[odc-discuss] FAQ on "Substantial"

Mon Mar 23 10:37:00 UTC 2009

2009/3/22 Woll Newall <woll at 2-islands.com>:
> A user called "okfn" has posted on the co-ment page that "We have
> started an FAQ [on the definition of Substantial]".

The "okfn" user is the user being used by us (ODC -- primarily Jordan
and mysefl) to post texts and comments on co-ment (because it is the
user we originally registered with). If this is causing confusion do
say and we can create a specific ODC (or even individual) logins.

> In case anyone else is confused as to where this FAQ is, you can find
> it here (hint, it's not on the OKFN wiki, although you might expect it
> to be, given that a user called "okfn" wrote "we have started a FAQ"!):

FAQs are in two places. Those in preparation or early draft appear on
the wiki page:

<http://wiki.okfn.org/wg/odol/odc/odbl>

Those that are more mature (though still in beta like the license) appear on;

<http://www.opendatacommons.org/faq/licenses/>

(NB: general FAQ is at<http://www.opendatacommons.org/faq/>)

> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_Licence/Use_Cases#What_constitutes_a_Substantial_extract
>
> or is the FAQ actually on the OKFN wiki somewhere that I've missed?

Here's the current form of the FAQ on substantial:

<quote>
The ODbL talks about ’substantial’ part of the contents in relation to
‘Extraction’ and ‘Reutilisation’. This terminology derives from the
Database directive and determining what exactly substantial means is
ultimately up to the courts.

A community could draft its own guidelines if it wished and these
would likely exercise a strong influence on most users (after all most
compliance is driven by the community not by the courts). However, it
would be important to realise that the exact interpretation would
remain with the courts.

For these reasons, as well as the fact that the license is designed
for application across many different domains, we have not attempted
to provide a detailed definition of “substantial” in the license.
</quote>

As this says, the idea of providing use case examples or guidelines as
OSM is doing is a good one, but it is probably ill-advised to try and
define "Substantial" precisely within the license.

Regards,

Rufus