[Fedora-legal-list] Openstreetmap moving to Open Database License (ODbL)

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 03/05/2009 06:19 AM, Andrea Musuruane wrote:
> Hi,
>     Openstreetmap project is about to change their license from
> CC-BY-SA to ODbL:
> 
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2009-February/001958.html
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Open_Database_License
> 
> The Openstreetmap foundation has opened a discussion about the
> license. It will end on March, 20th. It intends to publish the
> definitive license on March, 28th.
> 
> Therefore I'd like to know if this license would permit to include
> Openstreetmap contents (e.g. maps) in the Fedora Project or if it has
> some problems.
> 
> I think that it would be very useful if problems could arise now that
> the license is not yet released or used.

I really don't want to subscribe to another mailing list... would you be
willing to relay comments to the Open Data Commons people?

Looking at the Factual Information License, I've got some concerns. I
asked Red Hat Legal to take a look at it, and this was their reply:

	I think the problem with this one is that the definition of "Use"
introduces some 	
	fundamental uncertainty.  If it really means "any act that is
restricted by copyright", and
	this license does seem to be trying to be a copyright license, then
there ought to be no
	problem, since "Use" should encompass any act of modification that is
restricted by
	applicable copyright -- e.g. rights to create derivative works under
U.S. copyright law.
	However, then they bother to say "modifying the Work as may be
technically necessary
	to use it in a different mode or format".  That sounds like they might
be implying that
	broader acts of modification are not within the scope of "Use", despite
the apparent
	reach of the first part of the definition.  And if "Use" does indeed
encompass only a
	proper subset of copyright-law modification acts, then it would be
non-free. While in
	general that wouldn't necessarily be true, but here the narrow
interpretation suggests it
	is non-free because the apparently-granted modification rights are too
limited.

In addition, I'm concerned that there does not appear to be any explicit
grant of permission to redistribute content under the Factual
Information License without restriction.

(RH Legal is still looking at the ODBL, they should have comments on
that later, which I will pass along).

Thanks in advance,

~spot