and (2), CTs allow licencing under ODbL 1.0, which includes >licences compatible with ODbL 1.0, or a later version of the ODbL? I believe so, via: 1) OSMF releases a copy of the data they collected under the CTs with a ODbL 1.0 license 2) Someone takes that copy and then re-releases it under ODbL 1.1 There is no reason that someone in step can't be the OSMF as well. However I think they couldn't release _only_ under ODbL 1.1, they have to do both ODbL 1.0 (from the first step) and 1.1, unless f they could get around that by "releasing" non-publicly in the first step. ___ 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
On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 10:04:01AM +0100, Rob Myers wrote: > So I don't think setting a minimum attribution level is a good idea, > at least from a "user freedom" point of view. I agree. I mentioned a minimum attribution because others seem to want that. The LWG and/or OSMF only seem to be considering two options other than the explicitly named licences: Attribution, or attribution + share‐alike. I care much less about attribution than I do about the freedoms of users of OSM and derivatives. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Is this clickthrough agreement compatible with OSM?
Replying to myself here but... The city sent me a prompt reply to my email. They're big fans of our work and would like to help. I will probably be meeting with one of them in the coming week to discuss ways that we can collaborate and what data sets we would like access to. I wanted to ask here what exactly I need to ask for with respect to licensing? Just explicit permission to use the data in OSM? Anything else? Thanks, Greg On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 5:11 AM, Gregory Arenius wrote: > I must have missed that particular section somehow. > > I sent off an email to ask the city if we could get the data under a > license we could use. We'll see what happens. > > As to how many OSMers are in the city its hard to say exactly. There are a > few people working on the map pretty frequently and a lot of one time > editors who just edit one or two points. Interestingly one of the last one > time editors had the user name Monica at sfgov. > > Greg > > > > > ___ 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
On 26 August 2010 01:05, Sebastian Hohmann wrote: > > > > Starting a new project would be like rebuilding the whole house, just to > make it a new color. The upgrade clause is like repainting the house, but > restricting this to only very few colors, might make a future owner unhappy. > > 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. Kevin ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
