Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CTs are not full copyright assignment
Hi Tom, > I have no problem with suggestions for changing the definition of an > active mapper, though I personally don't think the current definition is > a major problem and I also think that most of your attempts to show how > that will disenfranchise people are very contrived and unlikely to be a > significant issue in reality. Just for the record: Both the wording of the CT and the behaviour of the sysadmins have disenfrachised me. I will never contribute to OpenStreetMap again (and not only because you are currently blocking my acount frpom contributing). Olaf ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CTs are not full copyright assignment
Hi Grant, > Please list the "problematic language" you are referring to... Your > email on the 18th of Jan or your email in reply to Kai on the 6th Feb. I see several small problems in the CT and two bigger problems. The bigger problems are related to the definition of "active contributor". The first problem is that the right to vote depends upon being allowed to contribute. I have been repeatedly asked to trust the OSMF that they would never prevent people from contributing (and thereby loosing their right to vote), because this would destroy the community and so be against the interest of the OSMF. At the same time, I am currently prevented from contributing, even though I have publicly stated several times that I support the planned license change and only see problems in the CT, and even though I am willing to license my contributions under very broad terms to the OSMF. The second problem is that the group entitled to vote is defined in a very restricting way. For example, someone who contributes for a period of 25 years and does all contibuting during holidaytime (e.g. in January and in July only) is never entitled to vote. The idea of giving only a part of the community the right to vote sees very unfair to me. An easy way to fix these problems would be to simply give all past contributors the right to vote, unless they fail to respond to an email that asks them to confirm their wish to still have the voting right. This could be combined with a minimum threshold (e.g. a minimum total amount of contributions or of contribution days/months). I will not discuss the minor problems now, because I fear personal attacks from people who have a different motivation for contributing if I point these out. If the OSMF is willing to adress the major problems, then I might also contribute some ideas about how to fix the minor issues, but I will not do so while the threat to remove me from the community by force is still active. Olaf ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Contributor Terms upgrade ready
Hi Mike, on December 5, you wrote an email to this list that the words "and any party that receives Your Contents" in section 2 were only added because of a cock-up and you promised to investigate. Now they are in the final text as well, but not marked as such in the diff marked version. The effect of these additional words is that all content becomes available to everyone without any limitation whatsoever, i.e. it makes all contributions effectively public domain. Can you confirm that this is the only undocumented change, that it was a mistake, and that it will be corrected before going live? I would also like to give you feedback on the new CT. They are improved over the old version, but they still do not address my main concern that I described in the second half of an email I sent in November: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-November/005256.html Olaf ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources
Hi,, > NB: we've been asked to suggest changes to the CT's if we think they > are unclear. I cannot remember whether you caught that. Where should these suggestions be made? My last suggested change, posted to this list, received no response at all from the licensing working group. (The problem is not that other people disagreed with my suggestion and gave me feedback will probably lead me to suggest an entirely different change. The problem is that I will not spend the time doing so if the licensing workgroup doesn't care anyway.) Olaf ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] CT, section 3
Hi, a few days ago Richard Weait asked for suggestions patches from people who critized CT v. 1.0. I therefore decided to join this mailing list and post a suggestion myself. I am perfectly fine with the ODbL but am unhappy with the CT, because I am not allowed to opt-out of license changes that I object to. My suggestion is the following change to section 3: 3. OSMF agrees to use or sub-license Your Contents as part of a database and only under the terms of one or more of the following licences: ODbL, version 1.0 or later, for the database and DbCL, version 1.0 or later, for the individual contents of the database; CC-BY-SA, version 2.0 or later; or such other licence as may be approved by the process defined in section 3.1 and section 3.2. 3.1. A free and open license can be chosen by a vote of the OSMF membership and approved by at least a 2/3 majority vote of active contributors. An "active contributor" is defined as: a contributor natural person (whether using a single or multiple accounts) who that has edited the Project in any 3 calendar months from the last 12 months (i.e. there is a demonstrated interest over time); and has maintained a valid email address in their registration profile and responds within 3 weeks. 3.2. OSMF agrees to inform You of all newly approved licenses if You maintain a valid email address in their registration profile. OSMF agrees not to relicense Your Content to the newly approved licence if You object to the license approval within 6 weeks. Apart from the opt-out clause, I also added "or later" to make it easier to do license changes that are already possible anyway. (Both CC-BY-SA and ODbL contain clauses that allow upgrading to a later version.) I will offer a thought experiment to explain why I believe the option to object is important. Consider the extremely unlikely event that the OSFM suddenly turns evil and wants to sell the OpenStreetMap database content to a proprietary competitor. It could then lock out nearly all contributors from the system, and make sure that only a few people can continue contributing. Those few people could then very easily vote with a 2/3 majority to relicence the database to the Public Domain license, which is free and open. It could also decide not to publicly release this PD version but to only sell it to the competitor. I know that this thought experiment is absurd. I generally trust the OSFM to do the right thing. But I would be far more comfortable with being able to opt-out of any license change that I consider problematic. Thanks for the hard work that the LWG and all other CT revision contributors are doing! The process of updating the CT and of responding to criticism within the community is far more important to me than the actual result of this update. Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
