Hi again, legal question this time,
This is mainly aimed at the LWG but others might have a view. I was
wondering, why isn't the PD declaration binding, according to the wiki page?
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Why_would_I_want_my_contributions_to_be_public_domain
"If you declare your contributions to be in the Public Domain, *you are
thereby making a statement only. You will not actually be changing the
license or what people can do with your data*, because database law
still overrides the protection of individual items. People will have to
adhere to ODbL when they want to use OSM, even if a majority of
contributions should be declared PD."
If this is intended to gauge user opinion, it is a rather blunt tool.
What about people who want other licenses? I would start speculating but
I might get called a conspiracy nut by SteveC :)
According to the wiki, there is no legal implications to the
declaration, so it was not intended for this purpose. On the other hand
the license page on the rails port says "In addition to the above
agreement, I consider my contributions to be in the Public Domain" - how
is this not a legal agreement to put contributions in the PD? Perhaps
some clarification would improve the situation.
TimSC
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