Open Data License/Horizontal Layers - Guideline

Community Guideline - Horizontal Map Layers

Background: What is the problem?

This primarily relates to making and publicly publishing visual 2D maps, (a "Produced Work" within the terms of our ODbL license ), and which are constructed using different layers of data, at least one of which is OpenStreetMap data.

If you make maps, you may want to use more than one layer to make your map, one of them being OpenStreetMap layer.

We believe that ODbL is unequivocal about this in clause 4.5(b)

Using this Database, a Derivative Database, or this Database as part of a Collective Database to create a Produced Work does not create a Derivative Database for purposes of Section 4.4;

but it can be hard to spot so we provide our own practical interpretation.

The guideline and examples

Status: endorsed by the board of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, on 2014-06-06.

Read the formal guideline.

Open issues, use Cases, discussion

Any text here is not part of the formal or proposed guideline!

If you have a particular case that you are uncertain about, describe it here and it can be discussed.

Combining OSM data with proprietary data?

In the formal guideline it is explained that combining OSM data with external data sources falls under the “share alike” clause. In an example it is explained that if OSM restaurant data is combined with restaurants from a different data source the result must be shared.

This is possible if the other data source is owned by the legal entity doing the combination.

But what happens in case a legal entity wants to combine OSM data with third-party data? Let's assume the third-party data is proprietary, e.g. a list of restaurants that was bought by the legal person with the right to publicly use it, but of course not publicly release it.

In such a case: is it legal to publicly use the combined data (OSM + third-party data)? And what would the legal entity be required to publish to conform the “share alike” clause?

--Evod (talk) 15:12, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Applicable to Geocoding

Could this guideline be extended to cover geocoding? For example:

1. If you build a geocoding engine that sources streets from OSM but places from a 3rd party database, assuming those are independent horizontal layers the 3rd party places data would not need to be shared?

2. If you build a geocoding engine that uses addresses from OSM but where the address is not found in OSM then it would fallback to an address from a 3rd party database, in this case since they are the same Feature type, the 3rd party addresses would trigger "share alike"?

Would these be correct assumptions of the license? --Aharvey (talk) 01:38, 12 April 2021 (UTC)