[OSM-legal-talk] Future relicensing in the contributor terms and data imports
Hi everyone, 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. 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). 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'm not completely sure of the best way to deal with this, but it seems that two possible approaches come to mind. 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) 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. Of course, this means that some imports may have to be removed in a future relicensing, but legally it seems to me that was always going to be the case anyway. - David -- David Dean Post-Doctoral Fellow, RP-SAIVT, QUT (me) http://www.davidbdean.com (saivt) http://www.bee.qut.edu.au/projects/saivt/ (post) Room S1101, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Australia 4001 (p) +61 7 3138 9329 (m) 0407 151 912 (CRICOS) 00213J ___ 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
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Future relicensing in the contributor terms and data imports
On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:58 AM, David Dean wrote: > Hi everyone, > > 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. > > 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). > > If a user imports CC-BY data, having agreed to the CTs then the situation is no different from any other contribution that does not conform to the license terms. It would need to be reverted. It's no different from a user today importing incompatibly copyrighted material. If it is discovered then it has to be reverted. And I don't think there's really any difference, except in scale, between a user-as-data-importer and a normal user. 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'm not completely sure of the best way to deal with this, but it > seems that two possible approaches come to mind. > > 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) > > 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. > > Of course, this means that some imports may have to be removed in a > future relicensing, but legally it seems to me that was always going > to be the case anyway. > > - David > > -- > David Dean > Post-Doctoral Fellow, RP-SAIVT, QUT > (me) http://www.davidbdean.com > (saivt) http://www.bee.qut.edu.au/projects/saivt/ > (post) Room S1101, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Australia 4001 > (p) +61 7 3138 9329 (m) 0407 151 912 > (CRICOS) 00213J > > ___ > 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
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Future relicensing in the contributor terms and data imports
On 23/08/2010, at 4:22 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: > Not only the Contributor Terms - the whole project is. Data importing should > always be the exception and not the rule. But is it though? I guess that's the nub of the issue with data imports and licensing - some people are against data imports and some people like them. Ignoring my personal view on whether imports are good or not, I think that we shouldn't have exceptions to the rule. I think we should either have a rule preventing imports (the *only* exception being for true PD, no copyright holder, data) or we shouldn't have that rule and imports are okay. If the rule is "no imports", then we should get rid of the Australian Government data, the AND data, the MassGIS data, the French castradal data, and so on. If the rule isn't "no imports", then we need to deal with the fact they are going to happen and determine how to best fit it all in with licensing. I don't think that having an arbitrary decision about which imports are okay is a goo idea, there should be an objective way of saying that they meet the licensing requirements and any other requirements, and then letting them go ahead. ___ 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
On 24 August 2010 11:18, James Livingston wrote: > On 23/08/2010, at 4:22 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: > > Not only the Contributor Terms - the whole project is. Data importing > should always be the exception and not the rule. > > But is it though? I guess that's the nub of the issue with data imports and > licensing - some people are against data imports and some people like them. > > > Ignoring my personal view on whether imports are good or not, I think that > we shouldn't have exceptions to the rule. I think we should either have a > rule preventing imports (the *only* exception being for true PD, no > copyright holder, data) or we shouldn't have that rule and imports are okay. > > If the rule is "no imports", then we should get rid of the Australian > Government data, the AND data, the MassGIS data, the French castradal data, > and so on. If the rule isn't "no imports", then we need to deal with the > fact they are going to happen and determine how to best fit it all in with > licensing. > The French cadastral information is mostly tracing from a WMS, so I would find it difficult to consider it an import. If you do then you would need to remove also Yahoo and the rest :) Emilie Laffray ___ 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
James Livingston writes: > On 23/08/2010, at 4:22 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: >> Not only the Contributor Terms - the whole project is. Data importing >> should always be the exception and not the rule. > > But is it though? I guess that's the nub of the issue with data imports > and licensing - some people are against > data imports and some people like them. I remember that Frederik has used a word "interoperability" in some of his mails. Most OSM folks seem to think that interoperability means either a) transparent tiles and OpenLayers or b) vacuuming all the geodata with somehow suitable license into OSM. I believe there could be also other ways. It is understandable that road data are imported into the main OSM database because we have lots of our own highway data with better and more up-to-date knowlegde about road attributes. Road data must also be noded for making it suitable for navigation and OSM data model with the spaghetti topology and all the data on a one single layer suits this use. However, some of the data which have been imported could as well be used from somewhere else, like from a separate OSM-Import database or from an external service. Use of SRTM countour lines in OpenCyclemap, Openmtbmap and in some other places is one (only?) good example about using non-OSM data together with OSM data without imports. It is not really a pleasure to try to follow the rules given in documents like http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/documents/Network_Services/INSPIRE%20Draft%20Technical%20Guidance%20Download%20%28Version%202.0%29.pdf Still I think that it is better this way than by having a huge Central Spatial Data Infrastructure database in Brussels. Perhaps we will also start thinking some day that all the data which are possible to import into OSM do not need to be imported but they can still be utilised. I believe that this was what Frederik meant, not that we should map everything by ourselves. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
