Licensing Working Group
The promotion of open geospatial data through practical, coherent and clear licensing is our number one priority. |
| Status: Active |
Useful links
- Open Database License is used for our map data.
- Creative Commons License is used for all our other website material.
- Licence and Legal FAQ
- Community Guidelines
- Contributor Terms
- Waiver and Permission Templates
- Takedown Procedure
- About The 2012 Licence Change
Get in touch
| Contact us | |
|---|---|
| legal-questions
@osmfoundation.org |
Please send questions with respect to licensing, business models and similar subjects that you are asking the OSMF as licensor of the OSM data.
If you have noticed a potential licence violation by a consumer of OpenStreetMap data and have been unable to resolve the matter bilaterally, please feel free to contact us. |
| legal@osmfoundation.org | Get in touch with the whole team for general discussion. |
| legal-talk mailing list | Subscribe to the OSM legal-talk mailing list. |
What we do
One of the Foundation Working Groups, the Licensing Working Group is charged with looking at
- Licensing matters relating to using our geodata, (our end user license, community guidelines, License FAQ).
- Licensing matters relating to creating our geodata, (contributor terms, [imports], using aerial imagery ...)
- Legal matters relating to responsibility and risk, (trademarks, safe harbour, privacy, child protection, ...)
The promotion of open geospatial data through practical, coherent and clear licensing is our number one priority.
Moving forward from the licence change in 2012, we expect to play a license maintenance role and to be “educational” in helping people in and outside the OSM community to understand our license and working to clarify issues raised. In addition, we want to explore taking OSMF to be a more outward-looking organisation within the arena of promoting free and open geospatial data licensing.
Our formal remit frames our responsibilities and the areas we concentrate on, our plans for this year can found here: 2017 action plan.
If you have noticed a potential licence violation by a consumer of OpenStreetMap data and have been unable to resolve the matter bilaterally, please feel free to contact the LWG via e-mail.
Who we are
| Regular
attending members |
Infrequent participating members (on our mailing list) | Former
members |
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Join Us
We are a group with diverse views who listen to the range of views across the OpenStreetMap community and work to create a practical and clearly communicatable consensus. We are friendly and courteous. We are always open to new members, whether to take part regularly or to work on a particular issue that frustrates you.
Our core members are expected to join regularly join our voice conference meetings in English and take on an average of one action item per meeting, generally to do some kind of research. Regulars members are expected to sign a NDA with the OSMF as we now and then handle confidential 3rd party information. We will typically discuss or track an issue over several months.
If you want to help from time to time or want to work on a particular issue and then stop, you are still welcome to join our meetings.
We understand that can be very difficult for non-native English speakers. So if you just want to use email, that is fine. Working with many countries is becoming increasingly important to us.
Roughly half of us are lawyers, however it is no way a requirement to participating. All we ask is genuine concern to protect the ideals and interests of OpenStreetMap and open data and to make life easier for contributors and end users. Do contact us (best by e-mail)!
Process
- Sign non-disclosure agreement.
- Submit short statement of interest - who you are, why you want to join, what you can help with, and any relevant experience or expertise.
- Current members vote on acceptance.
Minutes
See Licensing Working Group Minutes
The group now meets every month on BigBlueButton, unless rescheduled.