I'm not familiar with the Maori in particular, but most traditional cultures prior to the Gutenberg revolution had special knowledge that they tried to keep to

I'm not familiar with the Maori in particular, but most traditional cultures prior to the Gutenberg revolution had special knowledge that they tried to keep to themselves. Typically there were a class of people who were responsible for both ensuring that the knowledge didn't get lost or become available to the wrong people. Typically learning this knowledge required first committing to guarding its secrecy, so I wouldn't agree it's an unfair restriction on the people who have it. It might not be useful for the culture in the long term, but then again it might. These cultures have seen some ages pass. If the argument is just that everyone benefits when licenses are more free I wouldn't disagree, but having the option to impose different licenses doesn't seem like a bad thing. And whatever the details, that's what this boils down to, a particular set of restrictions on the use of a particular set of data.