OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

[Posted July 27, 2012 by jake]

The H writes about changes in OpenStreetMap (OSM) data. The title is a little misleading as the licensing change hasn't actually happened yet, but OpenStreetMap is preparing for it by removing data from people that did not consent to the change. "The reason for the licensing change is that the current Creative Commons licence is largely inapplicable to collections of data such as the OpenStreetMap mapping database. The Open Database licence has been developed to resolve this problem. Like the Creative Commons licence, it is a share-alike licence, meaning users must return any improvements or changes to the data to the community." The removal is said to be "barely noticeable in many places" but there have been some complaints in the OSM community.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 28, 2012 0:44 UTC (Sat) by lordsutch (guest, #53) [Link] (12 responses)

Alas some areas of the map are pretty hard-hit. Slowly but surely we're working on remapping and/or cleanly-importing the worst of it (and you can help ;-).

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 28, 2012 8:28 UTC (Sat) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (11 responses)

You can help OSM to heal this self-inflicted wound by remapping areas that were already done, or you can instead use fosm.org, which will stay with CC and so is not deleting any contributions.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 28, 2012 13:09 UTC (Sat) by giggls (subscriber, #48434) [Link]

A long time experience I made with forks in the free Software world is that the project with the most active community tends to survive. Free Software forks work, when a project goes closed source for some reason, but this is not the case here.

Besides the fact that I prefer ODBL over CC-by-SA for a couple of reasons (e.g. Mixing free for non-commercial use data like cgiar SRTM with osm for tile production will now be possible) I think flosm.org is doomed to fail.
Certainly not because of licence terms but because OSM is where the people are.

The impact of the licence has not been that bad as I suspected anyway.

Here is the a short blog article I wrote while looking at the aerea I live after the redaction bot came by:
http://blog.gegg.us/2012/07/my-subjective-perception-of-t...

Sven

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 28, 2012 16:55 UTC (Sat) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (9 responses)

"this self-inflicted wound"

It's only self inflicted in the way an appendectomy is.

"or you can instead use fosm.org, which will stay with CC and so is not deleting any contributions."

..though it is run by a bunch of clowns and malcontents and is a great way of sending your contributions down a dead end.

I feel it's important to add that warning.

If people just want the old data, the old planet files are still up and always will be.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 29, 2012 14:44 UTC (Sun) by macc (guest, #510) [Link] (8 responses)

appendectomy ?

Pft!

More like gauging out your other perfectly good "blue" eye because it has a pigmentation fault.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 29, 2012 15:28 UTC (Sun) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (7 responses)

Yeah.

Thing is, the whole sticking-your-fingers-in-your-ears-and-screaming-"the-license-is-ok-as-it-is-the-license-is-ok-as-it-is" approach doesn't tend to work in court.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 29, 2012 19:43 UTC (Sun) by macc (guest, #510) [Link] (4 responses)

MY thumbs are much too thick to stick them in my ears ;-)

Destructively removing voluntary work is the worst thing
a project like this can selfafflict unto itself.

Compare to the DE wikipedia relevance nazis.
( people that have a live just don't add/edit anymore )

This will cost dearly, imho.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 9:03 UTC (Mon) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (3 responses)

"Destructively removing voluntary work is the worst thing a project like this can selfafflict unto itself."

By this logic we shouldn't remove contributions where people have blatantly traced from google aerial view.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 9:58 UTC (Mon) by macc (guest, #510) [Link] (2 responses)

You are using too much emo words for my taste.

You are in it here for winning an argument
and not for a beneficial discussion.

Good Bye.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 31, 2012 8:52 UTC (Tue) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

I can't see a single "emo word" in what I said.

cf. "can selfafflict unto itself".

Good bye.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 31, 2012 20:59 UTC (Tue) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

"You are in it here for winning an argument and not for a beneficial discussion."

Oh and no, I'm not really interested in discussion. There have been 5 years of discussion. I've been there since day one. I have heard an awful lot of nonsense in those 5 years, and a lot of people seem to just want to discuss things into the sunset.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 29, 2012 21:37 UTC (Sun) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (1 responses)

How about waiting a while for CC-BY-SA-4?

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Aug 2, 2012 22:14 UTC (Thu) by ElCapitano (guest, #86078) [Link]

CC licenses are going in exactly the wrong direction for OSM. CC's declared intent is that its Share-Alike clause will tend to the maximalist (see point 3). That is diametrically opposed to ODbL's Produced Work clause.

Supposed reason for licence change

Posted Jul 28, 2012 8:23 UTC (Sat) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (4 responses)

The stated reason in the article that the CC licence is "largely inapplicable" to OpenStreetMap is not the whole truth. After consulting with the OSMF I commissioned some legal research in both the United Kingdom and the United States to find out to what extent a copyright licence such as CC-BY-SA is enforceable for the OSM map data in various jurisdictions.

You can read more in this thread: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.openstreetmap.leg...

The summary is that the OSM map data is covered by copyright, and there is no reason to suppose that the CC licence doesn't work for it just as it does for other copyrightable works.

Another point to note is that while ODbL is also a share-alike licence, the licence change means that derived works or improvements to the map can no longer automatically be fed back to OSM, since the OSMF now require agreement to a set of contributor terms.

Supposed reason for licence change

Posted Jul 28, 2012 17:01 UTC (Sat) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (3 responses)

It's a pity the rest of the OSM community and quite a lot of lawyers disagree with you then.

Supposed reason for licence change

Posted Jul 30, 2012 9:23 UTC (Mon) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (2 responses)

FWIW, I discussed this research with the OSMF's licence working group before and after. The LWG members did not disagree with the findings - one even went as far as to say that the supposed inapplicability of CC-BY-SA was not, after all, the main reason for the licence change. There were some queries which I asked the lawyers to address, the main one being whether the New York judgement cited by them was a strong enough precedent. The US lawyers agreed that it is not perfect, but "it's what we have", since there is not a large body of case law relating to computer-readable map data.

The two US law firms employed did not want me to distribute the full report publicly because of privilege issues. I do not agree with that but I went along at their insistence. That is why the version linked above is only a summary. If you are interested I would be happy to send you the full research which cites the relevant cases and arguments.

Supposed reason for licence change

Posted Aug 2, 2012 22:17 UTC (Thu) by ElCapitano (guest, #86078) [Link] (1 responses)

Certainly it would be interesting to see the unedited brief which you gave to these lawyers. I don't believe there's anything preventing you publishing that.

Supposed reason for licence change

Posted Aug 3, 2012 10:42 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

I gave my word that I wouldn't publish it, but we agreed that I could share it with individuals. You can see my email address in the thread on the legal-talk mailing list I linked to above - please contact me and I'll send you a copy.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 10:05 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] (12 responses)

It is a pity to see OSM leaving the free software community.
Fare well.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 10:45 UTC (Mon) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link] (11 responses)

> It is a pity to see OSM leaving the free software community.

Why do you way so?

Section 3 of the OSM contributor term forces the OSMF to always use "free and open licenses":

> 3. OSMF agrees that it may only use or sub-license Your Contents as part of a database and only under the terms of one or more of the following licences: ODbL 1.0 for the database and DbCL 1.0 for the individual contents of the database; CC-BY-SA 2.0; or such other free and open licence (for example, http://www.opendefinition.org/okd/) as may from time to time be chosen by a vote of the OSMF membership and approved by at least a 2/3 majority vote of active contributors.

One may disagree with the new licences and the methods used to achieve this change, but OSM is still a well behaving member of the free software/knowledge community.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 11:43 UTC (Mon) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] (8 responses)

> Why do you way so?

For starters, because the ODbL 1.0 does not pass the DFSG? (It has a desert-island-test problem in section 4.6 IIRC...)

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 13:36 UTC (Mon) by gioele (subscriber, #61675) [Link] (1 responses)

> For starters, because the ODbL 1.0 does not pass the DFSG?

I could not find a detailed analysis of the problems of DFSG with ODBL. Pointers?

The only thing I have seen is <http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/08/msg00006.html> there the author says he finds a problem with licence and he does not want it accepted as DFSG-compliant, for the same reasons he do not think that AGPLv3 should be treated as DFSG-complieant. Anyhow, he later admits that AGPLv3 has been accepted as DFSG-compliant by the FTP masters and that ODBL is probably as much compliant as AGPLv3.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 17:27 UTC (Mon) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

ballombe's answer, copied again below, is clearer than mine, and I don't really have pointers right now.

> The ODbL try to enforce EU-style sui-generis database right in jurisdiction where they do not exist in law.
> Any "license" that restrict rights you would have in the absence of a license is non-free (and is actually a contract).

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 31, 2012 8:56 UTC (Tue) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (5 responses)

"because the ODbL 1.0 does not pass the DFSG"

The key letter there is the S in DFSG. The DFSG is designed for _software_, and those who wrote it would be the first to point that out.

Unfortunately geodata is one of the most complex corners of copyright law.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 31, 2012 19:44 UTC (Tue) by nowster (subscriber, #67) [Link] (1 responses)

> The key letter there is the S in DFSG. The DFSG is designed for _software_, and those who wrote it would be the first to point that out.

Is a PostScript document sent to a printer not software? Can a list of points and lines be software for some virtual machine? The distinction is not clear.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Aug 2, 2012 22:19 UTC (Thu) by ElCapitano (guest, #86078) [Link]

So which do you think is more relevant, "Software" guidelines or a "Creative" license?

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 31, 2012 20:12 UTC (Tue) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] (2 responses)

Since 1986, when I first started developing software, I am under the impression that anything that is not "hard"-ware nor "meat"-ware is "soft"-ware. Ok.

Ah, silly me, but that is *exactly* Debian's definition... Any WORK contained in debian must be Free in accordance to the DFSG.

Seriously, now, geodata is complex because it is not considered everywhere as copyrightable. And the ODbL is not DFSG-compliant, not because it is analog to the AGPL, but both because it does not pass the desert island test and because it tries to emulate database-rights restrictions in jurisdictions where databases do not generate any rights. THAT is why CC-BY-SA was a better license than ODbL for OSM data.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 31, 2012 21:06 UTC (Tue) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link] (1 responses)

"Seriously, now, geodata is complex because it is not considered everywhere as copyrightable."

Well, it's not just that - it's also about what is considered a derived work.

"THAT is why CC-BY-SA was a better license than ODbL for OSM data."

Except that its fuzziness in the area of geodata had the beautiful dual quality of scaring off potential commercial users while at the same time probably also being unenforceable. Certainly unenforceable against a foe with any real legal budget to speak of as OSM's legal budget is ~0.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Aug 1, 2012 8:16 UTC (Wed) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link]

Are you aware of how much more difficult and expensive it is to bring proceedings under breach of contract rather than copyright infringement? The contract language in the ODbL could well make it harder to enforce.

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Jul 30, 2012 14:12 UTC (Mon) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] (1 responses)

The ODbL try to enforce EU-style sui-generis database right in jurisdiction where they do not exist in law.

Any "license" that restrict rights you would have in the absence of a license is non-free (and is actually a contract).

OpenStreetMap bot removes waypoints after licensing change (The H)

Posted Aug 2, 2012 22:10 UTC (Thu) by ElCapitano (guest, #86078) [Link]

ODbL is very open about being a contract.

The only honest alternative to ODbL is to declare the data public domain. Otherwise you have the inequitable situation, as with CC-BY-SA, where users of the data in the US have more rights than users of the data in the UK.