[od-discuss] Quick note on what it means to be "compatible" [was Re: OD conformant proposal: Open Government Licence v2.0 ]

Sun Jul 7 19:22:45 UTC 2013

On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 1:30 PM, Mike Linksvayer <ml at gondwanaland.com> wrote:
>> - re "This means that when the Information is adapted and licensed
>> under either of those licences, you automatically satisfy the
>> conditions of the OGL when you comply with the other licence." - Does
>> this license allow adaptation under another license? I see no
>> indication of that elsewhere in the license, and it would not be the
>> default situation under Berne, which is potentially quite confusing.
>
> ...that's what it sounds like to me. It could be stated even more
> clearly, but an improvement over 1.0.

Let me be explicit about what the problem here, as an educational
point for those on the list who might draft or be asked to consult in
the drafting of a license.

As a matter of basic copyright law, you can't simply "change the
license" on someone else's work. So it's best practice to define
compatibility in one of two ways:

1. The two licenses have permissions/obligations that match up, so
someone who complies with the more restrictive one (in this case,
probably CC SA) can be certain of having complied with the more
permissive one.

2. The more permissive license explicitly permits compliance with its
requirements by complying with the more restrictive license.

This license does neither, so it is confusing what it means to make an
adaptation under another license - do you still have to comply with
OGL? do you have permission to comply only with CC? something else?

Again, I don't think this impacts OD compliance - it's just a matter
of good drafting/avoiding problems down the road.

Luis