ODbL

May I see your license please?

This is an update and summary of the OpenStreetMap license upgrade process from CCBYSA to ODbL. It includes a five-minute process to bring yourself up to speed if you have not heard of the OpenStreetMap license upgrade before.

The OpenStreetMap license change process took another tiny step forward today.  read more »

Matt Amos contributed a great plain language summary to Open Data Commons for the ODbL. I'm hoping to see similar documents for the PDDL and for the ODC-By when it comes out of draft.

Rather than waiting, I modified the existing document to draft two new plain language summaries. One for the PDDL and another for the ODC-By draft.  read more »

There has been some confusion on legal-talk and OKC-talk about when the Share Alike requirement for Derivative Databases becomes mandatory. In my first reading of ODbL draft v0.9 I incorrectly thought that Public Use of a Produced Work created with a Derivative Database triggered Share Alike of that Derived Database.  read more »

Produced Works created from ODbL databases carry a requirement for attribution when Published. That is well and good for many wares and for common wares that we are currently creating with OpenStreetMap. When we print a map we can include the ODbL attribution text in the title block. But what about other wares?

Consider the noble cupcake.  read more »

Update in progress.

The OpenStreetMap project is anticipating a license change. In fact the project has been anticipating this change for a while. Now it seems imminent.

A draft license for the database was released Friday, 27 February 2009 along with a data license. The proposal for consideration is, "Should OpenStreetMap transition from cc-by-sa, to ODbL?" I say "Yes." Why we need to transition away from cc-by-sa has been offered elsewhere. Here is why ODbL is the license to which we should transition.  read more »