ODbL/License Transition/Guidance To Data Consumers

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OpenStreetMap has now changed its data licence from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike to the Open Database Licence (ODbL). If you distribute OpenStreetMap data after the licence has changed, you need to be aware that your rights and obligations have changed. The licences have similar intent (reciprocal/copyleft, and attribution-required) but differ in the implementation.

In particular, please note:

  • The credit you give to OpenStreetMap will need to change.
  • You may no longer be required to offer the non-data parts of your content under the reciprocal licence.
  • However, if you make significant changes to the data, then publish the result, you will need to make this data available under the open licence.

You can read more details at Legal_FAQ; a human-readable summary at http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/ ; the full text of the new licence at http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/ .

Checklist - tile users

  1. Make sure your attribution is updated (see Legal FAQ for details).

Checklist - planet.osm users

  1. Reimport from a fresh copy of planet.osm (or excerpt), rather than attempting to mix pre-changeover and post-changeover data with different licences.
  2. Consider whether your share-alike obligations have changed. (Only relevant if you are mixing OSM data with other data.)
  3. Make sure your attribution is updated.

Additional note for those running tile servers

If you are making and distributing your own map tiles from OSM data, you may now choose your own license for the cartography, provided that it is clear that the data itself is ODbL.

We recognise that, due to the resources required, you cannot magically jump from an old CC-BY-SA only set of tiles to an ODbL-based one. Our redaction bot main pass finished on 25th July 2012, so if you are receiving incremental data diffs, it is reasonable to expect that the majority of your tiles are already ODbL-ready. (A small amount of vestigial data, mostly affecting Poland, Germany and Russia, was redacted in a pass ending 1st September 2012, which your diffs should also reflect.)

We therefore recommend that you make the ODbL attribution change as soon as the license change occurs, and make reasonable and timely efforts to flush out old tiles. In the unlikely event someone spots and notifies you of a "tainted" tile, we recommend that you delete the tile and respond to them accordingly.