On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Christopher Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 01:47:12PM +0200, Marc Wick wrote: >> >> >Do you think that ODbL is a suitable license for geospatial data? Does >> >it meet your needs? >> >> Definitely not. Data is either open or share-alike. It cannot be both. >> Share-alike data is NOT open. It is a serious restriction that prevents >> innovation and most interesting use cases from the beginning. It also >> makes users vulnerable to any kind of lawsuits. >> >> Don't get me wrong. Everybody has the right to protect their data, but >> they should not call it open if they want to prevent others from using it. >> > > This sounds like a classic "Viral" vs "Non-viral" discussion -- the same > one in Open Source code would be BSD vs. GPL. > > Is it your reasoning that the GPL is not 'open'? If so, then your > point here seems to be contrary to the point of the discussion. > > SA enforces certain restrictions -- as does "Attribution". Saying that > a license isn't open unless a user can do whatever they want with it -- > essentially, that only Public Domain is 'open' -- seems silly and a > counterproductive point in this discussion. >
First, no discussion is counterproductive (well, ok, some other, but this discussion is certainly not yet counterproductive). I may be misunderstanding him, but I don't think Marc suggested that _only_ PD is 'open.' I certainly don't think that only PD is 'open.' Of course, everyone is free to license their data under whatever license their jurisdiction allows them to license it under, and whatever makes sense to them. However, in the context of scientific data, I do believe that SA's viral-ness can create problems. Data, in my view, are the non-IP building blocks of IP. By making data available under a PD-like data mark, unrestricted innovation is made possible. My view is -- think of what is served by the license you are about to apply. Do you gain anything? If you collect a few GPS points, what do you gain by licensing it under BY or SA or ND or NC? Are you going to become rich? famous? Are you going to ensure future innovation? I certainly don't believe that I will become rich or famous by licensing my data under a license that actually ends up throttling innovation even remotely. By putting my data out in a PD-like mark, I actually ensure that my data remains permanently open. In fact, PD is the most concrete assurance of forever-openness. Sure, someone else can take my data, add value to it, and make that value-added version restricted. So what? In fact, I believe that is a good thing, and because my data are in PD, everyone else in this world has the same opportunity. Anyway, getting back to SC's position on geospatial data... hopefully SC will have an explicit position on geospatial data that will make everyone happy and also promote the cause of forever free and open access. I don't speak for SC, but I do have a fairly good connection to SC in helping realize that vision, and I believe discussions like these will help. > -- > Christopher Schmidt > MetaCarta > > _______________________________________________ > Geowanking mailing list > [email protected] > http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org > -- Puneet Kishor http://www.punkish.org/ Carbon Model http://carbonmodel.org/ Charter Member, Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org/ Science Commons Fellow, Geospatial Data http://sciencecommons.org Nelson Institute, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- collaborate, communicate, compete ======================================================================= Sent from Stockholm, AB, Sweden _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org
