[Gllug] License debates

[Tethys]

SteveC writes:

>I'm well aware of all the issues for and against - I'm looking for 
>community processes, how consensus was found... stuff like that. Are
>we really doomed for an infinite debate?

Essentially, he who writes the code gets to choose the license. The
problem with that is that I suspect openstreetmap has already grown
to the point where there are many contributors, so that's probably
a non-starter.

The other thing is that you're not providing code, as I understand
it, merely data. That's not inherently a problem, as collections of
data can be copyrighted in the same way as code. But you might want
to check that the wording of your eventual license isn't specific
to code.

As a pragmatic approach, why not nominate two licenses? One that
ensures that those adding to the GPS data donate those additions back
to the openstreetmap project (the GPL-like option), and one that
just says the data is out there for anyone to use as they see fit
(the BSD-like option). Then put it to a vote, with voting restricted
to those that have contributed more than N% of the total GPS data
that you have, with a sensible value of N.

Tet
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