[odc-discuss] ODbL and Creative Commons

Mon Feb 6 13:58:13 UTC 2012

As you know Creative Commons are planning to produce version 4 of
CC-BY-SA this year.  Having two separate silos for share-alike data is
not good, so we should find ways for ODbL and CC-BY-SA to
interoperate, or better still merge into a single licence.

One difference of approach between ODC and CC is in the addition of
contract-law terms to the licence (making it not a true licence but a
contract).  I know that the contract-law part of ODbL is not
universally popular on this mailing list either.  I don't know the
full history but I think it might have been added specifically because
of Openstreetmap's requirements?

Other than that the 'produced work' concept is something which could
be adopted by Creative Commons.  It seems that allowing 'produced
works' under different licences makes the ODbL slightly weaker than a
true copyleft.  It may fit into the hierarchy of licences as CC0 ->
CC-BY -> ODbL -> CC-BY-SA.  A kind of 'lesser share-alike' in the same
way that the FSF have the GPL and the Lesser GPL.  There, too, any
program licenced under the Lesser GPL can be distributed under the GPL
also.

Thoughts?

--
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>