[odc-discuss] First Pass on ODbL Comments

Tue Mar 24 13:13:39 UTC 2009

Rufus,

Rufus Pollock wrote:
> It would be useful to hear from Frederik et al at OSM (who raised
> this) about what the preference is on the "Use" versus "Publicly
> Convey" as a trigger for SA. Our assumption at present was that the
> vote was to go back to 2008-04 approach based on "Use". Is this
> correct?

I cannot speak for OSM officially, but I can assure you that whenever 
ODbL was discussed in OSM circles, it was always assumed that creating a 
"produced work" on top of a derivative database would lead to the 
requirement of making the derivative database available under the license.

I quote Richard Fairhurst from a time where he was still on the board of 
OSMF directors, and speaking for the OSMF, in

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2008-February/000603.html:

User Question (by Tim)
 > If I distribute web mapping of my special company data and OSM, I
 > don't have to give my data back to OSM, right? In other words,
 > there's no requirement to distribute, but also, if the map images
 > are distributed, then it doesn't have to be under the same licence.

OSMF answer (by RichardF):
 > if the work is derivative then you do have to give your
 > data back. We are asking the licence authors to add a further
 > provision to make it explicit that the data has to be contributed
 > back. This is probably the aspect of the licence over which we've had
 > most discussions and we are determined to get it right.

It may never have been intended to be so, but as long as 4.4 still read

"Any Derivative Database You publicly Use by any means and in any form, 
  must be only under the terms of ..."

everybody thought that "making a produced work means using the 
database", so that an interim derived database that only served as a 
temporary step leading to the creation of the produced work would have 
to be made available. The change of 4.4 to "Convey", together with the 
definition that "Convey" does not apply to the production of Produced 
Works, removes this requirement.

Bye
Frederik