Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Lawyer responses to use cases, major problems
On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 10:35:21AM +0100, Frederik Ramm wrote: Simon Ward wrote: this could mean that anyone running osm2pgsql importing minutely data updates would possibly have to make available a ''psql dump of the whole planet'' for any snapshot time where someone cares to request it. So be it. Do you have any suggestion on how to achieve this technically? For such a large amount of data, not much if you actually had to redistribute the entire data yourself, but see below. ODbL already defines derivatives, produced works and collective databases separately, and is much more permissive for the latter two. Distribute a derived database, share it please. This is not about the distribution of a derived database; if I already have the database in a form that can be distributed, then sharing it is trivial. My question is about the distribution of a Produced Work and whether or not the underlying derived database needs to be made available even if it does not have any value added. Then you you have more than one thing here: * A derivative database, consisting of the original database imported into PostGIS. * A produced work, consisting of the derivative database and other elements. To make the exampe clear: http://c.tile.openstreetmap.org/7/63/42.png would, under the new license, be a Produced Work. It is based on nothing more than is available at planet.openstreetmap.org, imported into a PostGIS database which is updated once a minute. […] our own tile server would have to be scaled back to once-a-day updates because we could not possibly produce the PostGIS dumps once an hour. If your tileserver also provides the ability to directly query the derivative database, then I think you should be obliged to distribute the database. If you just have a tile browser, then probably not. It gets more difficult when you start providing things like place name searching: Is that still acceptably a produced work, or are you providing access to the database? I would err towards providing the database. If you do have to offer the derived database, you may not have to worry about providing frequent dumps. The licence specifically allows for distributing the whole database, or simply a file containing the alterations made. It doesn’t say how the differences should be encoded, so I think it’s reasonable to document that you used osm2pgsql, osmosis, or other, and exactly how you used it (command line arguments, inputs, etc). Richard has already commented on the relevant this part of the license (4.6(b))[1]. [1]: http://www.co-ment.net/text/844/ This does bring up some other questions though: What if the software doesn’t produce predictable results each time it is run? This could possibly be solved by extending the software to produce a trace of operations that it or another tool could process to perform exactly the same transformation of the database. This could become quite large though, so we’re back to distributing large amounts of data with frequent updates. In case you used an old version of the software that may no longer be distributed by the authors but could produce different results, should you provide the exact software you used? Can you just specify how you import the original database, and how each diff is imported, or do you have to document the whole process of importing and provding minutely updates? 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] Lawyer responses to use cases, major problems
Frederik Ramm wrote: I'm surprised that nobody else seems to see a problem in this. Am I perhaps barking up some completely imaginary tree? Not at all; I am still reading through the draft, and have exactly the same concern. It may be I have misunderstood how this is intended to apply, but I think both 4.6a and 4.6b end up making derivative databases (effectively any mechanical processing of the original content whatsoever, IMO) problematic. In many cases, generating a file containing all of the alterations will be at least as much work as making the derivative database available (leaving aside that publishing these alterations may reveal some proprietary information, making it less likely for OSM data to be used). That is not always practical, and if all my transformations are destructive then I don't think it's even useful (compared to simply making a copy of the original database available, to ensure the source data is never lost if openstreetmap.org goes away). I'm not sure what format a file containing all of the alterations would take. Does this mean a machine-readable list of the exact transformations that were performed, or simply a human-readable summary of the transformations made? If I map our fixed point lat/lons to 32-bit floats, I will create a derivative database (32-bit floats can't represent all integers exactly, so I've lost some information and can't go back). Do I need to publish exactly which floating point value each integer was mapped to, or simply say I converted all lat/lons to floats? The latter makes more sense, but do I also need to specify that they're IEEE floats and which of the four IEEE rounding modes were used? I don't have a better phrasing for 4.6b, but I would like to allow alterations to be specified as: - A literal set of transformations to apply (e.g., a lookup table or code that could be executed to apply the transform). - A human-readable set of instructions that are reasonable Introducing reasonable means I can have my lawyer argue with yours over whether convert to floats is a reasonable summary or not, and not have to worry about being sued because I used an unusual rounding mode like round-to-infinity and forgot to mention it. It also means you can publish imported into PostGIS using this schema as your alteration, and not have to provide the literal derivative database created by your particular version of PostGIS when run on a specific platform/OS. -dair ___ d...@refnum.com http://www.refnum.com/ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Lawyer responses to use cases, major problems
2009/3/1 Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com: On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: I'm surprised that nobody else seems to see a problem in this. Am I perhaps barking up some completely imaginary tree? Nope, not at all, I'm exceptionally concerned about the implications on the cyclemap db. I'm combining PD SRTM data and OSM data, and as far as I'm concerned making both original sources available should be sufficient. That way every piece of geographic data used in the cyclemap is available. Being forced to offer a postgis dump would suck massively. And never mind for me - I've got the time and energy to deal with it if needs be. But it'll also suck for people doing things like my public transport experiments - as soon as you put up a picture of one of your experiments all of a sudden you'll have some guy demanding a dump of your postgis db. Seems overkill, and like you say, the intention should be to make the geographic data available, not the specific instance of (perhaps processed) data. Yes, for instance this page would just not exist under that interpretation: http://dev.openstreetmap.org/~random/progress/?region=northamerica There's no way I'd have bothered... and dev doesn't have a big enough hard disk anyway :-) Dave ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] compatibility with CC licenses
John Wilbanks wrote: (although I find the idea that freedom can only come from the barrel of a license deeply depressing). That's CC Zero out of the running then. If Big Company decides to run a mechanical turk contest on Amazon to extract facts from your DB one at a time, do they violate the license without having ever signed it - can they possibly be bound by it if they haven't signed it, clicked ok on a digital box etc? And at what point does the individual person working in the turk contest infringe - 5 facts, 10 facts, 100 facts? And who would you sue in the event you wanted to take it to court? This looks like a problem with using contract law rather than licence law. And yes I'm curious about this as well. - Rob. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Proposal to update the Use Cases page
I am proposing the update the text on the Use Cases page. I intend to merge some of the different Use Cases and introduce some new ones based on the problematic areas we are exploring on the list. I will also tweek the wording to make it clearer for the next legal review (especially the ones where the lawyer said he didn't understand). I will create a verbatim copy of the contents of the current Use Case page to a new location 'Use Cases version 1' or something before I start. I think these Use Cases are going to end up being twins of an eventual FAQ that I imagine will exist. For example Use Case 1 might end up in the FAQ as 'I want to include a map produced by OSM data in my printed book/newsletter etc. Can I do this, how should I attribute it and what Licence should I use. ' Answer' Yes you can, you should attribute it to OSM using text such as This map contains information from www.OpenStreetMap.org , which is made available here under the Open Database Licence (ODbL). The attribution can either appear close to the map itself, an approach which will be suitable if there are other maps in the document form other sources, or you can include an attribution at the start of end of the document in a place were someone would be likely to look for it. You can licence the map anyway you like - Public Domain, CCBYSA, full copyright etc. Note that if you do need to update the mapping data itself then you need to make the improvements available to others. See Question xxx below for more details in this case. Let me know soon if you don't think that is a good idea! Regards, Peter ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] legal-talk Digest, Vol 31, Issue 4
(although I find the idea that freedom can only come from the barrel of a license deeply depressing). That's CC Zero out of the running then. Actually no. This is a slightly wonky lawyer debate about semantics, but we think tools like CC0 should be called *waivers* and not *licenses*. Licenses reserve some rights and impose some conditions - they are some rights reserved - and there's a contract established between two parties. Waivers do not reserve rights or impose conditions. They create zones of public domain, and there are no contracts between the parties. This is why if you peruse the CC0 site, you'll see it referred to as a legal tool and not a license. It's a small thing, but an important thing to remember. Conflating the waiving of rights with the licensing of rights is what we're trying to avoid in this context. jtw ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] legal-talk Digest, Vol 31, Issue 4
John Wilbanks wrote: This is why if you peruse the CC0 site, you'll see it referred to as a legal tool and not a license. It's a small thing, but an important thing to remember. Conflating the waiving of rights with the licensing of rights is what we're trying to avoid in this context. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/zero/1.0/legalcode 2. Should the Waiver for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, then the Waiver shall be preserved to the maximum extent permitted and Affirmer hereby grants to each such affected recipient of the Work a worldwide, royalty-free, non exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright), non transferable, non sublicensable, irrevocable and unconditional license Sometimes we have to use licences where we would rather people or the law just allowed the right thing. Sometimes they are the least worst solution. But they are not the least worst solution if they don't work, and I am concerned about the scenario you describe where individuals who are not party to the contract extract the data. - Rob. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Lawyer responses to use cases, major problems
Rob Myers r...@robmyers.org wrote: With the GPL, the right to request the source is attached to receiving and using the binary. Withe the AGPL it is attached to being a user of the service. You can't just wander by and say hey! please can I have the source?, you have to be a user of the binary. (In practice people just pop the source on an FTP server, but that's less onerous than having to make minute-by-minute snapshots of OSM available.) That touches on two of the Big Unexploded Lawyerbombs of the AGPL:- 1. are you still a user of the service if the service only says Access Denied to you? 2. if you pop the source on an FTP server, does that mean the service must stop if that FTP server is down? I don't know if either of those are concerns for the OSM licence. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Plan discussion on talk...
On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Peter Miller peter.mil...@itoworld.com wrote: Can we also ensure that any issues that we identify on the list get onto the Open Issues page on the wiki. In that way we can get the legal folk to only review the wiki page and not the whole conversation. I assume they will also be responding to comments on the co-ment.net page, so we don't need to copy the discussion from there onto the wiki? http://www.co-ment.net/text/844/ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL License + Outline Procedure
What's the purpose of S5.0 (disclaimer of moral rights), especially since the plain meaning of that section appears to differ from the 'attribution' element of the current license (not that I think attribution is a great idea with so many contributors, but some bulk-data donors include attribution in their license to us) More importantly, is S5.0 still meaningful if it doesn't apply to everyone? e.g. imagine its purpose is to reduce attribution requirements to this is OSM data' rather than requiring 2 million names and pseudonyms on the back of each map (this being a guess as to its purpose, hence 1st question). Is it even worth bothering if we still have to list the names of anyone who contributed from an area where they don't waive their moral rights? suppose the I accept this new licence tickbox is implemented and I tick it while on holiday in Algeria. Will I then get the opportunity to demand that all OSM-derived products list me as the author, and object to anything which portrays the map in a manner I'm not happy with? ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Plan discussion on talk...
Hi, On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 05:34:59PM +, Peter Miller wrote: Would it be possible for someone to summarise the License Plan thread on Talk when it has come to a conclusion? Personally I am finding the intensity of license discussion a bit much the moment and would prefer to concentrate on one list. In addition to talk and legal-talk, we have the national mailing lists, the Open Data Commons mailing list, our wiki, the com-ments web page, plus a number of OpenStreetMap forums in English and other languages. We'll surely try to shuttle back and forth and collect information in our Wiki but it will be a hell of a lot of work. 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] Lawyer responses to use cases, major problems
Hi, Frederik Ramm wrote: We need to clarify this once and for all: Where exactly in the following typical rendering chain does the thing cease to be a database in our definition? * download (section of) OSM data * make changes to OSM data * render OSM data into vector graphics format (say SVG) * make changes to SVG file (say using Inkscape) * render SVG file into bitmap * make changes to bitmap Let me explain why I think that this is so important, and please correct me if you have a different interpretation than I have. ODbL says you have to share a derived database if you publish it. You do *not* have to share the full chain of derived databases that led you from the planet file to your final derived database, just the latest one that you publish. If you create and publish a Produced Work, then you have to share the derived database on which it is built. This means that in any case, only *one* database from the above chain will have to be published. If we, say that no item in the above list is a Produced Work, i.e. even a bitmap is still a database, then the person running the above process will *only* have to publish and share the bitmap and *not* his improved OSM database. If we say that the vector graphics is still a database but the rendering of a bitmap makes it into a produced work, then the publisher of the bitmap need not share the bitmap, and neither his improved OSM database, but (only) the vector graphics. If we say that the database is lost and a Produced Work created when rendering the vector graphics from the OSM database, then neither the vector graphics nor the bitmap need be shared, but the modified OSM database has to be. Obviously a shared bitmap without the OSM data behind it is rather worthless to us... it is better than nothing of course, but the shared bitmap is what CC-BY-SA gives us today. 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] [Spam] Re: License Plan discussion on talk...
On 1 Mar 2009, at 21:37, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 05:34:59PM +, Peter Miller wrote: Would it be possible for someone to summarise the License Plan thread on Talk when it has come to a conclusion? Personally I am finding the intensity of license discussion a bit much the moment and would prefer to concentrate on one list. In addition to talk and legal-talk, we have the national mailing lists, the Open Data Commons mailing list, our wiki, the com-ments web page, plus a number of OpenStreetMap forums in English and other languages. We'll surely try to shuttle back and forth and collect information in our Wiki but it will be a hell of a lot of work. I suggest we try to gather all the issues that we raise on our lists on the wiki. We can then ensure that we get the appropriate responses onto the com-ments web page after we have discussed them. People can of course put their own comments on directly, but I think we can ensure we do a more thorough job if we try to assemble all our issues together in one place and then review them. Regards, Peter 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 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Proposal to update the Use Cases page
On 1 Mar 2009, at 21:49, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, Peter Miller wrote: I think these Use Cases are going to end up being twins of an eventual FAQ that I imagine will exist. I am starting to think that perhaps the license should be accompanied by a kind of interpretation document which may or may not be the same as this FAQ. There are probably things that the license will never specify exactly, like the question of where in this chain does that database cease to exist. As stated numerous times on this list, applying the EU definition of database, even a PNG tile is a database... So if we'd have a document clarifying these things for OSM - even if this might not be legally binding but just an expression of intent - that would be a much better basis for the individual mapper to actually say yes. I agree. The license is the License, and that is by necessity written in legal language. If we use the Use Case page to describe common real life situations and then get the lawyers in the end to give their verdict on them it will form a very useful bridge between the practical and the legal. It will also mean that most people will be able to see 'their' use listed with a bit 'yes' next to it which will be reassuring, Peter 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 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Lawyer responses to use cases, major problems
Hi, Dair Grant wrote: It may be I have misunderstood how this is intended to apply, but I think both 4.6a and 4.6b end up making derivative databases (effectively any mechanical processing of the original content whatsoever, IMO) problematic. In many cases, generating a file containing all of the alterations will be at least as much work as making the derivative database available (leaving aside that publishing these alterations may reveal some proprietary information, making it less likely for OSM data to be used). I think it was RichardF who, long ago, suggested that we could perhaps amend 4.6 by something like c. An algorithm or computer program, or reference to a publicly available algorithm or computer program, that performs the alterations I'm sure some details about this would need to be hammered out, but this could be a way for the publisher to say I used osm2pgsql for this rather than actually having to provide osm2pgsql's output. This could, however, still touch on someone's business secrets when he has a very clever way of arranging OSM data that allows him to, for example, create faster, bigger, better, more tiles than the competition. We might need to introduce an entirely new section somewhere that says something like For the purpose of this license, any modification to a database that does not add original content but only transforms existing content algorithmically is not considered a derived database. In a way, something like this is already implicit because everyone assumes that copying the database from one media to another will not constitute a derived database even though, for example through the characteristics of the underlying file system, the arrangement of data will change. We would basically say that running osm2pgsql on your data, or creating an index, or lowercasing all tags, is not different from unzipping the planet or copying the planet from a FAT32 onto an ISO9660 file system. (I'm sure the license must provide for this not constituting a derived database... or does it?) 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] A simplification of the agreement on the signup page.
On Sun, Mar 01, 2009 at 11:30:41AM -0500, Russ Nelson wrote: Creative Commons license (by-sa). or under the ODbL. If you choose not to give us your email address, or your email address stops working, you waive all right to ownership of your edits. This needs a safeguard to allow for email addresses temporarily not working. I’m not even sure this is the right thing to do anyway. It’s far safer getting rid of a user’s data than it is assuming ownership of it. 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] A simplification of the agreement on the signup page.
On Mar 1, 2009, at 12:46 PM, Philipp Klaus Krause wrote: Russ Nelson schrieb: [...], or your email address stops working, you waive all right to ownership of your edits. Probably about as legally binding as posting a note on the site that says By reading this you agree to sacrifice your firstborn to the OSMF. Nothing is perfect, nothing is absolute. You could have an airplane crash on your house and kill you in your sleep. That is no reason to fail to make plans for tomorrow, or to take clear steps towards solving a problem. Yes, it probably has problems under copyright laws which recognize inalienable authorship rights, but the author would have to show or prove authorship. It's a reasonable standard to require ownership of an email address to prove ownership of the copyrighted work. In order to lose your ownership rights under this standard, you would have to 1) forget your password AND 2) not be able to receive email at the email address. Yes, somebody could come along later and propose a different standard. -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] A simplification of the agreement on the signup page.
I see your point. Data potentially infringing if removed now could be recreated now, making later bookkeeping easier. On Mar 1, 2009, at 7:33 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, Russ Nelson wrote: I don't see much value in removing the data now on the chance that we might have to remove it later. Viral licenses are called viral for a reason. If you have to remove something it is always good to do so before it has infected a lot of other things. Or more practical, if someone draws the basic road grid for a city in a day and you remove it BEFORE everyone else has built on top of that, you lose only a day's work; if you remove it half a year later (and remove everything that can be said to be derived from it), then you might lose a lot more. 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 -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] The Illustrated ODbL
Hi, rich...@weait.com wrote: I've attempted to illustrate ways to use the OpenStreetMap database under ODbL and comply with the ODbL obligations. The box at the end of the Produced Work stream says: Share Alike is required if database is derivative. Attribution is always required. - It should perhaps be made clear that Share Alike of the Produced Work is never required; only sharing the derivative database may be required. Of course your illustration also glosses over a lot of open questions being discussed here, for example your illustrations clearly say that something that comes out of osm2pgsql is not already a derived database (we're not clear about this yet, the license seems to say otherwise!), and your illustrations also clearly say that tiles are not a database (another thing that is not clear). Also, you're using the phrase Convey Produced Work... which, while proper English, seems to clash with the ODbL's own use of the word Convey (ODbL only ever uses the word for databases, not Produced Works), so maybe replace this by simply publish? You say that the Produced Work can be put under any license; I used so say that as well but at the moment it looks like the Produced Work can never be under any Free license (such as CC-something, GFDL, ...) because these licenses do not allow you to add the extra by the way, reverse engineering will cause X clause that ODbL mandates. These are, of course, all somewhat open issues that we hope to resolve one way or another. 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] ODbL: incompatibility issues
On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 3:03 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Not so, it turns out; the Produced Work freedom allows us to combine OSM data *only* with other data whose license does not prohibit the addition of constraints, because ODbL mandates that we add the reverse engineering leads to ODbL licensing rule. I do not read the ODbL this way. I read that only persons bound by the license/contract are prohibited from reverse engineering. Clarification here is needed. - Gustav ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
