[odc-discuss] [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL, choice of law, and "porting" (and why ODC won't have a porting process)

[Francis Davey]

2009/5/26 Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com>:
>
> Also look at the EU Public License.  It's a reciprocal license for
> software (specifically mentions source code).  The most interesting
> thing about it is that it was done on the EU Commission level, AND
> they got the associated governments to all agree that infringements of
> the license may be litigated under any lanauge version of the
> license.  I don't know if the licenses were "ported" or
> "translated" (following your use of those two terms), but the goal was

The licence (as I read it) doesn't need porting. In other words it is
written in such a way that the broadly the same effect is achieved
whatever law happens to govern it. I say "broadly" because I there
will be issues to do with (for example) moral rights which might
differ in different places, but there is nothing you could reasonably
do about them even if you did try to port the licence.

[I am somewhat simplifying I know].

Part of the reason this works is because software copyright law is
subject to a great deal of harmonisation across the EU.

Trying to do the same thing with databases world-wide would be a
harder drafting task.

--
Francis Davey