On 6 June 2013 13:15, <[email protected]> wrote: > I think you are asking a lot if individual contributors who are not > lawyers should be expected to second guess councils and the licenses > they choose to release data under.
This is definitely a big problem for OSM, as many mappers seem to be not properly checking the licence terms, or even realising that they need to. The general rule should be if you're not 100% sure, then you shouldn't use the source. OSM should have some sort of central clearing body to check licences for mappers. Unfortunately LWG don't seem to be interested in taking on this role, and instead expect individual contributors to act as lawyers and determine licence compatibility for themselves. > If an OSM contributor uses this data (either by contributing it to OSM or > outside the project) in good faith> and in accordance with the stated > license then it is hard to see what the comeback could be either to > OSM or to the individual. OSM could be in trouble for copyright violation, or at least made to remove the offending items. As we saw with the redaction process, this can do more damage than just undoing the original infringements, as later work built on top of it may have to be removed too. I don't think "good faith" is going to count for much, though we may be saved by potential bad PR for anyone tried anything major against OSM. Nevertheless, even as just a matter of principle, we should really be doing our best to avoid getting in to the situation where stuff is being added from sources under licenses that don't allow it. As a start, I think OSMF should maintain a list of common licences, with details of whether they are deemed acceptable or unacceptable for use in OSM. It will then be much easier for mappers check source licences against the list. If it doesn't appear, there may be more incentive for the mapper to investigate further or ask for advice. As it is now, mappers may just see any sort of open data licence and assume it's ok. Robert. -- Robert Whittaker _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
