Hi,
I am unhappy about the much-iterated claim that we would lose a lot
of data if we were to go PD (or CC0, or a similar non-virulent
license).
Quite honestly, I think this claim is bordering on what you call
"FUD" - fear, uncertainty, and disinformation.
This much is obvious:
---------------------
1. Any change in license will cause a loss of data (namely data
authored by people who are simply not reachable or don't reply to our
request). This loss is independent of what the new license is.
It could only be avoided if the new license could be constructed so
that it would count as a successor to the existing one (".... a later
version of this License with the same License Elements as this
License,"); unlikely.
2. There is a possible further loss of data authored by people whom we
manage to contact but who decide not to re-license their contribution.
2a. It is likely that some people are overstating their intent, i.e.
they threaten not to re-license their data, hoping to influence the
decision-making process in their favour, but when a decision is made
it remains to be seen whether they really want their data to me moved
to a dead end.
2b. Contributors who have already stated their contributions to be PD
do not have the option to make such a threat since their data can be
re-licensed under any license by anybody.
2c. Contributors who have currently licensed their contributions under
CC-BY-SA have the option to withhold re-licensing because they are
unhappy with the new license. We have no information about the
criteria these people will use for their decision. There may be people
who dislike PD and will not re-license under PD (but would accept
ODC), and there may be others who dislike elements of the ODC license
and not re-license under that (but accept PD).
3. Any loss, be that from (1) or (2), is mediated by the fact that we
don't have to *delete* that data; we can keep it in a separate
database instance and allow read access to it so that if someone needs
data for a region where people have not accepted the new license, he
or she still has the option of retrieving the old stuff under CC-BY-SA.
(It is likely that such a database would be made available by someone
anyway because for some uses the CC-BY-SA terms may be favourable.)
We would just not continue updating it.
---------------
I hope the above is factually correct and as "NPOV" as humanly
possible. The following now is my personal opinion:
I find it unacceptable of the Foundation to make the assumption that
the loss of data when going ODC (or some other copyleft license) would
be significantly greater than the loss of data when going PD. I also
find it quite harsh to speak of a "loss" because the data is not lost,
it just cannot be copied into the new database and thus not modified
any more.
For many in the project, the "loss of data" argument is the strongest
of them all; they have spent months and years nurturing the project
and investing lots of spare time - if you now tell them "sign this
letter or the project will LOSE A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF DATA" then
they have no choice but to sign.
I suggest that the claim is either dropped completely because it has
no foundation (or because nobody can be bothered to bolster it with
facts), OR that the claim is researched further and those who
decide are presented with facts - numbers, maps - outlining the real
loss, or the best guess at least.
Nobody, be that a Foundation board member, a general Foundation
member, or any OSM contributor, should be asked to make a decision
based on a FUD-like claim.
Bye
Frederik
--
Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00.09' E008°23.33'
_______________________________________________
legal-talk mailing list
legal-talk@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/legal-talk
