[OSGeo-Discuss] distributing "read-only" vector files?

[Christopher Schmidt]

On Tue, Nov 03, 2009 at 08:58:58PM +0800, maning sambale wrote:
> Before anything else, let me introduce our dilemma.  We are a
> non-profit geo-research institution.  In many cases we produce
> geospatial datasets no other local institution can create in my
> country at the moment.  What we create are sometimes benchmark info
> useful to various research and policy initiatives.  At the moment we
> have two broad users the public (we provide free download of pdf maps)
> and special interest group (requesting for GIS data).  We always want
> our datasets to be used by other geoshop.
> 
> However, we have several concerns regarding the release of GIS data:
> 1.  Securing "data integrity" - once released we cannot guarantee that
> the data will be distributed from other sources with
> alterations/changes.  Some of this data may contain critical info that
> if used (coming from altered data), our institution "might" be blamed.
> 2.  Ensuring corrections will be reported back to us for data enhancement.
> 3. Ensuring non-commercial use of the data
> 
> I'm sure these concerns are not unique to us but also common to other
> institutions.  I am hoping we can discuss options on how we can
> resolve the above concerns in areas both technical and institutional
> policy.

My advice would be "Figure out how to deal with the fact that these are
not going to happen".

If you are distributing data that people care about altering, modifying,
etc. then there is no practical way to prevent them from doing so. 
A license agreement of some kind can keep 'honest people honest', but no
means, technical or otherwise, will prevent people from distributing
data that they want to distribute.

Additionally, these types of restrictions typically serve to limit the
usefulness of the data -- the more restricted a dataset is, the more
likely you are to block legitimate usage unintentionally while
'protecting' the data.

That said, the last restriction is well-addressed by Creative Commons
licenses. 

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
Web Developer