OpenStreetMap
Non-legalese version of the contributor terms
Posted by Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason on 12 May 2010 in English.You can no longer sign up for a new account without agreeing to the new contributor terms. They're long and legalese, here's an attempt at shortening them to something human readable.
Suggestions welcome. I think we should offer something like this (but obviously better worded) to explain what the terms mean to people who don't feel like reading a wall of defensive legalise.
- You promise only to submit content that you have permission to submit, e.g. stuff you made.
- You grant the OpenStreetMap foundation an irrevocable license to do anything with your content, forever.
- "Anything" is only licensing it under the ODbL 1.0, DbCL 1.0, CC-BY-SA 2.0 or another free license. Which free license is up to the OSMF members (those paying to be part of the foundation), and at least 2/3 of active contributors.
- An active contributor is someone who's edited in at least 3 out of the last 12 months. And doesn't take longer than 3 weeks to reply to E-Mail.
Discussion
Comment from ianlopez1115 on 12 May 2010 at 11:34
It should be "anything", not "anyhing". And there should be a "Message too long? Click here" link for those who are stumped with those "big words"
Comment from ianlopez1115 on 12 May 2010 at 11:41
And there should be an option where you can "choose" your license. (Suggested licenses are ODbL 1.0, DbCL 1.0, CC BY-SA (2.0, 2.5, 3.0) and PD. You can choose to dual or multi-license your edits/contributions unless want your edits to be part of the Public domain or the "let the foundation decide that for me" license)
Comment from Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason on 12 May 2010 at 12:08
I've fixed the typo, thanks. Maybe there should be a choice of license, but that's not what the terms themselves offer. You either accept them as-is or you can't sign up.
Comment from JohnSmith on 12 May 2010 at 12:18
@ianlopex115 PD isn't valid in some jurisdictions, so you have to have a copyright license, also choosing licenses may not be in the best interests of OSM-F and/or contributors, eg CC-by may not be applicable in places like the US which is the whole reason this situation exists in the first place.
Comment from amm on 12 May 2010 at 13:18
@ianlopez1115: The dual licensing is only there for the moment I believe, while OpenStreetMap figures out if, how and when it will move over to OdBL. I.e. asking new contributors to agree to both CC-BY-SA and OdBL/DbCL until the current contributors decide what to do, without making this decission harder and harder with every new contributor.
The new Signup page does have a box to tick "Consider all my contributions as PD", but this is purely a statement of personal preference (and for OSMF to get a better picture) and doesn't have any real legal relevance as the OSM data will remain solemnly under CC-BY-SA for now or potentially in future under ODbL.
@avar: Yes, it would be good to have a translatable and "human readable" summery of the contributor terms at the top, to ensure new contributors feel more comfortable with agreeing.