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OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

theguardian.com

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Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#41

Post by alibarber »

Bayart wrote: post #28
CodeGlitch wrote: post #10

> The move may still not happen if the foundation can’t find a suitable country to relocate to. Ireland is out, because of a requirement for directors to be residents; France too, because of the difficulty in guaranteeing English-language services. So moving to the EU solves some problems but adds more?

>France too, because of the difficulty in guaranteeing English-language services. As someone who's done English support in France, it sounds like preconceived notions that don't match reality. The tech industry is usually literate in English, even if the rest of the country can't give a care.

I don't think that they're particularly concerned with finding tech talent who are able to converse in English. This (potential) move is about enjoying continued legal protections - and if they did have to engage with the legal system in order to defend these then they certainly would not be able to use English officially in the French legal system.

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#42

Post by denton-scratch »

This seems a poor reason for moving your headquarters.

A. In most jurisdictions, you can't copyright facts (nor should you be able to, IMO).

B. I can't see why OpenStreetmap has to rely on copyright.

C. OSM data is provided by the public. It shouldn't be any kind of "property".

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#43

Post by Bayart »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #33
Bayart wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel France is nearly as business unfriendly as people like to pretend. At least not anymore. It's just an undying trope.

It does not die because there's still truth in it. Bureaucracy is still Kafkaesque for a start. I have been dealing with both British and French administrations extensively and I can tell you it's night and day.

I can't speak for Britain but a lot of administrative services in France are digital now. I'm rarely trapped in bureaucratic nonsense like I would have been say ten years ago. Most services you'd require on any given day (taxes, welfare, unemployment office, healthcare, ID registration, voting registration, starting a basic corporate structure) are trivially available.

The biggest problem now is discoverability as government programs are still habitually arcane and UI/UX grammar. Some countries, I'm thinking especially of Germany, have national standards that make services appear uniform whereas in France every administration is still its own little shop.

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#45

Post by denton-scratch »

Bayart wrote: post #28
CodeGlitch wrote: post #10

> The move may still not happen if the foundation can’t find a suitable country to relocate to. Ireland is out, because of a requirement for directors to be residents; France too, because of the difficulty in guaranteeing English-language services. So moving to the EU solves some problems but adds more?

>France too, because of the difficulty in guaranteeing English-language services. As someone who's done English support in France, it sounds like preconceived notions that don't match reality. The tech industry is usually literate in English, even if the rest of the country can't give a care.

As a French-speaking brit who's been on a tech course in France, tech discourse in French is pretty challenging. Sure, most individual French techs speak very good English. But "ordinateurs", reseaux", "bases de donnees" - I should have got myself a decent tech French/English dictionary. Schoolboy French doesn't cut it in tech.

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#47

Post by jaywalk »

Someone wrote: post #46

I don’t understand the concern about database rights. OpenStreetMap is open (you can download it from https://planet.openstreetmap.org/ ), so why would they be concerned about copyrights?

I'd assume the main reason is because they require you to credit them when you're using their data: https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#48

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

Someone wrote: post #46

I don’t understand the concern about database rights. OpenStreetMap is open (you can download it from https://planet.openstreetmap.org/ ), so why would they be concerned about copyrights?

Most open licences work by manipulating copyright. If you entirely relinquish the rights (a la CC0 or other "public domain" declaration), you can't enforce attribution or share-alike, which OSM wants to do.

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#49

Post by sgc »

mpweiher wrote: post #36
skywal_l wrote: post #4

It's not really clear to me what the problem is. Doesn't the Open Database License applies everywhere, brexit or not? I never thought that where an "open source" project is physically located as any impact on the license it uses.

For a license to have meaning, the original work needs to be protected, for example by copyright. If the work isn't protected by copyright, you can still write that license, but you have no means of enforcing said license.

Do we have precedent for this? Can you truly not sue if you enter an agreement with someone to provide them with data that restricts their rights to use it, but the data is actually in the public domain? What about implicit agreements like TOS on a website?

These are pertinent concerns for which I have never found a definitive answer.

Re: OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

#50

Post by tinus_hn »

gubby wrote: post #16
kmlx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

another fun fact: only the UK, EU and Russia have "database rights". No other country has anything similar. And I'm guessing a good reason why no one else has this has to do with free use and research. Basically, in the EU, UK and Russia I can't even reconstruct your database piece by piece.

> Basically, in the EU, UK and Russia I can't even reconstruct your database piece by piece. You are entitled to create a similar database based on your own efforts or research. So, you could walk the streets of London with an iPad to make your own KmlxStreetMap. You just can't directly copy or transfer rows from someone else's. This seems like a good page: https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/database-rights…

It can easily turn into a farce. In the Netherlands there was a case where a company was allowed to copy the phone book, but only as long as they had real people manually copy the data from the original book.
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