Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Simon Poole]

Am 30.11.2022 um 18:50 schrieb Minh Nguyen:

..
The contributor terms in question state:

This Agreement shall be governed by English law without regard to 
principles of conflict of law.
[1] 
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Special:PermanentLink/9165#Miscellaneous


My understanding of what the board wants is simply that the terms that 
we get to utilize 3rd party data under do not conflict with the 
contributor terms, that is something very different than asking a 3rd 
party source to agree to the contributor terms. Definitely the OSMF is 
free to, negotiate terms that do not specify English law.


Simon

PS: note on the side: the ODbL doesn't specify EN law.



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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 06:49 2022-11-29, Simon Poole đã viết:


Am 29.11.2022 um 15:30 schrieb Greg Troxel:

   It seems obvious that asking a US
entity to enter into a contract under foreign law (and the same is
almost certainly true for any government entity in any other
jurisdiction) is just not going to fly.


You are assuming that the OSMF would require UK law, which might or 
might not be the case.


The contributor terms in question state:


This Agreement shall be governed by English law without regard to principles of 
conflict of law.
[1] 
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Special:PermanentLink/9165#Miscellaneous


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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Tobias Knerr]

On 29.11.22 16:38 Dave F wrote:
If it's a licence change by OSM then how can a maintainer of a database 
possibly account for a future, unspecified change who's implementation 
was out of their control?


Yes, it's about a license change by OSM.

I don't think it's outlandish to assume that at least some data donors 
are comfortable with such terms. After all, this is something that we 
expect of individual contributors: The Contributor Terms which every 
person with an OSM account has signed grants us (meaning the OSMF board 
and a 2/3 majority of active contributors) the right to switch to any 
unspecified open license in the future.


Could you expand on what you mean by 'legal text'. Is it a legally 
binding contract?


Answering by way of example: I would expect a similar implementation to 
the standard waiver we ask for before we import CC-BY data:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3PN5zfbzThqeTdWR1l3SzJVcTg/view?resourcekey=0-PzVtHArfxvbYidpW2-AVTg

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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Tobias Knerr]

On 29.11.22 08:14 Simon Poole wrote:
The main question is what "expect it to survive a hypothetical license 
change" implies. My expectation is that because of practical 
considerations any future licence would require downstream attribution 
of OSM so that the OSMF can continue to offer third party sources 
indirect attribution.


You have a point that it seems practical to look just at the more narrow 
scenario of another license that requires attribution of OSM. After all, 
a license change is not a high-probability event in the first place, and 
a change to a license that doesn't require some form of attribution 
seems even more unlikely. So it would be useful to be able to record 
something like "as long as attribution is ensured" for an import's 
license change compatibility.


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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[John Whelan]

It was merely in response to Greg Troxel's comment.

"In the case of your transit system, what were the key problems, and how
were they overcome?  I suspect that history is very useful for others."

Cheerio John


Dave F wrote on 11/29/2022 3:13 PM:

Sorry, but I'm unclear what that detailed story has to do with my point?

DaveF

On 29/11/2022 16:54, John Whelan wrote:


The story of the Ottawa bus stops...





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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Dave F via talk]

Sorry, but I'm unclear what that detailed story has to do with my point?

DaveF

On 29/11/2022 16:54, John Whelan wrote:


The story of the Ottawa bus stops...




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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[John Whelan]

The story of the Ottawa bus stops started when the City decided to 
announce the bus stops in an automated way to assist blind people. To do 
this they went round every bus stop with very accurate GPS equipment so 
the bus stops were measured to within a meter or so accuracy. One or two 
weren’t in quite the right place, being placed in the highway but on the 
whole they were much better than they had been.


Some GTFS files for bus stop positions can be 200 meters out.

I bumped into the head of the transit system and talked about the 
License on the data and his comment was “but we want you to use the data.”


So now we had accurate bus stop data that we couldn’t use because of 
licensing. Bus stop data in OpenStreetMap in Ottawa is important because 
the transit route planning system at the time did not use footpaths and 
would suggest a longer trip to a different bus stop than the closet one.


The Canadian Treasury Board was promoting Open Data and the President of 
the Treasury Board wanted to show how progressive they were so had a 
meeting of a dozen or so people who were thought to use Open Data. I was 
one of them and raised the issue that we couldn’t use their data because 
of the license which surprised a few civil servants who were there.


It took them five years to consult and eventually come up with version 
2.0 of the Open Government Licence – Canada which is the current Open 
Data License.


Statistics Canada sells a lot of data. Want to know where the best place 
to open a new coffee shop is Stats Canada will sell you all sorts of 
data to show you were the best places are. They were interested in 
enriching their data about buildings. How many floors they had etc. and 
had the idea that using OpenStreetMap volunteers would be an inexpensive 
way to enrich their data. Before I retired I worked at Statistics Canada 
and the corporate culture is very different to OpenStreetMap.


We had a meeting which included the City of Ottawa, a couple of people 
from the local University, at least one person from HOT by phone and 
someone from Metrolinx who had added some addresses from Statistics 
Canada’s OpenData portal after examining their Open Data license and the 
requirements of OSM. They were new houses and they wanted them for their 
transit planner. Statistics Canada Open Data is released under the 
Federal government’s Open Data license by the way.


We showed them Ottawa in OSMand in French with French street names, 
politically French is important in Canada and can add expense to a 
project if you need to translate etc. The decision in principle was made 
to import City of Ottawa’s building data into OSM and then enrich it.


It took two years to change the City’s Open Data license to be the same 
as the Federal Government one. There are minor wording changes such as 
City of Ottawa rather than the Crown but basically it’s the same.


During that time I suggested to Statistics Canada someone attending SotM 
in Europe might be useful to make a few contacts. In the event the 
person who was suppose to go was unable to attend was unable to attend 
so his manager went instead.


So everything was lined up ready for the import. Both the City of Ottawa 
and Statistics Canada had put a lot of effort into the project and many 
organisations were looking forward to using the data. Metrolinx had 
studied the licensing and were happy we were OK.


The license was challenged on the import mailing list. Shall we simply 
say the LWG was very nice and came up with a verdict that accepted 
Version 2 of the Open Data license. We’ll pass over all the people 
involved but simply say it took considerable effort and resources.


These days data from most Canadian municipalities released under their 
Open Data license is not eligible for OSM but the same data released 
through the Statistics Canada Open Data is eligible.


The bus stops, well once the Open Data licenses had been sorted out the 
local mappers imported the data.


Any change to the license requirements to import Open Data can have an 
impact and that is a concern. It takes a long time to get things changed 
to line up.



Cheerio John

Dave F via talk wrote on 11/29/2022 10:38 AM:

On 28/11/2022 23:48, Tobias Knerr wrote:
we would like to offer data donors a standard legal text that they 
can use to make their data available to OSM in such a way that we 
would expect it to survive a hypothetical license change.


I'm confused.
If a maintainer of a database wishes to change their licence, they're 
certain to have justifiable reasons for doing so. If it means OSM 
can't use it, so be it. OSM has no jurisdiction.


If it's a licence change by OSM then how can a maintainer of a 
database possibly account for a future, unspecified change who's 
implementation was out of their control?


Could you expand on what you mean by 'legal text'. Is it a legally 
binding contract?


Cheers
DaveF


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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Dave F via talk]

On 28/11/2022 23:48, Tobias Knerr wrote:
we would like to offer data donors a standard legal text that they can 
use to make their data available to OSM in such a way that we would 
expect it to survive a hypothetical license change.


I'm confused.
If a maintainer of a database wishes to change their licence, they're 
certain to have justifiable reasons for doing so. If it means OSM can't 
use it, so be it. OSM has no jurisdiction.


If it's a licence change by OSM then how can a maintainer of a database 
possibly account for a future, unspecified change who's implementation 
was out of their control?


Could you expand on what you mean by 'legal text'. Is it a legally 
binding contract?


Cheers
DaveF


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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Tobias Knerr]

On 29.11.22 03:57 Minh Nguyen wrote:
Could you clarify the "perhaps" here? If something has been explicitly 
dedicated to the public domain via CC0, a similar statement, or a 
relevant law, should it not survive any relicensing attempt? Or is this 
just about the editorial decision of whether to leave the table cell 
blank if relicensing is irrelevant for a given import?


This is about dealing with some issues of importing share-alike 
datasets. There is no intention to change the way we interact with 
public domain datasets which already leave us ample flexibility for 
importing and redistributing them.


The "perhaps" was indeed just alluding to an editorial decision 
regarding the wiki table. Sorry for the confusion.




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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Simon Poole]

Am 29.11.2022 um 15:30 schrieb Greg Troxel:

...
Also, what we need is a copyright license, so that's not necessarily --
and hopefully isn't -- a contract.
Well there is this kind of underlying assumption that for most material 
in question, with the exception of actual maps, there is no copyright 
protection in the US and we are talking about contractual arrangements 
(I'm not going to dive in to the aspect that different jurisdictions 
have different implementations of how this all works, but see for 
example https://lwn.net/Articles/747563/). This is in any case just my 
take and the OSMF might have a completely different position for 
tactical reasons.

   It seems obvious that asking a US
entity to enter into a contract under foreign law (and the same is
almost certainly true for any government entity in any other
jurisdiction) is just not going to fly.


You are assuming that the OSMF would require UK law, which might or 
might not be the case.


Simon



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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Greg Troxel]

john whelan  writes:

> I have concerns about the amount of effort we seem to be asking open data
> set creators to make.  I think it took me seven years to get the licensing
> correct to be able to import the local bus stops and very early in the
> process the head of the transit system said 'but we want you to use our
> data.'

Are your concerns about OSM people being asked to be caeful that the
licnense is actually ok, just now, or the longstanding policy that we
only accept data that OSM can lawfully redistribute?

I can certainly see your larger point, but also I think there are people
that claim to have "open data" that do not, because they don't permit
modification, or require indemnification, or something else that runs
afoul of what an "Open Data Institute" would require of a license
meeting the "Open Data Definition".  Or perhaps the Debian Free Data
Definition.

In the case of your transit system, what were the key problems, and how
were they overcome?  I suspect that history is very useful for others.
I am fortunate that my MassGIS (my state government) has a policy of PD
with attribution requested.  (There is some data from my town which
doesn't even pretend to be open, and so far I have tried to use it or
talk to them about licensing.)



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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Greg Troxel]

Simon Poole  writes:

>> Could you clarify the "perhaps" here? If something has been
>> explicitly dedicated to the public domain via CC0, a similar
>> statement, or a relevant law, should it not survive any relicensing
>> attempt? Or is this just about the editorial decision of whether to
>> leave the table cell blank if relicensing is irrelevant for a given
>> import? The wiki has a {{n/a}} template for this purpose.
> I don't see a problem here,  PD works / data and CC0 licenced material
> do not restrict how you use them in any fashion so I don't see why any
> action would be required.

Agreed.  I think it's very important that if the data provider's terms
are ok (which more or less means PD/CC0 for totally ok and ODbL for 95%
ok), that we not ask them to do anything.

Also, what we need is a copyright license, so that's not necessarily --
and hopefully isn't -- a contract.   It seems obvious that asking a US
entity to enter into a contract under foreign law (and the same is
almost certainly true for any government entity in any other
jurisdiction) is just not going to fly.


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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Simon Poole]

Hi Tobias

That sounds better.

The main question is what "expect it to survive a hypothetical license 
change" implies. My expectation is that because of practical 
considerations any future licence would require downstream attribution 
of OSM so that the OSMF can continue to offer third party sources 
indirect attribution. You could naturally argue about how much the OSMF 
is committed to individual sources to keep the chain OSM attribution -> 
3rd party source attribution around, but that disruption is not worth it 
IMHO.


Simon

Am 29.11.2022 um 00:48 schrieb Tobias Knerr:

On 28.11.22 at Simon Poole wrote:

What is "OSM Contributor Terms compatibility" supposed to be?


Ok, this is clearly imprecise wording.¹

The context is that we would like to offer data donors a standard 
legal text that they can use to make their data available to OSM in 
such a way that we would expect it to survive a hypothetical license 
change. And yes, this would perhaps look similar to a CC0 waiver, 
except that it could potentially be a bit more limited (in a similar 
way the CT limits the set of licenses under which the OSMF can choose 
to publish the database).


So the column would be mostly about whether this legal text or 
something equivalent has been signed or not (+ perhaps public 
domain/CC0 data that has the ability to survive a license change by 
default could also check the box).


Tobias

¹ The wording is my fault and, iirc, was inspired by the column name 
at https://wiki.osm.org/Import/ODbL_Compatibility



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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Simon Poole]

Am 29.11.2022 um 03:57 schrieb Minh Nguyen:

Vào lúc 15:48 2022-11-28, Tobias Knerr đã viết:

On 28.11.22 at Simon Poole wrote:

What is "OSM Contributor Terms compatibility" supposed to be?


Ok, this is clearly imprecise wording.¹

The context is that we would like to offer data donors a standard 
legal text that they can use to make their data available to OSM in 
such a way that we would expect it to survive a hypothetical license 
change. And yes, this would perhaps look similar to a CC0 waiver, 
except that it could potentially be a bit more limited (in a similar 
way the CT limits the set of licenses under which the OSMF can choose 
to publish the database).


So the column would be mostly about whether this legal text or 
something equivalent has been signed or not (+ perhaps public 
domain/CC0 data that has the ability to survive a license change by 
default could also check the box).


Could you clarify the "perhaps" here? If something has been explicitly 
dedicated to the public domain via CC0, a similar statement, or a 
relevant law, should it not survive any relicensing attempt? Or is 
this just about the editorial decision of whether to leave the table 
cell blank if relicensing is irrelevant for a given import? The wiki 
has a {{n/a}} template for this purpose.
I don't see a problem here,  PD works / data and CC0 licenced material 
do not restrict how you use them in any fashion so I don't see why any 
action would be required.


I've already heard concerns from a couple U.S. mappers about this 
thread, because the community here been operating under the assumption 
that public domain datasets are the best-case scenario for inclusion 
in OSM. If a local government agency has already released something 
into the public domain, irrevocably and so forth, it would be 
counterproductive to send their legal department a scary-looking 
document to fill out. I don't know how I'd convince them that they 
have the legal authority to enter into an agreement governed by 
English law. Hopefully I'm overreacting.






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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[john whelan]

I have concerns about the amount of effort we seem to be asking open data
set creators to make.  I think it took me seven years to get the licensing
correct to be able to import the local bus stops and very early in the
process the head of the transit system said 'but we want you to use our
data.'

Cheerio John

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 2:18 PM Amanda McCann, <
amanda.mcc...@osmfoundation.org> wrote:

> Hello fellow OSMers.
>
> As you are no doubt aware, OSM requires that data imports be listed on the
> OSM Wiki ( https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Catalogue ),
> including if the source is “ODbL OK status”.
>
> At the Nov. 2022 OSMF Board meeting (25 Nov), the Board voted that imports
> should, from now on, list whether the data source is compatibly (or
> incompatible) with the OSM Contributor Terms¹.
>
> The Board has also budgeted to commission a template that OSMers can use
> to request that data sources release their data under those terms. That
> will obv. follow later. However given that OSM is mostly volunteer run, I
> don't know if/when that will be ready for you.
>
> The minutes of the meeting have not yet been written, nor accepted, but
> when they are (in about a month), you will find the specifics here):
> https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2022-11
>
> ¹
> https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License/Contributor_Terms
>
> --
> A. McCann
> Secretary
> OpenStreetMap Foundation
>
> Name & Registered Office:
> OpenStreetMap Foundation
> St John’s Innovation Centre
> Cowley Road
> Cambridge
> CB4 0WS
> United Kingdom
> A company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales
> Registration No. 05912761
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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 15:48 2022-11-28, Tobias Knerr đã viết:

On 28.11.22 at Simon Poole wrote:

What is "OSM Contributor Terms compatibility" supposed to be?


Ok, this is clearly imprecise wording.¹

The context is that we would like to offer data donors a standard legal 
text that they can use to make their data available to OSM in such a way 
that we would expect it to survive a hypothetical license change. And 
yes, this would perhaps look similar to a CC0 waiver, except that it 
could potentially be a bit more limited (in a similar way the CT limits 
the set of licenses under which the OSMF can choose to publish the 
database).


So the column would be mostly about whether this legal text or something 
equivalent has been signed or not (+ perhaps public domain/CC0 data that 
has the ability to survive a license change by default could also check 
the box).


Could you clarify the "perhaps" here? If something has been explicitly 
dedicated to the public domain via CC0, a similar statement, or a 
relevant law, should it not survive any relicensing attempt? Or is this 
just about the editorial decision of whether to leave the table cell 
blank if relicensing is irrelevant for a given import? The wiki has a 
{{n/a}} template for this purpose.


I've already heard concerns from a couple U.S. mappers about this 
thread, because the community here been operating under the assumption 
that public domain datasets are the best-case scenario for inclusion in 
OSM. If a local government agency has already released something into 
the public domain, irrevocably and so forth, it would be 
counterproductive to send their legal department a scary-looking 
document to fill out. I don't know how I'd convince them that they have 
the legal authority to enter into an agreement governed by English law. 
Hopefully I'm overreacting.


--
m...@nguyen.cincinnati.oh.us



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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Tobias Knerr]

On 28.11.22 at Simon Poole wrote:

What is "OSM Contributor Terms compatibility" supposed to be?


Ok, this is clearly imprecise wording.¹

The context is that we would like to offer data donors a standard legal 
text that they can use to make their data available to OSM in such a way 
that we would expect it to survive a hypothetical license change. And 
yes, this would perhaps look similar to a CC0 waiver, except that it 
could potentially be a bit more limited (in a similar way the CT limits 
the set of licenses under which the OSMF can choose to publish the 
database).


So the column would be mostly about whether this legal text or something 
equivalent has been signed or not (+ perhaps public domain/CC0 data that 
has the ability to survive a license change by default could also check 
the box).


Tobias

¹ The wording is my fault and, iirc, was inspired by the column name at 
https://wiki.osm.org/Import/ODbL_Compatibility



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Re: [OSM-talk] FYI: Board now requires imports list (in)compatibility with OSM CT (& will work on a template)

[Simon Poole]

Am 28.11.2022 um 20:11 schrieb Amanda McCann:

Hello fellow OSMers.

As you are no doubt aware, OSM requires that data imports be listed on the OSM 
Wiki ( https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Catalogue ), including if the 
source is “ODbL OK status”.

At the Nov. 2022 OSMF Board meeting (25 Nov), the Board voted that imports 
should, from now on, list whether the data source is compatibly (or 
incompatible) with the OSM Contributor Terms¹.


The board has obviously been reading too much Greek mythology (or maybe 
Batman) and has taken to speaking in riddles :-)


What is "OSM Contributor Terms compatibility" supposed to be? 
Sub-licenseable? Neither the ODbL nor any CC licence with exception of a 
CC0 waiver allow this. Compatible with the licence change provisions? As 
an absolute that is going to be very difficult as the only requirement 
is for a new licence to be "open". It would definitely exclude all 
share-alike licences including naturally the ODbL except if the target 
licence is compatible with the original licence. Has the LWG been asked 
for an opinion, list of compatible/incompatible licences? That's just 
what immediately comes to mind.


A further note "As you are no doubt aware, OSM requires that data 
imports be listed on the OSM Wiki" has never been a formal OSMF policy. 
Yes it would have always made sense to have stricter controls on imports 
in particular not only licence compatibility but proper documentation 
including contacts. But that was politically always untenable and that 
particular horse has long bolted.


Simon


The Board has also budgeted to commission a template that OSMers can use to 
request that data sources release their data under those terms. That will obv. 
follow later. However given that OSM is mostly volunteer run, I don't know 
if/when that will be ready for you.

The minutes of the meeting have not yet been written, nor accepted, but when 
they are (in about a month), you will find the specifics here): 
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2022-11

¹ https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License/Contributor_Terms



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