On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa(a)redhat.com> wrote:
Looking at the Factual Information License, I've got some
concerns. I
asked Red Hat Legal to take a look at it, and this was their reply:
I think the problem with this one is that the definition of "Use"
introduces some
fundamental uncertainty. If it really means "any act that is
restricted by copyright", and
this license does seem to be trying to be a copyright license, then
there ought to be no
problem, since "Use" should encompass any act of modification that is
restricted by
applicable copyright -- e.g. rights to create derivative works under
U.S. copyright law.
However, then they bother to say "modifying the Work as may be
technically necessary
to use it in a different mode or format". That sounds like they might
be implying that
broader acts of modification are not within the scope of "Use", despite
the apparent
reach of the first part of the definition. And if "Use" does indeed
encompass only a
proper subset of copyright-law modification acts, then it would be
non-free. While in
general that wouldn't necessarily be true, but here the narrow
interpretation suggests it
is non-free because the apparently-granted modification rights are too
limited.
In addition, I'm concerned that there does not appear to be any explicit
grant of permission to redistribute content under the Factual
Information License without restriction.
(RH Legal is still looking at the ODBL, they should have comments on
that later, which I will pass along).
I sent these remarks to the ODC-discuss ML. They have just posted this in reply:
http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/odc-discuss/2009-March/000066.html
They are asking for clarifications.
Regards.
Bye,
Andrea.