[Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada

[Steve Singer]

On Sat, 21 Jan 2017, Paul Norman wrote:

> On 1/20/2017 6:00 PM, James wrote:
>> Is OGL-CA not compatible with osm?
>
> The license isn't OGL-CA. OGL-CA is the license from the Federal 
> government, while the City of Ottawa uses the ODL. In the case of OGL-CA 
> data it's compatible because they gave a statement on compatibility.

It seems to me that there are at least three situations that can crop up in 
deciding if we can use data

1) A reading of the license text allows the use with OSM.  If the text of a 
given license is compatible with the requirements of OSM then  I don't see 
why we need any additional statement.

2) The compatibility of the license is unclear because of particular terms 
of the license.  A particular government entity then gives us a statement 
saying that they feel the license is compatible with OSM.  That same 
government entity would then have a hard time coming back later and saying 
that the license isn't compatible. However it doesn't tie the hands of other 
government entities that happen to be using the same license.

3) A particular license might not be compatible with OSM but the government 
entity gives us permission to use their data.  In this case the 'permission' 
is the license.

Why doesn't the OGL 2.0 qualify as compatible under criteria 1? Is there any 
particular term in a templated OGL 2.0 that someone feels is a concern?

Replacing a <INSERT_LICENSING_ENTITY_HERE> variable with 'Government of 
Canada' versus 'City of Ottawa' doesn't change the license.  we see this 
in software licenses all the time. The BSD software license reads 'Regents 
of the University of California' but changing that to the organization that 
is releasing the code doesn't make it no longer be a BSD license.

The whole point of open-data licenses is that people can use the data 
without having to get special permission from the government for each use of 
the data.  Some of the licenses used by Canadian governments in the past 
had clauses that made them not open/suitable. It isn't clear to me what the 
problem is with this license.


Steve


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