[OSGeo-Board] Bylaws posted

[Gary Lang]

This is a great discussion.

My $0.02.

If it turns out to be really necessary, developing an OSGeo-authored
license for data could be a good thing for the foundation to sponsor and
accomplish. If not, using an existing license would be good karma as
well.

Either way, I feel that if we aren't successful with this, we're
probably not going to be successful on some other level with this
adventure.

Can someone summarize the "why" of the PGL?
 
Gary 

-----Original Message-----
From: Arnulf Christl (CCGIS) [mailto:arnulf.christl at ccgis.de] 
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 12:15 PM
To: board at board.osgeo.org
Cc: board at board.osgeo.org
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Board] Bylaws posted

[...]
> "article I: talks only about software and OSI licenses, do we want to 
> mention data/education as well (CC licenses etc)?"
>
> The mission statement at the beginning of article I does refer to data

> and broadly refers to the advancement of open geospatial, so I think 
> that would pick up education initiatives as well ("The purposes of the

> corporation are to establish and support a diverse open source 
> community to foster the development, advancement and promotion of open

> geospatial software technology and data").  I haven't given any 
> thought to whether the bylaws would/should require the use of a 
> particular license for data.  Certainly with software it is easy to 
> look to the OSI.  Is there a similar certifying body for data/content 
> licenses?  I'm familiar with CC, but do we want to state definitively 
> in the bylaws that things must be licensed under CC?

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.

Best regards,
Arnulf.

--
Arnulf Christl
http://www.ccgis.de


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