[OSGeo-Board] Bylaws posted

[Chris Holmes]

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Arnulf Christl (CCGIS) wrote:
> 
>> Spatial data is somewhat special in this respect. I talked to Jimmy 
>> Wales Richard Stallman they think GNU FDL is good. Ward Cunningham is 
>> into CC,
>> and says its cool for spatial data too obviously.
>>
>> I am not sure though. Daniel Faivre (camptocamp) is very actively
>> promoting a license specially designed to fit spatial data backed by an
>> active Canadian group, they call it PGL. I believe Jo has something up 
>> the
>> sleeve too and OSM is also thinking in this line. All of them are highly
>> interested in the OSGeo (well, dunno about OSM, they are sort of sleepy)
>> and it might happen that the Foundation itself will be the body creating
>> this special license. In the end this is one of the things that we came
>> together to do here. What I want to say is that we do not have to choose
>> from different licenses but maybe set out to create one.
> 
> 
> Arnulf / Markus,
> 
> At one point I proposed that the requirement our software projects use
> OSI approved licenses be written into the bylaws with the intent that it
> would not be easy for a board to contemplate changing any "copyright 
> assigned"
> software to a non-OSI license.  That is, as a sort of limitation on the 
> board
> and the foundation.
> 
> Since we haven't worked out details of what license(s) are necessary best
> for various kinds of "content" or spatial data, I would suggest we not 
> try to
> address this in the bylaws at this time.  As has been done, it is useful to
> make clear in the bylaws that the OSI approval requirement is for software.
> 
> Certainly, I would like to see discussion about appropriate licenses for
> web/educational/promotional materials and spatial data.  But there is not
> yet much clarity on the topic.
+1.  It's an issue I'd like to work on as well, indeed I met Lawrence 
Lessig of Creative Commons last year in South Africa, and he said they 
could potentially be interested in developing a set of licenses for 
geographic data.  But to put something like that in the bylaws now is 
short sighted - we should wait for it to mature, indeed perhaps like the 
OSI approves open source licenses perhaps OSGeo could be the certifier 
of open geodata licenses.

Chris

> 
> Best regards,

-- 
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
thoughts at: http://cholmes.wordpress.com
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