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

Tue May 26 17:34:35 UTC 2009

2009/5/26 Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com>:
>
> On May 26, 2009, at 9:35 AM, Jordan S Hatcher wrote:
>>
>> An occupational hazard of being a lawyer is to always try to hedge,
>> even a little bit, even when the chance are really remote.  So I can't
>> say that unequivocally Open Data Commons will never go through a
>> porting process similar to the one by CC.  But given the cost in both
>> time and money that undertaking such a project would mean, as well as
>> an unclear set of benefits for doing so, I see the chances of Open
>> Data Commons doing a similar process as very very remote.
>
>
> 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
> to have licenses which may be read and trusted to be legally accurate
> no matter where you are in the EU.

That's interesting to know. It does seem however that this didn't seem
to be so much case of "porting" as simple translation.

I would also emphasize that an "unported" ODbL will still be able to
be read and trusted no matter where you are in the EU or outside it.

Rufus