[OSM-legal-talk] Copyright and license page, how to do the details

[Tobias Knerr]

On 28.10.2012 15:11, Martin Koppenhoefer wrote:
> To whom applies the requirement to credit in the corner of the map,
> just to users of the datatiles or to all users of OSM data presenting
> it in some form of browsable electronic map? Where does this
> requirement come from? Or am I misinterpreting this, and "should" is
> not a requirement but a recommendation?

I'm also wondering how that recommendation (requirement?) made it onto
the "copyright" page. Based on existing websites and applications using
OSM data, this is not at all an universally accepted standard for
attribution.

In the case of apps/sites intended for mobile usage, it is rare to see
attribution in the corner due to screen space constraints. But even for
desktop applications, about boxes aren't uncommon either.

The only subset of "browsable electronic maps" where this approach to
attribution dominates are slippymaps on websites for desktop usage. The
popular slippymap frameworks probably contribute to this because they
place it in a corner by default. But even there you will find exceptions
among popular websites within the OSM community that have existed for
years. This is usually the case where multiple sources are used to
create the map, making it impractical to list all of them directly on
the map.

To summarize, the "corner attribution" is clearly not the best choice at
least in the following cases:
* on mobile devices with small screens
* when combining several sources that each ask for attribution
* with technical limitations (e.g. no hyperlinks in drawing area).

So my suggestion is to remove or rephrase that section of the copyright
page. It should be allowed to place attribution in a dialog (such as the
standard "about box" user interface convention for desktop apps) or a
separate "license"/"sources"/"about" page - which of course must be
directly and easily accessible from the site displaying the map.

Tobias