31 ms·

> But there are often significant (even legislative!) barriers to doing that, especially in the United States where government entities are often required to re

by aylons 10y ago

> But there are often significant (even legislative!) barriers to doing that, especially in the United States where government entities are often required to release data to the public domain. How about changing that legislation? If it is public domain, it may be incorporated at software licensed in any form, even whole proprietary. Also, public data must be public domain, but software used by government doesn't.

anjbe 10y ago
Sorry, but I don’t understand the purpose of this reply. The point I was making was that modifications to public domain data incorporated into OpenStreetMap cannot be used to improve the original source, because the OpenStreetMap copyright adds restrictions to the data.
michaelt 10y ago
I believe the poster's point was: If the government is required to release the data as public domain; then it's integrated into OpenStreetMap which is copyleft; then a correction is made to OpenStreetMap; the correction can't be merged back into the public domain data. Thus the copyleft project, in their attempts to stop people freeloading on their work without contributing back, have freeloaded on someone else's work without contributing back.
- brudgers 10y ago
  [IANAL] One of the features of GPL is there is low administrative overhead in regard to legal matters when accepting contributions. The legal simplicity comes out of copyleft fully utilizing strong copyright and under GPL authors do not give up any rights. On the other hand, placing a work in the public domain requires the author to give up their rights under copyright. Public domain is not a license. It is a legal sibling, not a child, of copyright. The result is that public domain works require legal administrative overhead in order to accept contributions...for example, an organization may find it necessary to create and maintain documentation regarding how and when each outside contributor placed their work in the public domain. Some open source licenses, such as Eclipse, also require similar record keeping. That's not to say that GPL's reliance on the same classes of strong copyright law that the entertainment industries see as useful is necessarily unproblematic.

by aylons 10y ago

anjbe 10y ago

Sorry, but I don’t understand the purpose of this reply. The point I was making was that modifications to public domain data incorporated into OpenStreetMap cannot be used to improve the original source, because the OpenStreetMap copyright adds restrictions to the data.

michaelt 10y ago

I believe the poster's point was: If the government is required to release the data as public domain; then it's integrated into OpenStreetMap which is copyleft; then a correction is made to OpenStreetMap; the correction can't be merged back into the public domain data. Thus the copyleft project, in their attempts to stop people freeloading on their work without contributing back, have freeloaded on someone else's work without contributing back.

brudgers 10y ago
[IANAL] One of the features of GPL is there is low administrative overhead in regard to legal matters when accepting contributions. The legal simplicity comes out of copyleft fully utilizing strong copyright and under GPL authors do not give up any rights. On the other hand, placing a work in the public domain requires the author to give up their rights under copyright. Public domain is not a license. It is a legal sibling, not a child, of copyright. The result is that public domain works require legal administrative overhead in order to accept contributions...for example, an organization may find it necessary to create and maintain documentation regarding how and when each outside contributor placed their work in the public domain. Some open source licenses, such as Eclipse, also require similar record keeping. That's not to say that GPL's reliance on the same classes of strong copyright law that the entertainment industries see as useful is necessarily unproblematic.