Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OSM's future Was: Re: Proposed "Metadata"-Guideline

[Steve Coast]

> On Oct 12, 2015, at 4:24 PM, Alex Barth  wrote:
> How is it a bad thing that OSM is used in more places where it can't be used 
> today and hence grows?

It isn’t, as we discussed before. It’s - again - a question of what changes at 
what cost as discussed. In the past it’s mostly been about fundamentally 
changing the license so we can help a couple of people which is kinda 
disproportionate.

> The lack of clarity around use cases like geocoding infects other datasets 
> with ODBL is killing the incentives for businesses, NGOs and government to 
> contribute to OSM.

All you have to do is present some evidence for this beyond one academic 
project this week.

If it were me I’d go get an open letter drafted from the top 10 or 20 real 
users of OSM (mapbox, telenav, maps.me, mapzen, navmii...) and get their CEOs 
or GCs to sign off on it, about how the license is stopping them. But I don’t 
think you can. I think it’s much, much easier to get agreement on the lack of 
turn restrictions in the data, or the lack of point geocodes, I think we’d all 
sign that letter.

> Let's clarify the important use cases, leave share alike intact and we all 
> have a better OSM. Looking back over to the other thread, I don't think we're 
> that far off from each other: 
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2015-October/008283.html 
> 
I think we’re agreed on that, it’s just not where the conversations over time 
have ranged, just one email ago you wanted to compare OSM and PD again :-)

I’d like to bet you a steak dinner on what happens after this change. It feels 
like you’re saying that large numbers of governments, NGOs and businesses (from 
above) are going to show up and start putting all their geocoding data in OSM. 
If that’s correct let’s agree a date and amount of data under/over.

Best

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OSM's future Was: Re: Proposed "Metadata"-Guideline

[Alex Barth]

On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 4:05 PM, Steve Coast  wrote:

> > "our problems" would of course need more definition and I'm running the
> risk here of misinterpreting what you said. I'm thinking about all the
> cases where OSM isn't used yet, all the mapping that isn't happing in OSM
> yet. OSM has the potential to fundamentally change how we capture and
> share knowledge about the world but we aren't anywhere near the full impact
> we should be having. 300,000 active mappers is impressive but the world is
> much bigger. At a time where the internet that was supposed to be Open is
> turning more and more into a closed game of big players and growth for OSM
> is linear - what's our plan?
>
> Yes - we discovered that OSM is linear at CloudMade and our VCs were
> worried too, but that’s not quite the same thing as it being a problem for
> OSM.
>

Reducing licensing ambiguity and making OpenStreetMap more usable by more
people effects non-profit organizations, governments, academics and
companies (both public companies like your employer Telenav and private
companies like Mapbox that have taken VC). Our VC's aren't worried, I'm
worried. All of us on this list are on the same team, we want OpenStreetMap
to be the conical data set for the world. Mapbox buys address data and
directions data from traditional third party providers, much like Telenav
does this for Scout. Its one of the data sources for us, in addition to
OpenAddresses and other open government data sets that have clear licensing.

How is it a bad thing that OSM is used in more places where it can't be
used today and hence grows? The lack of clarity around use cases like
geocoding infects other datasets with ODBL is killing the incentives for
businesses, NGOs and government to contribute to OSM. Let's clarify the
important use cases, leave share alike intact and we all have a better OSM.
Looking back over to the other thread, I don't think we're that far off
from each other:
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2015-October/008283.html
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[OSM-legal-talk] OSM's future Was: Re: Proposed "Metadata"-Guideline

[Steve Coast]

> On Oct 12, 2015, at 1:32 PM, Alex Barth  wrote:
> "our problems" would of course need more definition and I'm running the risk 
> here of misinterpreting what you said. I'm thinking about all the cases where 
> OSM isn't used yet, all the mapping that isn't happing in OSM yet. OSM has 
> the potential to fundamentally change how we capture and share knowledge 
> about the world but we aren't anywhere near the full impact we should be 
> having. 300,000 active mappers is impressive but the world is much bigger. At 
> a time where the internet that was supposed to be Open is turning more and 
> more into a closed game of big players and growth for OSM is linear - what's 
> our plan?

Yes - we discovered that OSM is linear at CloudMade and our VCs were worried 
too, but that’s not quite the same thing as it being a problem for OSM.

> Fixing the license surely can't be the extent of our plan, but we need to be 
> able to have a frank conversation about how licensing is hurting use cases 
> and engagement on OSM, without second guessing people's intentions and 
> without just showing them the door to TomTom and HERE. In that context I find 
> comparing ODbL to Public Domain absolutely useful.

This isn’t the way the world is going.

It used to be a decade ago there were two globalish maps, NavTeq and TeleAtlas. 
Now there are five - Nokia, TomTom, Google, Waze and OSM. My bet is we’ll have 
10 or 20 maps in a while, of which OSM is only one.

The cost to produce them is dropping dramatically and the incentive to do so is 
growing dramatically. Think cell phones we didn’t have 10 years ago and the 
number of companies that want to control a map. Note that with each additional 
map created, the value per map drops too. Thus OSMs dollar value is actually 
declining over time. One can argue whether it’s price or value or both.

Thus - Stace or anyone else now have 5 options for maps today and some of them 
even have the geocoding he wants (which the whole bogus argument is predicated 
upon, since we don’t have any geocoding data in the first place). This is much 
better than only having 2 options a few years ago.

If we want a PD OSM, someone should go build it. It wouldn’t be hard or take 
long. One would probably be done in less than 3 years... maybe only 2 - it 
wouldn’t take the 11 years OSM did to get to the same place since one don’t 
have to learn or prove anything. And one wouldn’t have to sit here arguing 
about anything, one could use that time building things. Even more importantly, 
one could use learnings outside of OSM like the things that Waze did extremely 
well - far better than OSM or anyone else - and one can do all this almost for 
free.

Best

Steve
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