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Re: National Land Survey open data licence - version 1.0 - 1 May 2012



On Thu, 10 May 2012 09:07:23 -0400 Clark C. Evans wrote:

> Timo,

Hi Timo, hi Clark,

> 
> I'm not sure why a open source license wouldn't work?

I am convinced that a good Free Software license would be suitable for
releasing data.
Hence, I think that this license, even if it managed to meet the DFSG
(which it does *not*, in my own personal opinion!), would add nothing
useful to the already long list of existing licenses.
It just contributes to license proliferation, which is very bad.

> In any case, here are some comments.
> 
> >   2.2. Duties and responsibilities of the Licensee
[...]
> >   * require third parties to provide the same information when 
> >     granting rights to copies of dataset(s) or products and services 
> >     containing such data and
> 
> This one seems problematic since it would require some sort of
> license assent mechanism.  Perhaps this requirement could be 
> softened to be a conditional, if you require acceptance of your
> own license, you must require acceptance of this one?

I think it really depends on how it should be interpreted.

At best, this point could be seen as an attempt to implement a sort of
very weak copyleft-like mechanism. A really unclear attempt, though:
I don't know how effective it could be considered...

At worst, it could be seen as an attempt to make licensees responsible
for enforcing some clauses of the license, after redistributing the
work to other parties. I think this would be a non-free restriction.

> 
> >   * remove the name of the Licensor from the product or service, if
> >     required to do so by the Licensor.
> 
> How do you comply with this given the other requirements?

In a very bad way: you *have* to comply, *when* the Licensor tells you
to do so. Even after your product or service has been initially
released.

I am personally convinced that such a requirement is non-free.

I think it's very similar to one of the clauses found in CC-v3.0
licenses. See for instance my analysis of CC-by-v3.0:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2007/07/msg00124.html

However, Debian FTP-masters disagree with me on the freeness of
works released under the terms of CC-v3.0 licenses:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2010/01/msg00084.html
Hence, it's *possible* (but not granted) that FTP-masters would consider
the above-discussed section 2.2 as acceptable, unfortunately.


I hope this may help.

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