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M. Mayr:
"ODbL - Open Database License";
Talk: Internationales Rechtsinformatik Symposion 2015, Salzburg; 2015-02-26 - 2015-02-28.

The OpenStreetMap project collects geodata in a way similar to Wikipedia. Since 2012, one has to stick to the so-called Open Database License (ODbL) and its supplementary terms when using its data.

The interpretation of this license is constantly subject to discussions among users and might change with the view the community forms on certain peculiarities. When necessary and ready, a reworked license might be released. So, change is a topic which is to be expected when dealing with the ODbL.

The legal status of possibly edited extracts from the OpenStreetMap project not only depends on the ODbL but also on its compatibility with the terms and conditions of other datasets used. This means that technical interoperability with other legal texts is another important topic.

By aiming for a formalization of the ODbL using technologies provided by the semantic web toolchain, both aforementioned topics are taken into account.
To finally form a working legal support system for data consumers, this is only the first step. One has to think about how to match user input with the formalization and find out, whether the promises the semantic web gives hold when automatically performing reasoning with it.

OpenStreetMap, OpenDatabase License, Legal Ontologies, RuleML, MetaLex