[od-discuss] Questions about attribution requirements in OS and English Heritage data

Mon Jul 22 10:52:01 UTC 2013

Hi,

Apologies if this is not the best place to raise this question, but
I'm trying to understand the implications of some terminology in the
OS Open Data and English Heritage licenses. I'd be interested in the
feedback of this group.

The OS and English Heritage are publishing data under what I believe
are variations of the UK Open Government Licenses:

http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/docs/licences/os-opendata-licence.pdf
http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/Images/open-government-licence-NE-OS_tcm6-30743.pdf

Both licenses define very specific forms of attribution, but also
include the following sentence:

"The same attribution statements must be contained in any sub-licences
of the Information that you grant, together with a requirement that
any further sub-licences do the same"

My reading of this is that this adds additional requirements,
essentially making them sharealike licenses, i.e. that any derivatives
must include similar attribution requirements (and onward
propagation).

Whether that is the intent or not I don't know, but I'd be interested
in how others read these terms.

Cheers,

L.

--
Leigh Dodds
Freelance Technologist
Open Data, Linked Data Geek
t: @ldodds
w: ldodds.com
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