Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Mike Dupont]

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 7:13 AM, Russ Nelson  wrote:

> Mike  Dupont writes:
>  > how can you take a cc-by-sa document edit it and publish it under pd?
>  > can I just make derived works in any license i want?
>
> Well, that's part of the problem here. How do we determine what is
> someone's work, and what is a derived work?  If I take a way that
> someone has entered (poorly), and I move each and every node, and fix
> the speling on the name of the way, whose creative work is it?  (one
> could easily argue that the other person was the one being "creative"
> whereas my work is merely a fact about the world, but I'm not going to
> make that argument here).
>

Well from my view, it is a creative commons share alike document, and
changing it means you are creating a derived work.
It it was source code, and the map can be converted into one. It could be
included in a program. Just look at the license of some flight simulators
etc, then any significant change must adhere to the project license.

I am very very sceptical of any practice of this PD licensing, who approved
that? Was it ever thought through? I think that there are some serious
problems with the consistency of the OSM if we allow for fragmented licensed
data. Does anyone else see it this way?

Guys, another question, what is the difference between wikipedia and osm? I
mean CCSA works for WP, why cant it work here?

I repeat my question about an independent review, I would ask you all to
submit the CT and new license to the OSI, CC and software freedom law center
for review,
if there are real problems in the CCBYSA, dont you think they should fix
them?

Why are we being terrorized with this license drama for months, can we just
use one that works and leave it up to license experts to resolve problems in
them?

thanks,

mike
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 12:19 AM, Russ Nelson  wrote:
> Anthony writes:
>  >
>  > On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Russ Nelson  wrote:
>  > > Mike N writes:
>  > >  >    Even a proper reversion script will cause much collateral damage 
> for
>  > >  > the cases I'm aware of.
>  > >
>  > > The whole point behind having a license is to be able to sue people
>  > > who violate it.
>  >
>  > You've got it exactly backwards.  The whole point of having a free
>  > license is to waive the right to sue people who follow it.
>
> E, no. If you want to wave that right, then you put your work into
> the public domain.

You seem to have missed "who follow it".

> Oh, but wait, you're Anthony. You don't just celebrate Backwards Day,
> you're working on Backwards Century.

Why the personal attack?  I wasn't calling you backwards, I was just
saying that you had gotten a fact backwards.

The purpose of a free license is to give permissions, not to take
permissions away.  If you want to sue people for violating your
copyright, you don't need a license at all.  If you want to sue people
for not violating your copyright, you need an EULA.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[andrzej zaborowski]

On 20 April 2011 07:13, Russ Nelson  wrote:
> Mike  Dupont writes:
>  > how can you take a cc-by-sa document edit it and publish it under pd?
>  > can I just make derived works in any license i want?
>
> Well, that's part of the problem here. How do we determine what is
> someone's work, and what is a derived work?  If I take a way that
> someone has entered (poorly), and I move each and every node, and fix
> the speling on the name of the way, whose creative work is it?  (one
> could easily argue that the other person was the one being "creative"
> whereas my work is merely a fact about the world, but I'm not going to
> make that argument here).

I don't see this as a real problem.  I'm sure you'd agree that if all
of the authors accept a new license then the whole element is safe to
put under the new license.  So what you're really saying by submitting
edits under the new CTs is that you authorise whoever to use your
modification under the given license, not the osm entity.  You
authrise osmf to publish the data under the new license provided that
other authors do the same.

(this is not written in the CTs but I think Francis Davey implied that
this is how it could be understood even in a legal case)

>
> We don't really know the answer to that, which makes this whole
> "license changing screw the community, we know better" exercize a piss
> in a pot.

Agreed.

Cheers

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

Mike  Dupont writes:
 > how can you take a cc-by-sa document edit it and publish it under pd?
 > can I just make derived works in any license i want?

Well, that's part of the problem here. How do we determine what is
someone's work, and what is a derived work?  If I take a way that
someone has entered (poorly), and I move each and every node, and fix
the speling on the name of the way, whose creative work is it?  (one
could easily argue that the other person was the one being "creative"
whereas my work is merely a fact about the world, but I'm not going to
make that argument here).

We don't really know the answer to that, which makes this whole
"license changing screw the community, we know better" exercize a piss
in a pot.

Seriously, if I was Google (and I'm thinking of a specific person --
no, not Ed), I would look at the licensing confusion and disarray in
the Open Street Map community, and say "God damn, what a bunch of
idiots. They have some good ideas, like VGI, Mapping Parties(tm), JOSM
(nice to have a dedicated OSM editor, but what an unusable piece of
crap it is) and a GeoBus(tm). Let's use those ideas, make our own map,
and put the goddamn thing out in the public domain once it's good
enough to kill off Navteq and TeleAtlas rather than have them just
steal it. Oh, and we'll kill OSM too, which is too bad, but they had
their chance."

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Mike Dupont]

2011/4/19 Dirk-Lüder Kreie 

> So I accepted the new CT, and the new license by declaring my edits to
> be in the Public Domain, and I can only encourage you and everyone else
> to do the same, because that is the only sane way forward for the
> project, even if we have to remap parts of the world we can't take with us.
>

please explain,
how can you take a cc-by-sa document edit it and publish it under pd?
can I just make derived works in any license i want?
i am confused,
mike
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

Grant Slater writes:
 > On 18 April 2011 05:05, Russ Nelson  wrote:
 > > Copyright.
 > DRM.

DRM is a safe. The purpose of a safe is to slow you down. You purchase
a safe in terms of the amount of time it will take to be cracked. Once
it's cracked?

 > > Copyright.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

Anthony writes:
 > 
 > On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Russ Nelson  wrote:
 > > Mike N writes:
 > >  >    Even a proper reversion script will cause much collateral damage for
 > >  > the cases I'm aware of.
 > >
 > > The whole point behind having a license is to be able to sue people
 > > who violate it.
 > 
 > You've got it exactly backwards.  The whole point of having a free
 > license is to waive the right to sue people who follow it.

E, no. If you want to wave that right, then you put your work into
the public domain.

Oh, but wait, you're Anthony. You don't just celebrate Backwards Day,
you're working on Backwards Century.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anders Arnholm]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

2011-04-17 23:54, Frederik Ramm skrev:

> No. To get access to (at least TeleAtlas's or Navteq's) data you will
> have to sign an agreement that binds you to much more than just plain
> copyright.

You just have to get into a store and give them money to get access to
the data, or at least parts of it. It's not in a raw form thou. The
whole idea is to make the data possible for customers to buy in shops.

/ Balp
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Richard Weait]

2011/4/18 Dirk-Lüder Kreie :

I should note that I find the bulk of your email to be reasonable and
thoughtful, whether I agree with specific points or not.  So it
appears now that I'm picking on you by singling out one point from
your reasonable email.  Sorry.  :-)

[ ... ]
> (Have someone
> copy a small amount of user generated CC-By-SA-Map to PD Project and set
> a precedent in Court, I'm almost certain you'd get money from the OSMF
> legal fund to get that cleared.)

That seems like a poor use of the limited OSMF funds.  I'd rather see
outreach, servers, bandwidth and other things before seeing our
donations go to lawyers for a test case.  Funding both sides (!) of a
vigorous litigation, is likely to be a $200,000 bill at a rock-bottom
bare minimum.  It's likely to go to millions on each side.  And the
litigation must be vigorous and competent and complete, because one
can not just agree to a settlement between friendly parties and expect
that to carry weight as a precedent.

I would hope that the OSM community would agree and not give serious
consideration to funding a test case.

Again, I apologize for focusing on this single point from your email.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Dirk-Lüder Kreie]

Am 17.04.2011 10:17, schrieb Ed Avis:
> andrzej zaborowski  gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> I know a relatively big project that's currently using OSM data under
>> CC-By-SA and may be in a nasty surprise when they find OSM is no
>> longer suitable.
> 
> Fortunately, there is an easy way to fix this: keep CC-BY-SA available as an
> option in addition to ODbL.
> 
That's precisely what's going to happen, with or without license change.
The only difference being that the CC-By-SA version not being updated by
official OSM anymore.

No data will be lost to the world.

Some data will be lost to the ODbL OSM should the change go through (and
to me it looks like it will).

But the ODbL will enable more users to use OSM data without so much
legal hassle.

The optimum in my opinion would be to go entirely PD/CC0 as it would
enable maximum use of OSM data (as in our projects mission statement),
and the protection would come from fast updates and large community
workpower.

So I accepted the new CT, and the new license by declaring my edits to
be in the Public Domain, and I can only encourage you and everyone else
to do the same, because that is the only sane way forward for the
project, even if we have to remap parts of the world we can't take with us.

I'm not taking that lightly, especially like it is in the case of
Australia, but there are multiple ways for Australians out of this,
including, but by no means limited to, a judicial process. (Have someone
copy a small amount of user generated CC-By-SA-Map to PD Project and set
a precedent in Court, I'm almost certain you'd get money from the OSMF
legal fund to get that cleared.)
-- 

Dirk-Lüder "Deelkar" Kreie
Bremen - 53.0901°N 8.7868°E



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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Apr 18, 2011 9:30 AM, "Grant Slater"  wrote:
> On 18 April 2011 05:05, Russ Nelson  wrote:
>> Frederik Ramm writes:
>>  > No. To get access to (at least TeleAtlas's or Navteq's) data you will
>>  > have to sign an agreement that binds you to much more than just plain
>>  > copyright.
>>
>> Did you sign an agreement to use your personal navigation device?
>> Almost certainly not. So what's to stop you from reverse-engineering
>> the data files, and publishing them?
>>
>> Copyright.
>
> DRM.

When has DRM ever stopped anyone from anything?

Sans copyright protection, it only takes one person to crack the DRM and
release the files for free on the Internet.
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:22:22 -0700 (PDT)
Richard Fairhurst  wrote:

> > To answer my own question - I guess that 'reasonably calculated to 
> > make...' suggests you should include an attribution notice and ask 
> > downstream users to respect it - although it doesn't mandate any 
> > particular choice of licence. So we would still have the
> > attribution requirement as now.  
> 
> That's also my understanding (but that one's been hashed out on
> talk-gb ad tediosum).

So the new licence is not clear to a majority of mappers concerning
these points - derived works, produced works, need for attribution.
So why are adopting something that we don't understand?

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ed Avis wrote:
> To answer my own question - I guess that 'reasonably calculated to 
> make...' suggests you should include an attribution notice and ask 
> downstream users to respect it - although it doesn't mandate any 
> particular choice of licence. So we would still have the attribution 
> requirement as now.

That's also my understanding (but that one's been hashed out on talk-gb ad
tediosum).

> To return again to the possible infringements of the OSM licence - in 
> the cases where currently OSM tiles are being used without attribution, 
> I can't see any reason why requiring or enforcing attribution would 
> become easier under the ODbL rather than the current licence.

Principally, the CTs (rather than ODbL per se) make it easier for OSMF to
act, rather than the burden solely being on individual mappers. As a nice
bonus, there are zillions of solicitors who are experienced in contract
disputes, but comparatively few in copyright law. Of course, I wouldn't
disagree that it's a human problem as well, but then I'm a PD supporter. ;)

cheers
Richard



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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Ed Avis  waniasset.com> writes:

>>"[...] if you Publicly Use a Produced Work, You must include a notice
>>associated with the Produced Work reasonably calculated to make any
>>Person that uses, views, accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise
>>exposed to the Produced Work aware that Content was obtained from the
>>Database, Derivative Database, or the Database as part of a
>>Collective Database, and that it is available under this License"
>
>So you must provide attribution, but you don't have to enforce that
>downstream users of the Produced Work have to keep the attribution.
>(That seems sensible enough to me personally.)

To answer my own question - I guess that 'reasonably calculated to make...'
suggests you should include an attribution notice and ask downstream users to
respect it - although it doesn't mandate any particular choice of licence.
So we would still have the attribution requirement as now.

To return again to the possible infringements of the OSM licence - in the cases
where currently OSM tiles are being used without attribution, I can't see any
reason why requiring or enforcing attribution would become easier under the ODbL
rather than the current licence.  I don't think we've had any infringer send us
a letter from their legal department saying that "copyright doesn't apply, so
nyah nyah".  Nor have we ever (AFAIK) sent a menacing notice from our own
lawyers (employed by OSMF or by mappers).  I think it's a human problem, not a
legalese problem.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Richard Fairhurst  systemed.net> writes:

>ODbL 4.3 allows you to distribute Produced Works under any licence as
>long as you provide attribution.
>
>"[...] if you Publicly Use a Produced Work, You must include a notice
>associated with the Produced Work reasonably calculated to make any
>Person that uses, views, accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise
>exposed to the Produced Work aware that Content was obtained from the
>Database, Derivative Database, or the Database as part of a
>Collective Database, and that it is available under this License"

So you must provide attribution, but you don't have to enforce that
downstream users of the Produced Work have to keep the attribution.
(That seems sensible enough to me personally.)

Anyway, to get back to the original point, you mentioned some cases
where the current licence is being infringed by various small
businesses (not big map data vendors) who are using OSM tiles without
attribution.  But under ODbL this use would simply be permitted - they
could, for example, download rendered map tiles from somebody else and
then use them as they wished.  Or is it your understanding that the
attribution requirement under ODbL really is 'viral' and everybody who
distributes a Produced Work, no matter how far down the chain, needs
to attribute.  (If so, that takes care of one of the concerns that 80n
had with the new licence, that it doesn't guarantee contributors will
be credited.)

--
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Grant Slater]

On 18 April 2011 05:05, Russ Nelson  wrote:
> Frederik Ramm writes:
>  > No. To get access to (at least TeleAtlas's or Navteq's) data you will
>  > have to sign an agreement that binds you to much more than just plain
>  > copyright.
>
> Did you sign an agreement to use your personal navigation device?
> Almost certainly not. So what's to stop you from reverse-engineering
> the data files, and publishing them?
>
> Copyright.

DRM.
eg: Tomtom's data format is encrypted and copies require unlock codes.

And before you ask ODBL, has a parallel distribution clause 4.7.b
source: http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/

/ Grant

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ed Avis wrote:
> So do the produced map tiles (a Produced Work under the ODbL, 
> I think, or am I mistaken there to?) have to be distributed under 
> the ODbL also - or can you use any distribution terms as long
> as it has attribution - or what?

ODbL 4.3 allows you to distribute Produced Works under any licence as long
as you provide attribution.

"[...] if you Publicly Use a Produced Work, You must include a notice
associated with the Produced Work reasonably calculated to make any Person
that uses, views, accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise exposed to the
Produced Work aware that Content was obtained from the Database, Derivative
Database, or the Database as part of a Collective Database, and that it is
available under this License"

cheers
Richard



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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Nick Whitelegg]

>It's everyone else who we have to worry about. In the last couple of months,
>I've personally noticed a national railway company, a charity with a
>turnover of >£100m, a vast firm of couriers, a magazine publisher, a book
>publisher, all infringing our requirements/requests for attribution and
>share-alike. (I've spotted these by chance: I don't go out there looking for
>this stuff.) Deliberate? In some cases, definitely. You wouldn't put an
>entirely fictitious credit to another organisation if you were just innocent
>of the niceties.

TBH I actually feel flattered when an external organisation uses our maps. At 
Mottisfont and Dunbridge station, Hants, there's a map which I think could be 
an OSM map - reason being it shows a permissive path not on Ordnance Survey 
maps. On the other hand it could be just drawn by a 'local'. It would be *nice* 
for them to attribute, but I do think it is rather nice to see our maps being 
used in the real world in any case.

Nick

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Richard Fairhurst  systemed.net> writes:

>>What's not clear is how the ODbL+DbCL licence would help this 
>>situation. It would at least straightforwardly permit the publishing 
>>of map tiles without any attribution or share-alike requirement
>
>Disagree. (This has been gone over ad nauseam on legal-talk, I'm just
>pointing it out here for the record.)

Sorry, I didn't mean to spread misinformation.  Oh well, this was the one big
advantage of ODbL as far as I could see :-(.  So do the produced map tiles (a
Produced Work under the ODbL, I think, or am I mistaken there to?) have to be
distributed under the ODbL also - or can you use any distribution terms as long
as it has attribution - or what?

(I'd rather not *discuss* these legal niceties here on this list but if you 
could
forward the official word on these matters it would help.  It is a pity that 
it's
not completely idiot-proof and obvious from the licence text itself.)

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

Frederik Ramm writes:
 > No. To get access to (at least TeleAtlas's or Navteq's) data you will 
 > have to sign an agreement that binds you to much more than just plain 
 > copyright.

Did you sign an agreement to use your personal navigation device?
Almost certainly not. So what's to stop you from reverse-engineering
the data files, and publishing them?

Copyright.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 5:54 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> Ed,
>
> Ed Avis wrote:
>>
>> Yes, and the fact that if they did try to claim they could copy the OSM
>> map
>> data, then their own maps would equally well be copyable.
>
> No. To get access to (at least TeleAtlas's or Navteq's) data you will have
> to sign an agreement that binds you to much more than just plain copyright.

If the data were public domain, it'd only take a single anonymous
individual to get the data and upload it to Bittorrent, though.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> I doubt we have to worry about Google, Tele Atlas or Navteq consistently and
> deliberately using OSM data under the current licence. For them, it's not
> about the law one way or another: it's about reputation risk. No matter if
> we have CC-favoured "community norms" on top of a PD waiver, ODbL+CT, or
> CC-BY-SA, for these three companies, being seen to "do the wrong thing" in
> their key market would be a sufficient disincentive.

Google seemed to have no problem with the reputation risk of violating
the copyrights of thousands of book authors.

> It's everyone else who we have to worry about.

Worry about?  What exactly is there to worry about?

> In the last couple of months,
> I've personally noticed a national railway company, a charity with a
> turnover of >£100m, a vast firm of couriers, a magazine publisher, a book
> publisher, all infringing our requirements/requests for attribution and
> share-alike. (I've spotted these by chance: I don't go out there looking for
> this stuff.) Deliberate? In some cases, definitely. You wouldn't put an
> entirely fictitious credit to another organisation if you were just innocent
> of the niceties.

Would a different license change this?  If so, why?

> No, Google, Tele Atlas and Navteq aren't infringing OSM's licence. Everyone
> else is, though.

Are they infringing the license, or are they following it in a way
that wasn't intended?

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ed Avis wrote:
> What's not clear is how the ODbL+DbCL licence would help this 
> situation. It would at least straightforwardly permit the publishing 
> of map tiles without any attribution or share-alike requirement

Disagree. (This has been gone over ad nauseam on legal-talk, I'm just
pointing it out here for the record.)

Richard



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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Ed,

Ed Avis wrote:

Yes, and the fact that if they did try to claim they could copy the OSM map
data, then their own maps would equally well be copyable.


No. To get access to (at least TeleAtlas's or Navteq's) data you will 
have to sign an agreement that binds you to much more than just plain 
copyright.


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Richard Fairhurst  systemed.net> writes:

>For them, it's not
>about the law one way or another: it's about reputation risk.

Yes, and the fact that if they did try to claim they could copy the OSM map
data, then their own maps would equally well be copyable.  Which would be great
for us, and bad for them.

>So Google, Tele Atlas and Navteq are, in my view, largely irrelevant to the
>licence discussion.

(except in so far as we may be able to influence them to contribute to OSM
or to free their own maps - which unfortunately doesn't appear to be much)
 
>It's everyone else who we have to worry about. In the last couple of months,
>I've personally noticed a national railway company, a charity with a
>turnover of >£100m, a vast firm of couriers, a magazine publisher, a book
>publisher, all infringing our requirements/requests for attribution and
>share-alike.

What's not clear is how the ODbL+DbCL licence would help this situation.
It would at least straightforwardly permit the publishing of map tiles without
any attribution or share-alike requirement, so we wouldn't have the work of
trying to track down and contact such infringers.  That is a bit of an odd
reason to switch to it, though, if the supposed purpose is to stop people
misusing the data.

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Kai Krueger]

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> 
> It's everyone else who we have to worry about. In the last couple of
> months, I've personally noticed a national railway company, a charity with
> a turnover of >£100m, a vast firm of couriers, a magazine publisher, a
> book publisher, all infringing our requirements/requests for attribution
> and share-alike. (I've spotted these by chance: I don't go out there
> looking for this stuff.) Deliberate? In some cases, definitely. You
> wouldn't put an entirely fictitious credit to another organisation if you
> were just innocent of the niceties.
> 
With the value of the data going up, no doubt, more and more companies will
try to infringe the (spirit of the) license. That would be the case even
with the strongest license. Take a look for example at the GPL. It has been
upheld in several court cases in a variety of jurisdictions and a variety of
settings. In contrast, I am not aware of a single court case, where the GPL
was deamed unenforceable. So that is kind of the strongest a license can be.
Nevertheless one regularly reads about cases where companies large and small
deliberately infringe on the GPL. Presumably as they hope that no one will
notice or bother to sue them.

So the question is possibly less how many people / companies try to infringe
on the license (that probably more reflects the value of the data then the
strength of the license), but how do they react once confronted with the
infringement, once one threatens legal action and ultimately how the case
would be decided in front of court, should it ever get that far.

Even though so far there haven't been any significant large scale
infringement's, if OSM continues to grow and thrive, eventually there will
very likely be one, independent of what license OSM is using.

At the moment beyond how people/companies react to "confrontation with
infringement" appears unknown for both CC-BY-SA as well as ODbL, although
one can hope and expect that ODbL is more enforceable given that it was
designed specifically for databases.

Btw. Given that there have been several cases of infringement of the license
by now, some of which OSMF has been involved in dealing with, what would be
the case where there was the most trouble in trying to enforce it and what
was their line of argument in their defense?



Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> 
> No, Google, Tele Atlas and Navteq aren't infringing OSM's licence.
> Everyone else is, though.
> 
Well, indirectly Google has infringed on OSM's license through one of their
"subsidiary" data providers (e.g. in Colombia) and I have heard of several
alleged other cases, although by the sounds of it, there was not enough
evidence to pursue it further.

Given the experience with large scale companies infringing on GPL code, it
wouldn't surprise me if eventually even Google, Tele Atlas and Navteq would
attempt it. However, that would likely take a lot longer. Alone the fact
that they would have to admit that OSM has better data then them, is likely
a deterrent for quite a while.

Kai 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Richard Fairhurst]

80n wrote:
> There is zero chance that any large organisation would try to use
> OSM's CC-BY-SA licensed map data and think that they would 
> get away with it.

I agree with you here FSVO "large".

I doubt we have to worry about Google, Tele Atlas or Navteq consistently and
deliberately using OSM data under the current licence. For them, it's not
about the law one way or another: it's about reputation risk. No matter if
we have CC-favoured "community norms" on top of a PD waiver, ODbL+CT, or
CC-BY-SA, for these three companies, being seen to "do the wrong thing" in
their key market would be a sufficient disincentive. Plus, of course, TA/NT
sure as hell aren't going to use OSM and therefore undermine their sole
selling point - "to get good data, you have to pay professionals".

So Google, Tele Atlas and Navteq are, in my view, largely irrelevant to the
licence discussion.

It's everyone else who we have to worry about. In the last couple of months,
I've personally noticed a national railway company, a charity with a
turnover of >£100m, a vast firm of couriers, a magazine publisher, a book
publisher, all infringing our requirements/requests for attribution and
share-alike. (I've spotted these by chance: I don't go out there looking for
this stuff.) Deliberate? In some cases, definitely. You wouldn't put an
entirely fictitious credit to another organisation if you were just innocent
of the niceties.

No, Google, Tele Atlas and Navteq aren't infringing OSM's licence. Everyone
else is, though.

cheers
Richard



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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Tobias Knerr]

ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen wrote:
>
>> If this is what you have been complaining about then you have half
>> missed the point.
>> There are people who have chosen NOT TO USE OSM because of legal
>> ambigutity and points in the CC-BY-SA license which we (some?) in the
>> community chose to ignore.
>
> So we need to change then ? Tell them to reconsiderate
> there legal model. OSM gives, they receive !
> I am perfectly happy with someone deciding NOT to use
> what we have to offer !!! 

On the one hand you suggest that one should stop "creating free data, if
at the same time you restrict it's free-ness". On the other hand you
oppose removing existing restrictions of the free-ness of our data that
actually prevent people from using that supposedly free data.

Is there any consistent motivation underlying your arguments beyond not
wanting to change anything?

Tobias Knerr

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen]

So we need to change then ? Tell them to reconsiderate
there legal model. OSM gives, they receive !
I am perfectly happy with someone deciding NOT to use
what we have to offer !!! 

>If this is what you have been complaining about then you have half
>missed the point.
>There are people who have chosen NOT TO USE OSM because of legal
>ambigutity and points in the CC-BY-SA license which we (some?) in the
>community chose to ignore.


Regards
 Grant

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen]

+1

-Oorspronkelijk bericht-
Van: Russ Nelson [mailto:nel...@crynwr.com] 
Verzonden: zaterdag 16 april 2011 21:18
Aan: Frederik Ramm
CC: talk@openstreetmap.org
Onderwerp: Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3
Pre-Announcement

Frederik Ramm writes:
 > It only takes *one* example to take all our data and feed it into
some 
 > proprietary giant's database.

Worry about the license less and map more. The more we map, the more
value there is in participating in the community as a peer rather than
a parasite.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[ce-test, qualified testing bv - Gert Gremmen]

uation is so serious, there should surely be plenty of examples
> by now.

>It only takes *one* example to take all our data and feed it into some 
>proprietary giant's database. Would you prefer to wait? Or even: If you

>were a member of the OSMF board entrusted with our data's safe keeping,

>would you prefer to wait? And then, when users complain, you'd say: "Oh

>well, lawyers told me back in 2008 that this would happen but I figured

>I'd rather not upset the apple cart"?


I would not have a problem with that. 

OSM will still be there and the world will have better data on average.
And free data cannot be exploited commercially, unless improved.
But the thieve won't have the community behind it to maintain the stolen
data 
and OSM would.
Please stop creating free data, if at the same time you restrict it's
free-ness.


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Tobias Knerr]

Am 17.04.2011 06:04, schrieb Russ Nelson:
> Tobias Knerr writes:
>  > Personally, I don't want to sue anyone.
> 
> Then you should put the public domain notice into your Wiki page, so
> that everyone knows that you won't sue them under any circumstances.
> I'm not asking you to do anything that I haven't already done.

You are right, and I've done that roughly 2.5 years ago.

> Then let's add a permission to the CC-By-SA which says "We won't sue if
> you only attribute the project."

> Then let's add permissions to the CC-By-SA which say "We won't sue if
> you combine this work with other licenses. Here are the
> characteristics of those license which we deem acceptable."

> Then let's add permissions to the CC-By-SA which say "I also grant the
> OSMF permission to grant further permissions."

This doesn't work if our data contains contributions from people or
organizations who are using plain CC BY-SA. Luckily, there is a legal
mechanism that makes all that possible: Contributor Terms.

> None of these are arguments for the CT+ODbL. They are arguments for
> granting extra permissions to current licensees.
>
> The REAL purpose of
> the CT+ODbL is to be a bigger stick with which we can beat up OSM
> users.

The CT are what makes it possible for OSMF to grant all these additional
permissions you mentioned.

The ODbL license then actually grants these permissions to our users.

So I think that the desirability of these permissions is actually a very
good argument for introducing the CT, and for using the additional
rights granted to OSMF in order to publish the data under ODbL terms.

They are not arguments for no longer making the data available under the
terms of CC BY-SA in addition to ODbL, but they weren't meant to be.

Tobias Knerr

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

andrzej zaborowski  gmail.com> writes:

>I know a relatively big project that's currently using OSM data under
>CC-By-SA and may be in a nasty surprise when they find OSM is no
>longer suitable.

Fortunately, there is an easy way to fix this: keep CC-BY-SA available as an
option in addition to ODbL.

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Grant Slater  firefishy.com> writes:

>There are people who have chosen NOT TO USE OSM because of legal
>ambigutity and points in the CC-BY-SA license which we (some?) in the
>community chose to ignore.

This is a good reason to introduce a new licence but it's not a reason against
keeping the old one as a dual-licensing option for those who do prefer it.

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 1:13 AM, andrzej zaborowski  wrote:
> On 17 April 2011 01:53, David Murn  wrote:
>> On Sat, 2011-04-16 at 23:36 +0100, 80n wrote:
>>> Do you think that Google haven't considered the possibilty of
>>> incorporating OSM data into their MapMaker database?  Why do you think
>>> they haven't?  Perhaps our data is not good enough for them?  Or
>>> perhaps, legally, they don't think they have the right?
>>
>> I think the 'not good' enough argument pretty much hits the nail on the
>> head.  As great as our data may be, any commercial entity probably has
>> access to similar data, which they can probably get with some sort of
>> quality assurance guarantee.  If google wants maps of a city/town/state,
>> they just goto the government of the area and get it.  They know its
>> complete, they know its accurate, they know if theres a problem with the
>> data that theres only one source to contact.
>
> That's not true everywhere, for example all of the places where google
> enabled Map Maker.

I'm not sure that it's true anywhere.  What government provides
no-cost data which is useful for routing?

I think the best explanation for why Google hasn't blatantly and
openly (*) assimilated all of OSM's data, is that they aren't sure
they can do so legally.  Sure, OSM is incomplete and contains errors,
but lots of the public domain government data that Google has
assimilated is incomplete and contains errors.

(*) I'm not sure they aren't using OSM to extent some extent, such as
to find possible errors to flag for manual review, without publicizing
it.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[andrzej zaborowski]

On 17 April 2011 01:53, David Murn  wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-04-16 at 23:36 +0100, 80n wrote:
>> Do you think that Google haven't considered the possibilty of
>> incorporating OSM data into their MapMaker database?  Why do you think
>> they haven't?  Perhaps our data is not good enough for them?  Or
>> perhaps, legally, they don't think they have the right?
>
> I think the 'not good' enough argument pretty much hits the nail on the
> head.  As great as our data may be, any commercial entity probably has
> access to similar data, which they can probably get with some sort of
> quality assurance guarantee.  If google wants maps of a city/town/state,
> they just goto the government of the area and get it.  They know its
> complete, they know its accurate, they know if theres a problem with the
> data that theres only one source to contact.

That's not true everywhere, for example all of the places where google
enabled Map Maker.  It also must have not been true in Columbia where
the google map data supplier used OSM and Google had no concerns with
completness or quality guarantees.

Cheers

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 12:04 AM, Russ Nelson  wrote:
> Tobias Knerr writes:
>  > Russ Nelson wrote:
>  > > Unless somebody has a theory under which there will be more mappers
>  > > suing more users, the only rational conclusion can be that the license
>  > > change will hurt OSM, and not help it at all.
>  >
>  > I wonder why you believe that the only way a license change can possibly
>  > help OSM is by allowing us to sue more users of our data.
>
> A license is a threat to sue plus a list of reasons why you won't
> that threat out.

Where are you getting this from?

"The verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun
license (American English) or licence (British English) refers to that
permission as well as to the document recording that permission."

A license is a permission, not a threat.

>  > Personally, I don't want to sue anyone.
>
> Then you should put the public domain notice into your Wiki page, so
> that everyone knows that you won't sue them under any circumstances.
> I'm not asking you to do anything that I haven't already done.

Even if you don't personally want to sue anyone, licensing under
CC-BY-SA still be better than PD in that it can help avoid you
yourself getting sued.

Personally, I don't want to sue anyone.  But I'd certainly be willing
to threaten to countersue someone who threatened to sue me.  Sort of a
mutual assured destruction strategy of lawsuit avoidance.

CC-BY-SA is the closest popular license to putting up a notice which
says "I won't sue you, as long as you don't sue me or anyone else".
That's much better IMO than a notice which says "I won't sue you no
matter what".

CC-SA (i.e. Sharealike 1.0,
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sa/1.0/) was even better in that
regard.  But unfortunately, it never caught on.

>  > However, I want to unambiguously have the right to publish an OSM
>  > based map that doesn't provide attribution for every single mapper.
>
> Then let's add a permission to the CC-By-SA which says "We won't sue if
> you only attribute the project."

I'm not sure what this whole "attribute the project" stuff is about,
as CC-BY-SA 3.0 already contains provisions allowing you to only
attribute the project.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

Tobias Knerr writes:
 > Russ Nelson wrote:
 > > Unless somebody has a theory under which there will be more mappers
 > > suing more users, the only rational conclusion can be that the license
 > > change will hurt OSM, and not help it at all.
 > 
 > I wonder why you believe that the only way a license change can possibly
 > help OSM is by allowing us to sue more users of our data.

A license is a threat to sue plus a list of reasons why you won't
that threat out.

 > Personally, I don't want to sue anyone.

Then you should put the public domain notice into your Wiki page, so
that everyone knows that you won't sue them under any circumstances.
I'm not asking you to do anything that I haven't already done.

 > However, I want to unambiguously have the right to publish an OSM
 > based map that doesn't provide attribution for every single mapper.

Then let's add a permission to the CC-By-SA which says "We won't sue if
you only attribute the project."

 > I also consider improved compatibility with other licenses for
 > produced works a welcome benefit.

Then let's add permissions to the CC-By-SA which say "We won't sue if
you combine this work with other licenses. Here are the
characteristics of those license which we deem acceptable."

 > And I'm almost certain that the legal and social environment in
 > which we operate will change during the next decades, so it would
 > be nice to be able to react to them by modifying the terms under
 > which we publish our maps; preferably without losing orders of
 > magnitudes more data than we might now.

Then let's add permissions to the CC-By-SA which say "I also grant the
OSMF permission to grant further permissions."

 > Some also think that the shift of share-alike from works onto data
 > makes sense, and I think that they have good arguments for that
 > position.
 > 
 > Clearly, there are a lot of advantages provided by the CT+ODbL that have
 > nothing at all to do with legal action against our users.

None of these are arguments for the CT+ODbL. They are arguments for
granting extra permissions to current licensees. The REAL purpose of
the CT+ODbL is to be a bigger stick with which we can beat up OSM
users.

-- 
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Crynwr supports open source software
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 6:36 PM, 80n <80n...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 10:25 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
>> I would like a big player with a big legal department - say, for example,
>> Navteq - grabbing our data for a reasonably well mapped place, perhaps a
>> city only, incorporating it into their data set in way that it either
>> obvious (i.e. we can easily prove that they did it), or maybe they even
>> admit it.
>
> We've waited five years for this to happen.  CC-BY-SA licensed data is
> clearly not very attractive to these people.  Perhaps the quality of
> the data is not good enough for them?  Or perhaps they realise that it
> would be a net loss for them to infringe copyright.

Navteq would be in a lose-lose situation:

1) They lose the case, and have to release their data under CC-BY-SA.
2) They win the case, by successfully arguing that all data (including
theirs) is public domain.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 4:29 AM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> The CT contain this clause whereby it becomes impossible to do what Dermot
> writes above - if 2/3 of mappers agree to use another free and open license,
> then that is the new license and everyone's data is changed to that new
> license.

That's not what the CT says.  The CT says that OSMF can use "one or
more of the following licences".  If 2/3 of mappers agree to use
another free and open license, then OSMF can use that other license.
Or OSMF can choose not to use that other license.  Or OSMF can use
that other license *and* one or more of the explicitly listed
licenses.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Anthony]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Russ Nelson  wrote:
> Mike N writes:
>  >    Even a proper reversion script will cause much collateral damage for
>  > the cases I'm aware of.
>
> The whole point behind having a license is to be able to sue people
> who violate it.

You've got it exactly backwards.  The whole point of having a free
license is to waive the right to sue people who follow it.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[David Murn]

On Sat, 2011-04-16 at 23:36 +0100, 80n wrote:

> Do you think that Google haven't considered the possibilty of
> incorporating OSM data into their MapMaker database?  Why do you think
> they haven't?  Perhaps our data is not good enough for them?  Or
> perhaps, legally, they don't think they have the right?

I think the 'not good' enough argument pretty much hits the nail on the
head.  As great as our data may be, any commercial entity probably has
access to similar data, which they can probably get with some sort of
quality assurance guarantee.  If google wants maps of a city/town/state,
they just goto the government of the area and get it.  They know its
complete, they know its accurate, they know if theres a problem with the
data that theres only one source to contact.

> There is zero chance that any large organisation would try to use
> OSM's CC-BY-SA licensed map data and think that they would get away
> with it.

This may also be because the owners of the CC-BY-SA data, arent
necessarily individuals.  In the Australian case, if someone tried to
use the Australian OSM data without attribution, it wouldnt just be an
individual user who was interested in suing, but quite possibly several
government departments and organisations who have supplied this licenced
data.  I doubt the ABS will be too keen on hearing of people using their
data without attribution.

David


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[andrzej zaborowski]

Hi,

On 17 April 2011 01:22, Tobias Knerr  wrote:
> Personally, I don't want to sue anyone. However, I want to unambiguously
> have the right to publish an OSM based map that doesn't provide
> attribution for every single mapper. I also consider improved
> compatibility with other licenses for produced works a welcome benefit.
> And I'm almost certain that the legal and social environment in which we
> operate will change during the next decades, so it would be nice to be
> able to react to them by modifying the terms under which we publish our
> maps; preferably without losing orders of magnitudes more data than we
> might now. Some also think that the shift of share-alike from works onto
> data makes sense, and I think that they have good arguments for that
> position.

It probably makes sense (although both things may be desired
sometimes).  But while the new license might allow new users to take
advantage of OSM it'll also take it away from some existing users
because ODbL is not compatible with CC-By-SA in either direction.  I
know a relatively big project that's currently using OSM data under
CC-By-SA and may be in a nasty surprise when they find OSM is no
longer suitable.

Cheers

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[David Murn]

On Sat, 2011-04-16 at 18:00 +0200, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 04/16/2011 05:40 PM, Graham Jones wrote:
> ... it is not clear whether OS Opendata in the UK, or Nearmap in
> > Austrailia is compatible.   I would have expected these issues to be
> > resolved before forcing people to re-licence.
> 
> Isn't it funny how, just over a year ago, we couldn't care less about 
> anything the Ordnace Survey did, and suddenly we are a project that must 
> choose their license according to what is compatible with OS?

If OS used some obscure licence and someone suggested changing to it,
then youd get people asking the same thing.  The thing is, these
services arent using obscure licences, theyre using a very common one.
Becoming incompatible with CC-BY-SA doesnt just mean that you lose one
source, or two sources, it means that you lose compatibility with
hundreds.

> I say to you the same I said to Ian - even if OSMF would publish what 
> mechanism they plan to use (and I'm pretty sure they don't have one 
> yet), then that mechanism would not become part of the contract and it 
> could be changed at any later time, say, after majorities in the OSMF 
> board have changed after the next election or something.

Silly me.  Silly me for thinking that we here at OSM believed in the
meaning of the O in OSM.  Incase the OSMF board has forgotten, the O
means Open, it doesnt mean you can pick and choose what they choose to
allow the community to see.  Wouldnt this have been a good thing to
start planning, like, when it was first realised that it was needed?
We've been complaining about these issues for years, and people like
yourself have been telling dissenters to shut the hell up.  Now that the
time has come, the 'foundation' is only just realising the issues that
the rest of us raised years ago and are now chasing their tails trying
to setup these mechanisms in the space of a day or two rather than a
year or two.

> I'm sorry but I think you can either trust people to do the right thing 
> or not trust them, but nobody will give you a written statement (or if 
> they do it won't be worth much).

Isnt that a problem with contract law?  OSMF could give you a written
statement, which might be suitably legally compatible in 2 or 3
countries, but not in the rest of the world.  Compare this to the
current situation where the current licence is accepted around the
world, with 2 or 3 exceptions.  Wouldnt it be easier to resovle the
issues in those couple of countries where they exist, than to find a
contract which has to be worded properly (if thats even possible) to
comply with every user's nation's laws.

David



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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Tobias Knerr]

Russ Nelson wrote:
> Unless somebody has a theory under which there will be more mappers
> suing more users, the only rational conclusion can be that the license
> change will hurt OSM, and not help it at all.

I wonder why you believe that the only way a license change can possibly
help OSM is by allowing us to sue more users of our data.

Personally, I don't want to sue anyone. However, I want to unambiguously
have the right to publish an OSM based map that doesn't provide
attribution for every single mapper. I also consider improved
compatibility with other licenses for produced works a welcome benefit.
And I'm almost certain that the legal and social environment in which we
operate will change during the next decades, so it would be nice to be
able to react to them by modifying the terms under which we publish our
maps; preferably without losing orders of magnitudes more data than we
might now. Some also think that the shift of share-alike from works onto
data makes sense, and I think that they have good arguments for that
position.

Clearly, there are a lot of advantages provided by the CT+ODbL that have
nothing at all to do with legal action against our users.

Tobias Knerr

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2011 23:50:03 +0100
Grant Slater  wrote:

> If this is what you have been complaining about then you have half
> missed the point.
> There are people who have chosen NOT TO USE OSM because of legal
> ambigutity and points in the CC-BY-SA license which we (some?) in the
> community chose to ignore.

Thanks for that Grant.
Those people have a right to do so, and they are free to do so.
I'm glad you are not forcing people to use OSM.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2011 11:20:27 -0400
Russ Nelson  wrote:

> I think Frederick gave you the best answer possible. It's not that the
> community was *asked* by some overarching committee, but instead that
> it just floated up. Like a turd in the toilet. Frankly, I never
> thought it would come to actually deleting data. I always thought that
> that was OBVIOUSLY so insane that *somebody* would have killed the
> idea of relicensing.
> 
> The trouble is, is that, just as no one person is responsible for
> creating the idea, no one person has the ability to kill it. Maybe
> SteveC, but he's convinced that Google is going to steal our data. As
> if our data had any value once separated from the community that keeps
> it alive.
> -russ


One of my questions, waiting a very long time for an answer, is
"What are the instructions of the OSMF Board to the Licensing Working
Group" 
A corporate structure sets up committees. The Board gives the
committee a set of instructions. The committees are answerable to the
Board. 
Now was the instruction "find out if we need a new licence, and if so
look around for one" or was it "find a way to put the OSM data under
this new licence".
>From there it will be quite evident exactly which group of persons made
this decision.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:02:16 +0200
Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> We have a situation where those who have spent time with it, and
> talked to lawyers and all, are positively sure that we do not have a
> working status quo. Doing nothing is not an option. In licensing
> terms, this house is on fire. Day after day we're violating our own
> license and making promises that we cannot keep.

Can you swap the flowery language for facts?

Please give examples.

I assure you, that my government has chosen CC licences for the release
of its own data, and that they can spend far more on lawyers than OSMF
ever will. I cannot believe that "the house is on fire".

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Grant Slater]

On 16 April 2011 23:36, 80n <80n...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 10:25 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
>> I would like a big player with a big legal department - say, for example,
>> Navteq - grabbing our data for a reasonably well mapped place, perhaps a
>> city only, incorporating it into their data set in way that it either
>> obvious (i.e. we can easily prove that they did it), or maybe they even
>> admit it.
>
> We've waited five years for this to happen.  CC-BY-SA licensed data is
> clearly not very attractive to these people.  Perhaps the quality of
> the data is not good enough for them?  Or perhaps they realise that it
> would be a net loss for them to infringe copyright.
>

If this is what you have been complaining about then you have half
missed the point.
There are people who have chosen NOT TO USE OSM because of legal
ambigutity and points in the CC-BY-SA license which we (some?) in the
community chose to ignore.

Good read and background: "Facilitating Collaboration On Geospatial
Data Using Social and Legal Norms" -
http://www.nyls.edu/user_files/1/3/4/30/58/1134/DatabaseLicensing_110207.pdf

Regards
 Grant

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

80n writes:
 > The only thing that has happened so far is
 > that the license change process has been so protracted that it has
 > damaged OSM much more than any imagined threat could possibly have
 > done.

Here, here! If anybody is SO bored that fiddling with the license
seems like fun, come edit with me: Wayne, Livingston, Tioga, and
Orleans counties in New York State (bad TIGER digi). Armchair mapping
FTW, license fiddling FTL.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | Sheepdog   

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

Frederik Ramm writes:
 > On 04/16/2011 10:35 PM, Ed Avis wrote:
 > > what, exactly, would persuade you
 > > that this isn't a realistic possibility?
 > 
 > I would like a big player with a big legal department - say, for 
 > example, Navteq - grabbing our data for a reasonably well mapped place, 

I suggest that that hasn't happened because it won't happen because
they're in the same boat as we are, and it isn't sensible to start
drilling holes in OSM's side of the board. Or as Ed suggests, maybe
their big legal department knows something you don't know?

To misquote Jesse Vincent (of Best Practical and thus RT fame):

 Shut The Fuck Up and Make Some Maps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mn_francis/917796606/

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | Sheepdog   

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[80n]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 10:25 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> I would like a big player with a big legal department - say, for example,
> Navteq - grabbing our data for a reasonably well mapped place, perhaps a
> city only, incorporating it into their data set in way that it either
> obvious (i.e. we can easily prove that they did it), or maybe they even
> admit it.

We've waited five years for this to happen.  CC-BY-SA licensed data is
clearly not very attractive to these people.  Perhaps the quality of
the data is not good enough for them?  Or perhaps they realise that it
would be a net loss for them to infringe copyright.

>Then I would like someone who has contributed data in that area to
> sue them, and I would like the lawsuit to have an outcome that hurts the big
> player (e.g. either that they have to pay a lot of money or that they have
> to release all their data or all their customers who used that data have to
> release whatever they built on top or something).

So far any copyright infringer has backed down gracefully rather than
risk it.  If the took legal advice then they were presumably advised
that it was wasn't a good bet.

Do you think that Google haven't considered the possibilty of
incorporating OSM data into their MapMaker database?  Why do you think
they haven't?  Perhaps our data is not good enough for them?  Or
perhaps, legally, they don't think they have the right?

There is zero chance that any large organisation would try to use
OSM's CC-BY-SA licensed map data and think that they would get away
with it.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[80n]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 7:47 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> Ed,
>
> On 04/16/2011 06:58 PM, Ed Avis wrote:
>>
>> Since the situation is so serious, there should surely be plenty of
>> examples
>> by now.
>
> It only takes *one* example to take all our data and feed it into some
> proprietary giant's database. Would you prefer to wait? Or even: If you were
> a member of the OSMF board entrusted with our data's safe keeping, would you
> prefer to wait? And then, when users complain, you'd say: "Oh well, lawyers
> told me back in 2008 that this would happen but I figured I'd rather not
> upset the apple cart"?

Show us just one example then please.

We've been waiting for this predicted catastrophe for several years
now.  It hasn't happened.  The only thing that has happened so far is
that the license change process has been so protracted that it has
damaged OSM much more than any imagined threat could possibly have
done.

Wake up Frederik.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[andrzej zaborowski]

On 16 April 2011 23:37, Ed Avis  wrote:
> Frederik Ramm  remote.org> writes:
>
>>I would like a big player with a big legal department - say, for
>>example, Navteq - grabbing our data for a reasonably well mapped place,
>>perhaps a city only, incorporating it into their data set in way that it
>>either obvious (i.e. we can easily prove that they did it), or maybe
>>they even admit it. Then I would like someone who has contributed data
>>in that area to sue them, and I would like the lawsuit to have an
>>outcome that hurts the big player
>
> Hmm... so the fact that such grabbing of data has never occurred does not 
> count
> as evidence for you.  This is problematic, since in general things only go to
> court if the legal status is questionable.  If it's reasonably certain, the 
> side
> that's in the wrong will back down long before then.  For example, I don't 
> think
> the GNU GPL has ever gone to court.

Yes it has.  Harald Welte's gpl-violations.org has hundreds of cases
resolved successfully either in court or outside, including some very
big software and hardware companies.

Cheers

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Tom Hughes]

On 16/04/11 22:37, Ed Avis wrote:


Hmm... so the fact that such grabbing of data has never occurred does not count
as evidence for you.  This is problematic, since in general things only go to
court if the legal status is questionable.  If it's reasonably certain, the side
that's in the wrong will back down long before then.  For example, I don't think
the GNU GPL has ever gone to court.


Then you think wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gpl#The_GPL_in_court

Tom

--
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http://compton.nu/

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Frederik Ramm  remote.org> writes:

>I would like a big player with a big legal department - say, for 
>example, Navteq - grabbing our data for a reasonably well mapped place, 
>perhaps a city only, incorporating it into their data set in way that it 
>either obvious (i.e. we can easily prove that they did it), or maybe 
>they even admit it. Then I would like someone who has contributed data 
>in that area to sue them, and I would like the lawsuit to have an 
>outcome that hurts the big player

Hmm... so the fact that such grabbing of data has never occurred does not count
as evidence for you.  This is problematic, since in general things only go to
court if the legal status is questionable.  If it's reasonably certain, the side
that's in the wrong will back down long before then.  For example, I don't think
the GNU GPL has ever gone to court.

There are however plenty of test cases involving copying of maps and map data,
including in the United States.  As I understand it these broadly support
copyrightability of maps, although the case law for something like a phone
directory is quite different.  Anyway, we've been over that before.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 10:35 PM, Ed Avis wrote:

what, exactly, would persuade you
that this isn't a realistic possibility?


I would like a big player with a big legal department - say, for 
example, Navteq - grabbing our data for a reasonably well mapped place, 
perhaps a city only, incorporating it into their data set in way that it 
either obvious (i.e. we can easily prove that they did it), or maybe 
they even admit it. Then I would like someone who has contributed data 
in that area to sue them, and I would like the lawsuit to have an 
outcome that hurts the big player (e.g. either that they have to pay a 
lot of money or that they have to release all their data or all their 
customers who used that data have to release whatever they built on top 
or something).


And preferably I would like all this to take place in a non-European 
country with a reasonably well developed rule of law, e.g. the USA.


If that happened, then I would be convinced that our data was indeed 
well protected by CC-BY-SA. It would still not be great (because it 
takes an individual to sue, and OSMF can't) but it would be sufficient.


Bye
Frederik


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 09:21 PM, Kevin Peat wrote:

Thanks for your thoughtful answer. It is certainly a lot more detailed
than anything I have read before. My first impression is how can a
process with so many grey areas possibly result in a cleanly licensed
dataset?


I assume that decisions will only be made globally where things are 
crystal clear, or where lawyers have been consulted beforehand (e.g. in 
my "created_by does not count as creative enough to warrant copyright" 
example).


Regarding all other cases: In OSM we must *always* rely on our community 
when it comes to the question of whether our dataset is cleanly licensed 
or not. The laws of probability dictate that a certain amount of our 
data will always be not-cleanly-licensed, today as well as at any time 
in the future. Today, users can use a copyrighted map to enter data even 
though we tell them not to, and the license change will not make that go 
away. When, in the course of the license change, community members are 
asked to judge if a certain object meets the criteria for inclusion, 
they can lie, or err, just as they can with respect to their sources 
today. We can take measures to reduce that risk, we can educate them, we 
can advise caution, but we can never eliminate the risk.


Because we cannot avoid the occasional mistake in licensing, we have to 
be responsive if someone claims that their rights have been violated; we 
have to investigate, respect their rights, and delete the infringing 
data if the claim is legitimate. This has happened a number of times in 
the past and will certainly continue to happen.


I don't expect the license change to change the size or amount of such 
problems, but if they arise they can be fixed.


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Tobias Knerr]

Ed Avis wrote:
> Might it not be possible, given that there are many firms with more than 
> capable
> legal departments, who are more than capable of taking advantage of such a
> loophole, that there is slightly more to it than the simple mantra of 'our
> licence does not apply'?

Yes, there is more to it: Our data isn't consistently better than that
of any of the big map providers.

In addition, the risk is still rather high that a license change would
happen soon after such an incident, and the dataset under the old
license would quickly become outdated.

So any reasonably intelligent evil company™ would wait until there is
more data up for grabs, and until it has become so hard for us to change
our license that we cannot even do so in order to defend against obvious
abuse.

Or, of course, our license and/or concerns about bad publicity are
actually sufficient to "protect" our data. But the lack of incidents
until now doesn't really tell us whether that's the case.

Tobias Knerr

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Kevin Peat  kevinpeat.com> writes:

>My first impression is how can a process with so many grey areas possibly 
>result
>in a cleanly licensed dataset?

I doubt that it can.  This is one additional reason to continue offering the old
licence as a dual-licence option.  Those users of the map who are a bit legally
paranoid and want to be certain that no contributor can complain, can continue
to use CC-BY-SA.  (There is of course the problem of plagiarized data, as now.)
Those who are a bit more adventurous and don't mind the grey areas relating to
object history and what derives from what, can make use of the new things the
ODbL provides, such as the ability to make map tiles and distribute them under
whatever licence you want without having to give attribution.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Sorry my last message was a bit intemperate.

What I should have asked was this: if you still believe that some big firm can
'rip off' the OSM map data with impunity, despite the fact that this
conspicuously has not happened (the opposite in fact - our licence is 
universally
respected among large map data players) - then what, exactly, would persuade you
that this isn't a realistic possibility?

In other words, is your belief falsifiable in any way?

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Frederik, do you mean to say that after all these years of the project you
haven't seen a single example of any company - large or small - taking the OSM
data and being legally untouchable?

Might it not be possible, given that there are many firms with more than capable
legal departments, who are more than capable of taking advantage of such a
loophole, that there is slightly more to it than the simple mantra of 'our
licence does not apply'?

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Graham Jones]

So hard to know which message to reply to in this very long chain.   I'll
try to pick out the main points in response to my message:

*Ordnance Survey Open Data*:  As far as I am aware our current licence etc
is compatible with the OS licence, so by changing ours, we are making a
conscious decision to move to a licence which *may* not be compatible with
OS's.   I understood from last time I asked about this that we were getting
some legal advice on it, but I have not seen a response.
As someone (Kevin I think) said, there are large chunks of the UK that
appear to have been traced from this data, so deleting it would be quite a
backwards step, and I would not support a course of action that would mean
deleting that data.
[The minor point about 'us' not being interested in what OS did a year ago
is not true for me - I, like several OSM people contributed to the
government consultation that resulted in the release of the data]

*Process*:  In my day job, if I want to implement a project I have to go
through a process with decision gates between stages - concept, development,
implementation etc.   In this process it feels like we are at the gate
between the development and implementation stages, but it is not at all
clear to me how we will make the decision that the damage to the dataset is
worth the benefit of the new licence.  [I accept that it may not be 'we' the
whole community that makes the final decision - it may be the LWG or the
OSMF board, I don't know].

It feels to me that the 'accept' button is my last hold on the process.   It
is not that I do not trust whoever is going to make the decision, but I do
not know who will make the decision, or what principles they will use to
make it.   If I knew this (especially the tolerance to data loss), I would
be happy to accept.   I am disappointed that we have got to this stage
without having such things specified.

I get the impression that most people responding to these queries are not
members of the LWG or OSMF board (my apologies if I am wrong) - a response
from people who are actually running the process, rather than well meaning
people who are not directly involved would be appreciated.

Regards


Graham.

On 16 April 2011 19:42, Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> On 04/16/2011 07:47 PM, Kevin Peat wrote:
>
>> Such as is it the LWG's intention to make the
>> license/ct's compatible with OS Opendata? If it isn't then all those
>> people currently tracing thousands of roads a week in the UK might as
>> well take a break and get some fresh air.
>>
>
> If people are indeed doing that then I would *definitely* suggest the fresh
> air option, no matter what we intend to do license-wise; see recent imports
> discussion on talk-gb ("Adding a further 250,000 roads quickly using a
> Bot").
>
>
>  After so many years, someone must surely have given at least a bit of
>> thought to how removing incompatible/un-relicensed contributions might
>> be handled?
>>
>
> Yes, certainly. As a non-LWG-member but avid reader of legal talk, and
> someone who can add two and two together, I can say the following with some
> certainty:
>
> * Data that has been created/modified only by people who agree to the
> license change will be kept unchanged. If someone should later complain
> nonetheless (e.g. "I have created and not relicensed A road and B road, and
> this pub which is at the intersection is definitely a derived work, I demand
> it must be removed") then such data might be removed.
>
> * A mechanism will be devised to determine the splitting and merging of
> ways and take that into account, i.e. if a way has been created by someone
> who doesn't agree, but later split in two by someone else, then methods will
> be found to make sure the partial way newly created by the split will not
> count as "created/modified only by people who agree".
>
> * Data that has been created/modified only by people who do not agree to
> the license change will not be kept in the new data base. If other data
> depends on this then that other data must be modified accordingly (e.g. a
> node might have to be removed from a way).
>
> * There will be some mechanism to "remind" us that something is missing. It
> is totally unclear what form this will take; it might be a separate database
> that says "whithin this rectangle, 10 streets have been removed" (without
> saying what they are and where they were so as not to infringe the copyright
> of whoever did not relicense those streets), or it might be a "note" tag on
> a route relation saying "as part of the license change, 5 members of this
> route had to be removed" or so.
>
> * There will be mechanism that show us these things *long before* the
> license change actually happens so that we have a chance to go there and
> resurvey the area, manually deleting the not-relicensed objects in that
> area. (In fact this is already starting to happen in some places in Germany,
> where the work of known "objectors" is being replaced by new data -
> prematu

Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[andrzej zaborowski]

Hi,

On 16 April 2011 10:29, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> On 04/16/2011 02:05 AM, andrzej zaborowski wrote:
>> At this point it's only known that there's an unspecified non-zero
>> part of the community which wants OSM to switch license.  Not everyone
>> needs to be true to that part of the community just like not everyone
>> needs to be true to the part that wants OSM data in Public Domain or
>> the part that drinks coffee with milk etc.
>
> Let us try and separate the issue of license change from the issue of the CT
> for a moment. Let us assume that there was no immediate license change
> planned; that OSMF intended to continue using CC-BY-SA for now; and that
> they only sought CT agreement from mappers, in order to make a potential
> future license change easier.
>
> The CT contain this clause whereby it becomes impossible to do what Dermot
> writes above - if 2/3 of mappers agree to use another free and open license,
> then that is the new license and everyone's data is changed to that new
> license.
>
> I think that *that* is the major change here,

Yes.

> and I have outlined in the
> past that I believe that you cannot be a part of a crowdsourced mapping
> effort if you consider your contribution to be only "rented out" to the
> project. If you want to participate in OSM, where all the time others will
> build upon your work, then you cannot sensibly say "but if you decide to
> change your license later I might choose to take away my contribution". If
> you contribute to OSM, you pour a glass of water into an ocean. You cannot
> wrap that in plastic and label it "yours". I made a comparison with
> voluntary work in real-life communities; if you have spent a lot of time and
> love helping to build a nice playground for the village school but later the
> whole school decides to adopt some pedadogic direction of which you don't
> approve and you put your kid elsewhere, you cannot tear town the playground.
> It wouldn't be right (and it would be very unlikely to make you happy).
>
> Now if someone says "I'm willing to sign the CT on the condition that before
> OSMF switches to ODbL, they execute the exact license change procedure
> outlined in the CT, with asking 2/3 of active mappers etc.", then this is
> something I can understand and respect.
>
> I do however have the impression that there are some people for whom calling
> for a public vote is just another means to delay and hopefully derail the
> process, and secretly they never intended to continue supporting the project
> after a license change anyway.

That's possible but unlikely.  There are some reasons why the vote
would have been rather useless (which have been outlined in this
thread) but they're not really obvious and that's why perhaps it's
hard to realise.

>
> I have a suggestion, one which we could implement in true crowdsourced
> spirit and without any OSMF involvement. We simply draw up a document that
> is basically a modified version of the current contributor terms, which says
> "I am willing to make the following contract with OSMF on the additional
> condition of OSMF holding the 2/3 vote as described below before they change
> from ODbL to CC-BY-SA". We then devise some sort of sufficiently legally
> binding way for people to "sign" this document. Everyone who thinks that the
> CT are ok in principle but who would like a proper vote first, signs this
> document instead of the "real" CT.

But now you're talking about the license switch from CC-By-SA to ODbL
only and taking for granted that the switch from "linux model" to "FSF
model" is obviously good for the project.  Here are some reasons why
people might oppose that switch in the first place, and not because
they find it fun to troll mailing lists, but because they want the
project to succeed.  I'm personally quite ambivalent of ODbL and
CC-By-SA because the issues that decide which license would be better
for us, are so complex.

* The cost of switching is too high -- the community split, the
banning of a part of current mappers from mapping, the loss of data
that is already in our database.  It's simply quite late for the
switch with the little benefit that it brings.

* Under the new CTs (some versions of the document anyway... still
seems to be in flux), you may not be able to use (in OSM) data that
has been built on top of our OSM data by others.  For some of us this
means a failure of the share alike clause.  It's probably similar in
case of the FSF-hosted projects and mozilla/apache projects, but for
the majority of projects I know as free/open it would mean a failure.

* Other potential or real issues in the CTs, which is a contract
written by non-lawyers.  Mistakes have been found in both the CT and
the ODbL texts (and obviously in CC-By-SA text before that) after they
started to be in use.

* People in the "status quo fork" group are convinced that the current
model with no CTs and the CC-By-SA is good enough.  Taking the village
school playground example, it's not lik

Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Kevin Peat]

On 16 April 2011 19:42, Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> If people are indeed doing that then I would *definitely* suggest the fresh
> air option, no matter what we intend to do license-wise; see recent imports
> discussion on talk-gb ("Adding a further 250,000 roads quickly using a
> Bot").
>
> Over 2 ways were added in Britain in the last month (per ITO) and I
would think a fair proportion of these must be coming from the OS data.

...
>
> Most of what I wrote here hasn't been formally said by anyone in OSMF, but
> OSMF haven't fully thought this through either, and the above is simply the
> logical course to take given all the conditions and plans that *have* been
> discussed.
>
>
> Thanks for your thoughtful answer. It is certainly a lot more detailed than
anything I have read before. My first impression is how can a process with
so many grey areas possibly result in a cleanly licensed dataset?

Kevin
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

Frederik Ramm writes:
 > It only takes *one* example to take all our data and feed it into some 
 > proprietary giant's database.

Worry about the license less and map more. The more we map, the more
value there is in participating in the community as a peer rather than
a parasite.

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | Sheepdog   

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Ed,

On 04/16/2011 06:58 PM, Ed Avis wrote:

Since the situation is so serious, there should surely be plenty of examples
by now.


It only takes *one* example to take all our data and feed it into some 
proprietary giant's database. Would you prefer to wait? Or even: If you 
were a member of the OSMF board entrusted with our data's safe keeping, 
would you prefer to wait? And then, when users complain, you'd say: "Oh 
well, lawyers told me back in 2008 that this would happen but I figured 
I'd rather not upset the apple cart"?


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 07:47 PM, Kevin Peat wrote:

Such as is it the LWG's intention to make the
license/ct's compatible with OS Opendata? If it isn't then all those
people currently tracing thousands of roads a week in the UK might as
well take a break and get some fresh air.


If people are indeed doing that then I would *definitely* suggest the 
fresh air option, no matter what we intend to do license-wise; see 
recent imports discussion on talk-gb ("Adding a further 250,000 roads 
quickly using a Bot").



After so many years, someone must surely have given at least a bit of
thought to how removing incompatible/un-relicensed contributions might
be handled?


Yes, certainly. As a non-LWG-member but avid reader of legal talk, and 
someone who can add two and two together, I can say the following with 
some certainty:


* Data that has been created/modified only by people who agree to the 
license change will be kept unchanged. If someone should later complain 
nonetheless (e.g. "I have created and not relicensed A road and B road, 
and this pub which is at the intersection is definitely a derived work, 
I demand it must be removed") then such data might be removed.


* A mechanism will be devised to determine the splitting and merging of 
ways and take that into account, i.e. if a way has been created by 
someone who doesn't agree, but later split in two by someone else, then 
methods will be found to make sure the partial way newly created by the 
split will not count as "created/modified only by people who agree".


* Data that has been created/modified only by people who do not agree to 
the license change will not be kept in the new data base. If other data 
depends on this then that other data must be modified accordingly (e.g. 
a node might have to be removed from a way).


* There will be some mechanism to "remind" us that something is missing. 
It is totally unclear what form this will take; it might be a separate 
database that says "whithin this rectangle, 10 streets have been 
removed" (without saying what they are and where they were so as not to 
infringe the copyright of whoever did not relicense those streets), or 
it might be a "note" tag on a route relation saying "as part of the 
license change, 5 members of this route had to be removed" or so.


* There will be mechanism that show us these things *long before* the 
license change actually happens so that we have a chance to go there and 
resurvey the area, manually deleting the not-relicensed objects in that 
area. (In fact this is already starting to happen in some places in 
Germany, where the work of known "objectors" is being replaced by new 
data - premature action, I think, because people can still change their 
minds.)


* Data that has been created/modified by some people who do agree and 
others wo don't will have to be scrutinized. Some decisions can perhaps 
be made in an automated or semi-automated process; for example, assume 
that someone has removed the "created_by" tags of 100.000 nodes in one 
go - this is certainly not an act that warrants any copyright, so if 
that person is the only one in the history of the object to have not 
agreed then that will simply be ignored. Other cases will probably be 
more complex, and it is very likely that we will want to involve the 
community, i.e. there will be ways to "flag" objects with an unclear 
licensing status, there will be general guidelines issued by OSMF, and 
mappers will then be asked to decide for themselves wheter something can 
be copied or not (just like mappers today need to decide whether a 
source can be used or not). There will be likely some form of mechanism 
for recording such decisions, e.g. "mapper  decided on  that 
this object can be relicensed in spite of its unclear licensing status 
for the following reason: ..."


* It is likely that data from people who have explicitly said "no I 
don't relicense" will be treated differently from those who simply don't 
say anything. I could imagine - pure speculation on my part though! - a 
scene like this: The community in city X comes together and discusses 
prolific mapper Y, who hasn't been to the pub meet for the last year and 
hasn't made a decision regarding the license change. They don't know 
what happened to him but some mappers remember that he always said that 
he doesn't give a damn for intellectual property rights and he would 
prefer OSM to be PD. The mappers then decide to continue using his data 
in the relicensed database even though they don't have an explicit OK, 
knowing that if mapper Y should show up and say no they would have to 
remove his data later. This is a gamble that OSMF will certainly not 
make centrally but it might be possible locally.


* In general, just because an object has once in its history been 
touched by someone who doesn't agree to the new license doesn't mean it 
cannot be kept; just the information added in that one step cannot be kept.


When it comes not to individual

Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[M∡rtin Koppenhoefer]

2011/4/16 Kevin Peat :
> ... all those people currently tracing thousands
> of roads a week in the UK might as well take a break and get some fresh air.


fresh air is not the worst ingredient to OSMapping.

cheers,
Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Kevin Peat]

On 16 April 2011 17:00, Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> Isn't it funny how, just over a year ago, we couldn't care less about
> anything the Ordnace Survey did, and suddenly we are a project that must
> choose their license according to what is compatible with OS?

...
>
I say to you the same I said to Ian - even if OSMF would publish what
> mechanism they plan to use (and I'm pretty sure they don't have one yet),
> then that mechanism would not become part of the contract and it could be
> changed at any later time, say, after majorities in the OSMF board have
> changed after the next election or something.
>
>
No-one expects the OSMF/LWG to have all the answers worked out in advance
but surely someone can answer questions about what their intentions are.
Such as is it the LWG's intention to make the license/ct's compatible with
OS Opendata? If it isn't then all those people currently tracing thousands
of roads a week in the UK might as well take a break and get some fresh air.

After so many years, someone must surely have given at least a bit of
thought to how removing incompatible/un-relicensed contributions might be
handled? What's wrong with starting a thread with those ideas and letting
other people give their input?

I am quite prepared to trust people who I feel are being honest about their
intentions but the lack of information just gives the impression that
something underhand is in the works. I can imagine it would be easy for
those people who believe cc-by-sa doesn't apply to map data to justify
re-adding any deleted contributions on the basis that most of it is
effectively pd. I just think that would be a really bad idea as far as
maintaining any kind of community trust goes.

Kevin
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[80n]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 5:02 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> We have a situation where those who have spent time with it, and talked to
> lawyers and all, are positively sure that we do not have a working status
> quo. Doing nothing is not an option.

And yet we've been doing nothing for several years now.  If the
picture was anything like as bad as you paint then we would have been
forced into action a long long time ago.

Show us the evidence please.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ed Avis]

Frederik Ramm  remote.org> writes:

>much less be asked: 
>"Do you think the house is on fire yes/no?"

Please point to some real flames.

In all the time the licence discussions have been happening, nobody has 
mentioned
*one* *single* *case* where the licence of the map isn't respected and we are 
not
in a position to enforce it, but with the extra legalese in the ODbL we would 
be.

Since the situation is so serious, there should surely be plenty of examples
by now.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Richard Bullock]

I am also surprised that we are going to the compulsory re-licensing
when there are still (as far as I can tell without looking too closely)
doubts over the compatibility of significant datasources with the new
licence or contributor terms - From what I can tell from a few wiki
pages, it is not clear whether OS Opendata in the UK, or Nearmap in
Austrailia is compatible.   I would have expected these issues to be
resolved before forcing people to re-licence.


Isn't it funny how, just over a year ago, we couldn't care less about
anything the Ordnace Survey did, and suddenly we are a project that must
choose their license according to what is compatible with OS?


Probably because OS OpenData has been used fairly significantly by many folk 
in the UK since released. Without any sort of public indication otherwise 
from the LWG, it was difficult to believe that a new licence chosen wouldn't 
be compatible with data which appears to only require attribution.


Not that I agree with it, but OS StreetView has been used to map out entire 
towns in the UK 



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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 04:13 PM, Ian Dees wrote:

But, as you said, that poll was unofficial, only included 500 people,
and if I remember correctly had some very confusing options at first.


My guess is that more than 10.000 people have been informed of the poll 
(via the lists I mentioned). The fact that only 500 decided to state 
their opinion can hardly be counted against the poll. Why do we need 
"official"?



This sounds an awful lot like what happened, but instead of
offering a "Yes/No" at the end we only have the option of "Yes I agree
to the new license/No, and I realize I can't edit the map anymore". We
seem to have skipped the crucial middle step.


I'm pretty sure that we would have a ton of people complain that Yes/No 
is not ok, they also want to be able to say "Yes but only if X", "No 
unless Y", or something. And what would the question have been? "Yes I 
agree to the new license / no I accept that anyone can rip off our data 
because it is unprotected", maybe?



For example, in my student government
groups if someone wanted to change the constitution or institute a new
by-law they first had to come together with other people of a similar
persuasion, come up with a document that enumerated the changes, then
present it to the general assembly to be decided on with a vote. From my
point of view OSMF and LWG have come up with a proposal for change and
are immediately implementing it without querying anyone else.


I understand all of that. However, in many of these situations you have 
working status quo, and then someone wants to make a change, and they 
have to answer the question "why make the change at all, what 
improvements does it bring, what's the reward"?


We have a situation where those who have spent time with it, and talked 
to lawyers and all, are positively sure that we do not have a working 
status quo. Doing nothing is not an option. In licensing terms, this 
house is on fire. Day after day we're violating our own license and 
making promises that we cannot keep. Anyone who is *interested* in the 
matter can, and has, involve themselves in the process, read about 
reasons, participate in discussion, and so on. Anyone who is not 
interested has a right to be not interested, but they should not expect 
to be served the explanation on a silver platter, much less be asked: 
"Do you think the house is on fire yes/no?" - their input would not be 
helpful at all.


And this basic concept carries on further; in this issue everyone can 
have a say but it is not a democracy where the voice of someone who is 
totally un-informed counts as much as anyone else's. You have to get 
involved to be heard. And I don't think this is necessarily bad.


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 05:40 PM, Graham Jones wrote:

I am also surprised that we are going to the compulsory re-licensing
when there are still (as far as I can tell without looking too closely)
doubts over the compatibility of significant datasources with the new
licence or contributor terms - From what I can tell from a few wiki
pages, it is not clear whether OS Opendata in the UK, or Nearmap in
Austrailia is compatible.   I would have expected these issues to be
resolved before forcing people to re-licence.


Isn't it funny how, just over a year ago, we couldn't care less about 
anything the Ordnace Survey did, and suddenly we are a project that must 
choose their license according to what is compatible with OS?



If these issues have been resolved, and there is a mechanism for
deciding what level of data loss is acceptable, then I will happily
re-licence my own data, but I am looking for some reassurance before I
do so.


I say to you the same I said to Ian - even if OSMF would publish what 
mechanism they plan to use (and I'm pretty sure they don't have one 
yet), then that mechanism would not become part of the contract and it 
could be changed at any later time, say, after majorities in the OSMF 
board have changed after the next election or something.


I'm sorry but I think you can either trust people to do the right thing 
or not trust them, but nobody will give you a written statement (or if 
they do it won't be worth much).


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Graham Jones]

My thinking on this is very similar.   I have no particular objection to the
new licence and contributor terms - I don't really care which licence my
contributions are governed by.

I am very surprised at the apparent tolerance to loss of data from the map
for the sake of transferring to a more robust licence.

I am also surprised that we are going to the compulsory re-licensing when
there are still (as far as I can tell without looking too closely) doubts
over the compatibility of significant datasources with the new licence or
contributor terms - From what I can tell from a few wiki pages, it is not
clear whether OS Opendata in the UK, or Nearmap in Austrailia is compatible.
  I would have expected these issues to be resolved before forcing people to
re-licence.

It is because it is not clear whether we will have to delete all data from
these sources that I have not accepted the new licence yet - My view is that
if we have to delete that data, then we should not bother re-licensing.  I
am concerned that if I accept the new licence/contributor terms that I will
be seen to be supporting deleting this data, which I do not.   I think this
is the same issue as Ian's question about how we will decide if the change
is right or not.

If these issues have been resolved, and there is a mechanism for deciding
what level of data loss is acceptable, then I will happily re-licence my own
data, but I am looking for some reassurance before I do so.

Regards


Graham.

On 16 April 2011 16:20, Russ Nelson  wrote:

> I think Frederick gave you the best answer possible. It's not that the
> community was *asked* by some overarching committee, but instead that
> it just floated up. Like a turd in the toilet. Frankly, I never
> thought it would come to actually deleting data. I always thought that
> that was OBVIOUSLY so insane that *somebody* would have killed the
> idea of relicensing.
>
> The trouble is, is that, just as no one person is responsible for
> creating the idea, no one person has the ability to kill it. Maybe
> SteveC, but he's convinced that Google is going to steal our data. As
> if our data had any value once separated from the community that keeps
> it alive.
> -russ
>
> Ian Dees writes:
>  > Wow, I still have yet to receive a straight answer from anyone and it
>  > doesn't look like I will. The trolls have come out yet again. Sorry for
>  > that. I have been beaten into submission.
>  >
>  > On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Dermot McNally 
> wrote:
>  >
>  > > On 16 April 2011 00:07, Ian Dees  wrote:
>  > >
>  > > > Thanks for asking me (if this were a vote my answer would be "No",
> but in
>  > > > the interest of moving on from this nonsense and keeping data
> flowing
>  > > I'll
>  > > > eventually say "Yes"), but the important part of my question was
> everyone
>  > > > else -- the community of OpenStreetMap. When were *they* asked?
>  > >
>  > > FWIW I would have favoured earlier specific requests for a vote, but
>  > > it's basically been an impossible position for the LWG from what I can
>  > > see as an outsider. On the one hand, everybody wants to feel consulted
>  > > about the change. On the other, plenty of people have complained
>  > > throughout the process about being offered a half-baked solution.
>  > > Turns out this stuff is complicated.
>  >
>  >
>  > No, it's not complicated. When whoever it was decided that we need to
> change
>  > license, the *first* thing that should have happened is a communication
> of
>  > the desire with the community, information about it presented clearly
> and
>  > thoughtfully, questions responded to in a timely manner, and a vote held
> by
>  > the active mappers to confirm that yes, this change should be pursued.
>  >
>  > Instead what happened is... none of that. I appreciate the hard work of
>  > those that spent the time to draw up the new license and work with a
> small
>  > fraction of the community to make decisions on it, but I think they put
> the
>  > cart before the horse.
>  >
>  > Anyway, I apologize for bringing this up again and degenerating talk@into a
>  > field of flames. I was hoping to get a straight answer this time. I'll
> go
>  > unsubscribe from talk (like a lot of others :) ) and click the accept
>  > button.
>  > Wow, I still have yet to receive a straight answer from anyone and it
> doesn't look like I will. The trolls have come out yet again. Sorry for
> that. I have been beaten into submission.On
> Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Dermot McNally < href="mailto:derm...@gmail.com";>derm...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>  > On 16 April 2011 00:07, Ian
> Dees ian.d...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>  >
>  > 
>  > > Thanks for asking me (if this were a vote my answer would be
> "No", but in
>  > > the interest of moving on from this nonsense and keeping data
> flowing I'll
>  > > eventually say "Yes"), but the important part of my
> question was everyone
>  > > else -- the community of OpenStreetMap. When were *they* asked?
> 

Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Russ Nelson]

I think Frederick gave you the best answer possible. It's not that the
community was *asked* by some overarching committee, but instead that
it just floated up. Like a turd in the toilet. Frankly, I never
thought it would come to actually deleting data. I always thought that
that was OBVIOUSLY so insane that *somebody* would have killed the
idea of relicensing.

The trouble is, is that, just as no one person is responsible for
creating the idea, no one person has the ability to kill it. Maybe
SteveC, but he's convinced that Google is going to steal our data. As
if our data had any value once separated from the community that keeps
it alive.
-russ

Ian Dees writes:
 > Wow, I still have yet to receive a straight answer from anyone and it
 > doesn't look like I will. The trolls have come out yet again. Sorry for
 > that. I have been beaten into submission.
 > 
 > On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Dermot McNally  wrote:
 > 
 > > On 16 April 2011 00:07, Ian Dees  wrote:
 > >
 > > > Thanks for asking me (if this were a vote my answer would be "No", but in
 > > > the interest of moving on from this nonsense and keeping data flowing
 > > I'll
 > > > eventually say "Yes"), but the important part of my question was everyone
 > > > else -- the community of OpenStreetMap. When were *they* asked?
 > >
 > > FWIW I would have favoured earlier specific requests for a vote, but
 > > it's basically been an impossible position for the LWG from what I can
 > > see as an outsider. On the one hand, everybody wants to feel consulted
 > > about the change. On the other, plenty of people have complained
 > > throughout the process about being offered a half-baked solution.
 > > Turns out this stuff is complicated.
 > 
 > 
 > No, it's not complicated. When whoever it was decided that we need to change
 > license, the *first* thing that should have happened is a communication of
 > the desire with the community, information about it presented clearly and
 > thoughtfully, questions responded to in a timely manner, and a vote held by
 > the active mappers to confirm that yes, this change should be pursued.
 > 
 > Instead what happened is... none of that. I appreciate the hard work of
 > those that spent the time to draw up the new license and work with a small
 > fraction of the community to make decisions on it, but I think they put the
 > cart before the horse.
 > 
 > Anyway, I apologize for bringing this up again and degenerating talk@ into a
 > field of flames. I was hoping to get a straight answer this time. I'll go
 > unsubscribe from talk (like a lot of others :) ) and click the accept
 > button.
 > Wow, I still have yet to receive a straight answer from anyone and it 
 > doesn't look like I will. The trolls have come out yet again. Sorry for 
 > that. I have been beaten into submission.On 
 > Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Dermot McNally < href="mailto:derm...@gmail.com";>derm...@gmail.com> wrote:
 > On 16 April 2011 00:07, Ian 
 > Dees ian.d...@gmail.com> 
 > wrote:
 > 
 > 
 > > Thanks for asking me (if this were a vote my answer would be 
 > "No", but in
 > > the interest of moving on from this nonsense and keeping data flowing 
 > I'll
 > > eventually say "Yes"), but the important part of my question 
 > was everyone
 > > else -- the community of OpenStreetMap. When were *they* asked?
 > 
 > FWIW I would have favoured earlier specific requests for a vote, 
 > but
 > it's basically been an impossible position for the LWG from what I 
 > can
 > see as an outsider. On the one hand, everybody wants to feel consulted
 > about the change. On the other, plenty of people have complained
 > throughout the process about being offered a half-baked solution.
 > Turns out this stuff is complicated.No, 
 > it's not complicated. When whoever it was decided that we need to change 
 > license, the *first* thing that should have happened is a communication of 
 > the desire with the community, information about it presented clearly and 
 > thoughtfully, questions responded to in a timely manner, and a vote held by 
 > the active mappers to confirm that yes, this change should be pursued.
 > Instead what happened is... none of that. I appreciate 
 > the hard work of those that spent the time to draw up the new license and 
 > work with a small fraction of the community to make decisions on it, but I 
 > think they put the cart before the horse.
 > Anyway, I apologize for bringing this up again and 
 > degenerating talk@ into a field of flames. I was hoping to get a straight 
 > answer this time. I'll go unsubscribe from talk (like a lot of others :) 
 > ) and click the accept button.
 > 
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 > talk@openstreetmap.org
 > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Ian,

On 04/16/2011 02:10 PM, Ian Dees wrote:

Wow, I still have yet to receive a straight answer from anyone and it
doesn't look like I will.


You asked when "the community of OpenStreetMap" was asked about the 
license change.


...


No, it's not complicated. When whoever it was decided that we need to
change license, the *first* thing that should have happened is a
communication of the desire with the community, information about it
presented clearly and thoughtfully, questions responded to in a timely
manner, and a vote held by the active mappers to confirm that yes, this
change should be pursued.


I think, historically, the decision making process was not "1. decide 
that we need a new license, 2. let's go look for one", but rather a 
little-step-by-little-step process.


The question is, who is "the community of OpenStreetMap". Anyone 
committed enough to come to the first State of the Map conference in 
Manchester (2007) was certainly involved as this is where we held a 
panel discussion on the license. But even if a vote had been held at 
that conference, could it still be considered binding today? Anyone 
reading either the talk list, or the osm-announce list, or any of the 
Australian, German, Spanish, French, German, Czech, Dutch, or Colombian 
mailing lists or some of the forums, will have been aware of Pieren's 
poll (http://doodle.com/feqszqirqqxi4r7w) which, even though not an 
official vote, gave people the option to formally express an opinion and 
be counted.


Of course you could have sent an email to everyone, to catch those who 
do not read the lists. But then, to be honest, if someone doesn't have 
any background to the discussion and is asked, out of the blue, whether 
they support a license change - would that really help? Would they not 
have to be presented with the causes for and against - and who would 
have the authority to decide *what* they are presented with? And if they 
are isolationist enough to not even read the low-volume announce list, 
do we really have to assume they are interested?


You write "information presented clearly and thoughtfully", but if you 
read the histoy of the "why you shold vote yes" and "why you should vote 
no" pages on the Wiki, it should become clear that it certainly not an 
easy task to present information clearly and thoughtfully and without bias.


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[John Smith]

On 16 April 2011 22:10, Ian Dees  wrote:
> doesn't look like I will. The trolls have come out yet again. Sorry for

> No, it's not complicated. When whoever it was decided that we need to change
> license, the *first* thing that should have happened is a communication of
> the desire with the community, information about it presented clearly and
> thoughtfully, questions responded to in a timely manner, and a vote held by
> the active mappers to confirm that yes, this change should be pursued.
> Instead what happened is... none of that. I appreciate the hard work of
> those that spent the time to draw up the new license and work with a small
> fraction of the community to make decisions on it, but I think they put the
> cart before the horse.
> Anyway, I apologize for bringing this up again and degenerating talk@ into a
> field of flames. I was hoping to get a straight answer this time. I'll go
> unsubscribe from talk (like a lot of others :) ) and click the accept
> button.

Many of those that you deem as trolls are in the same position as you,
no one can get straight answers to some fairly simple questions, and
it seems things are being pushed ahead regardless so what are people
supposed to do other than leave if they disagree, like you have chosen
to do.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Ian Dees]

Wow, I still have yet to receive a straight answer from anyone and it
doesn't look like I will. The trolls have come out yet again. Sorry for
that. I have been beaten into submission.

On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Dermot McNally  wrote:

> On 16 April 2011 00:07, Ian Dees  wrote:
>
> > Thanks for asking me (if this were a vote my answer would be "No", but in
> > the interest of moving on from this nonsense and keeping data flowing
> I'll
> > eventually say "Yes"), but the important part of my question was everyone
> > else -- the community of OpenStreetMap. When were *they* asked?
>
> FWIW I would have favoured earlier specific requests for a vote, but
> it's basically been an impossible position for the LWG from what I can
> see as an outsider. On the one hand, everybody wants to feel consulted
> about the change. On the other, plenty of people have complained
> throughout the process about being offered a half-baked solution.
> Turns out this stuff is complicated.


No, it's not complicated. When whoever it was decided that we need to change
license, the *first* thing that should have happened is a communication of
the desire with the community, information about it presented clearly and
thoughtfully, questions responded to in a timely manner, and a vote held by
the active mappers to confirm that yes, this change should be pursued.

Instead what happened is... none of that. I appreciate the hard work of
those that spent the time to draw up the new license and work with a small
fraction of the community to make decisions on it, but I think they put the
cart before the horse.

Anyway, I apologize for bringing this up again and degenerating talk@ into a
field of flames. I was hoping to get a straight answer this time. I'll go
unsubscribe from talk (like a lot of others :) ) and click the accept
button.
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[John Smith]

On 16 April 2011 19:49, Lester Caine  wrote:
> No I said 'free access to this sort of data'. But I don't see that having
> the courtesy to recognise where data can from should be any sort of a
> problem. 'Requiring it' just acknowledges that some people do not extend
> that common courtesy. I find no restrictions on what I need to do with the
> data.

Just because attribution is not restriction for you, doesn't mean
others feel the same way, OS (along with many other data producers)
require it, yet the PD proponents don't want any such strings.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Lester Caine]

John Smith wrote:

On 16 April 2011 19:04, Lester Caine  wrote:

John Smith wrote:


On 16 April 2011 17:53, Lester Caine   wrote:


The whole database should be public domain, and any third party pushing
'commercial' data into that should understand that. Even the UK
government
have now accepted that we should have free access to this sort of data,
so
my own 'need' for OSM has been somewhat diluted since I have an open
alternative. I was looking at mirroring my own copy of OSM, but the OS
data
gives me the facilities I need with less hassle.


Doesn't OS require attribution if you use their data?


Same as adding a link to OSM where that is the source ...


So your original suggestion that the OS recognises your suggestion
about things should be public domain is patently false.


No I said 'free access to this sort of data'. But I don't see that having the 
courtesy to recognise where data can from should be any sort of a problem. 
'Requiring it' just acknowledges that some people do not extend that common 
courtesy. I find no restrictions on what I need to do with the data.


--
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[John Smith]

On 16 April 2011 19:04, Lester Caine  wrote:
> John Smith wrote:
>>
>> On 16 April 2011 17:53, Lester Caine  wrote:
>>>
>>> The whole database should be public domain, and any third party pushing
>>> 'commercial' data into that should understand that. Even the UK
>>> government
>>> have now accepted that we should have free access to this sort of data,
>>> so
>>> my own 'need' for OSM has been somewhat diluted since I have an open
>>> alternative. I was looking at mirroring my own copy of OSM, but the OS
>>> data
>>> gives me the facilities I need with less hassle.
>>
>> Doesn't OS require attribution if you use their data?
>
> Same as adding a link to OSM where that is the source ...

So your original suggestion that the OS recognises your suggestion
about things should be public domain is patently false.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Lester Caine]

John Smith wrote:

On 16 April 2011 17:53, Lester Caine  wrote:

The whole database should be public domain, and any third party pushing
'commercial' data into that should understand that. Even the UK government
have now accepted that we should have free access to this sort of data, so
my own 'need' for OSM has been somewhat diluted since I have an open
alternative. I was looking at mirroring my own copy of OSM, but the OS data
gives me the facilities I need with less hassle.


Doesn't OS require attribution if you use their data?

Same as adding a link to OSM where that is the source ...

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 01:29 AM, Dermot McNally wrote:

FWIW I would have favoured earlier specific requests for a vote, but
it's basically been an impossible position for the LWG from what I can
see as an outsider. On the one hand, everybody wants to feel consulted
about the change. On the other, plenty of people have complained
throughout the process about being offered a half-baked solution.
Turns out this stuff is complicated.


With hindsight, the proper way of doing this would have been to setup 
the LWG some time around 2007, have LWG reach out to the community in 
the wides possible manner, make sure people understand the problems, 
maybe even have national groups in some countries, devise possible 
solutions, and seek community involvement in every step.


Apart from the fact that this would have required more manpower an 
patience than might be available from the volunteers involved in OSM, 
this attempt at including everyone would probably have been in vain 
since OSM grows so fast. Assume that some time in mid-2008 a vote of all 
registered users has resulted in a 95% "we must drop CC-BY-SA" vote; 
then in mid-2009 you would already have had two new users for every one 
who had taken part in that vote, new users who "have not been consulted" 
and who "have not been part of the process". And so on!


One would then have to say to these people what you are saying now:


I'm not the first person to say so on the lists, but it seems to bear
repeating - the process has not been a secret, the key details of what
problem the change attempts to solve have been documented for a long
time now and absolutely anybody with a thirst for knowledge on the
matter has had many resources at his or her disposal.


But, just as today, this would be unlikely to make them happy. In our 
concrete case,



When I first
became aware of the documentation and read it, I certainly felt
consulted, and very soon after it became possible to indicate
approval, it was clear to me both that the promoters of the change
wished me to do so (at that point I felt "asked") and how I might go
about doing so.


The situation you describe is now something like 1.5 years in the 
past... there will ALWAYS be people who feel they were not consulted, 
and if the process takes years rather than months, they will (at least 
for the foreseeable future) ALWAYS be the majority.


I'm very glad we have at least made CT agreement mandatory for new users 
now which sort of softens the issue.


Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 04/16/2011 10:29 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote:

We simply draw up a document
that is basically a modified version of the current contributor terms,
which says "I am willing to make the following contract with OSMF on the
additional condition of OSMF holding the 2/3 vote as described below
before they change from ODbL to CC-BY-SA".


Oops. That should have rad "from CC-BY-SA to ODbL".

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Frederik Ramm]

On 04/16/2011 02:05 AM, andrzej zaborowski wrote:

On 16 April 2011 01:29, Dermot McNally  wrote:

This licence change now gives every mapper the means of undermining
the map through withholding of their own data, once freely given and
now very likely a foundation of data created by other mappers, also in
good faith. I understand that many mappers feel they _can't_ relicense
some or all of their work, and that's a really tough situation. But
mappers who just plain _won't_ agree to leave their data in, even
though there is no legal obstacle to it, should strongly consider
whether they are being true to the community they claim to be a part
of.


At this point it's only known that there's an unspecified non-zero
part of the community which wants OSM to switch license.  Not everyone
needs to be true to that part of the community just like not everyone
needs to be true to the part that wants OSM data in Public Domain or
the part that drinks coffee with milk etc.


Let us try and separate the issue of license change from the issue of 
the CT for a moment. Let us assume that there was no immediate license 
change planned; that OSMF intended to continue using CC-BY-SA for now; 
and that they only sought CT agreement from mappers, in order to make a 
potential future license change easier.


The CT contain this clause whereby it becomes impossible to do what 
Dermot writes above - if 2/3 of mappers agree to use another free and 
open license, then that is the new license and everyone's data is 
changed to that new license.


I think that *that* is the major change here, and I have outlined in the 
past that I believe that you cannot be a part of a crowdsourced mapping 
effort if you consider your contribution to be only "rented out" to the 
project. If you want to participate in OSM, where all the time others 
will build upon your work, then you cannot sensibly say "but if you 
decide to change your license later I might choose to take away my 
contribution". If you contribute to OSM, you pour a glass of water into 
an ocean. You cannot wrap that in plastic and label it "yours". I made a 
comparison with voluntary work in real-life communities; if you have 
spent a lot of time and love helping to build a nice playground for the 
village school but later the whole school decides to adopt some 
pedadogic direction of which you don't approve and you put your kid 
elsewhere, you cannot tear town the playground. It wouldn't be right 
(and it would be very unlikely to make you happy).


Now if someone says "I'm willing to sign the CT on the condition that 
before OSMF switches to ODbL, they execute the exact license change 
procedure outlined in the CT, with asking 2/3 of active mappers etc.", 
then this is something I can understand and respect.


I do however have the impression that there are some people for whom 
calling for a public vote is just another means to delay and hopefully 
derail the process, and secretly they never intended to continue 
supporting the project after a license change anyway. These people are 
dishonest, they should simply click "disagree" and leave. I have no 
sympathy or patience for people who are unwilling to make the kind of 
committment requested by the CT. If you want full control over "your" 
data then make your own little OSM just for yourself.


I have a suggestion, one which we could implement in true crowdsourced 
spirit and without any OSMF involvement. We simply draw up a document 
that is basically a modified version of the current contributor terms, 
which says "I am willing to make the following contract with OSMF on the 
additional condition of OSMF holding the 2/3 vote as described below 
before they change from ODbL to CC-BY-SA". We then devise some sort of 
sufficiently legally binding way for people to "sign" this document. 
Everyone who thinks that the CT are ok in principle but who would like a 
proper vote first, signs this document instead of the "real" CT.


Then one of three things will happen:

* The number of people who sign this is close to zero. This would then 
mean that those calling for a vote are unwilling to sign the CT anyway, 
and whichever way the vote goes it would not change the fact that 
they're leaving - in that case, why bother to hold a vote.


* The number of people who sign this is so small that their edits 
practically don't make a difference and OSMF might decide to go ahead 
and ignore these people, and treat them like they had said "no".


* The number of people who sign this is significant, in which case OSMF 
would be very tempted to actually hold the vote before switching ot ODbL 
- something they are perfectly within their right to do, even if 
everyone else has signed the "standard" CT -, and everybody would be 
happy. Of course all this would have to be watertight enough to not 
allow someone to back out if the vote result is pro ODbL.


There's of course a drawback to this, and that is that while you sign 
the "CT with conditions 

Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[John Smith]

On 16 April 2011 17:53, Lester Caine  wrote:
> The whole database should be public domain, and any third party pushing
> 'commercial' data into that should understand that. Even the UK government
> have now accepted that we should have free access to this sort of data, so
> my own 'need' for OSM has been somewhat diluted since I have an open
> alternative. I was looking at mirroring my own copy of OSM, but the OS data
> gives me the facilities I need with less hassle.

Doesn't OS require attribution if you use their data?

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2011 08:42:00 +0100
Dermot McNally  wrote:

> On 16 April 2011 08:31, Elizabeth Dodd  wrote:
> 
> > So has anyone asked the FOSS gurus of licensing?
> > I have never seen it mentioned while I was subscribed to
> > legal-talk. I am quite prepared to start writing emails (phrased
> > neutrally) requesting an opinion if these people have not been
> > asked before.
> >
> > If then the opinion is that the new licence has merit, we then need
> > work on how the contract provisions "fit in" with other legal codes
> > not just those derived from either the Westminster or Napoleonic
> > codes.
> 
> How long have you been in this discussion, Elizabeth? Quite a while,
> according to my recollection. Given that you seem to now see a
> requirement for this kind of validation, I find it strange that you
> wouldn't have sought it at a much earlier stage than this. Normally
> abject opposition should come after, not before, "neutral" appraisal
> of the proposal, shouldn't it?
> 
> Dermot
> 

So as you have forgotten the beginning, Australian mappers have a
number of difficulties with the proposed new licence and contributor
terms. That is, a majority of Australian mappers. 
We have estimated our exposure in our continent to the risk of data
loss as very high (i forget the proportion, someone will give you the
information if you want confirmation).
Where I stand, I do not see a minority against the new licence. It may
well be parallax error at my end, or it may be the same at your end.
However, I am unable to sign up to the contributor terms. I cannot sign
over my work because some of it is in breach of those terms.

I am not withdrawing my stuff because I wish to vandalise the map. 
I have used a number of sources which are CC-by-SA, and that prohibits
me from signing.

Certainly we should consider Mike's idea, and not hide behind our
existing ideas.
Will you be writing the emails to the people Mike mentioned?


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Mike Dupont]

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Lester Caine  wrote:

> if it isn't about time to readdress the area of merging data from different
> sources? Rather than throwing everything in the one pot and mangling it,
> creating a more open data interface so that third parties can supply feeds
> in much the same way as we use a range of background tiles at the moment. I
> am thinking directly here about paralleling the current OS data with OSM
> data.
>

That is a great idea.
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Mike Dupont]

Well, I brought this up now, because for one the thing has changed so many
times, and now they are asking people to leave.

On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 9:42 AM, Dermot McNally  wrote:

> On 16 April 2011 08:31, Elizabeth Dodd  wrote:
>
> > So has anyone asked the FOSS gurus of licensing?
> > I have never seen it mentioned while I was subscribed to legal-talk. I
> > am quite prepared to start writing emails (phrased neutrally) requesting
> > an opinion if these people have not been asked before.
> >
> > If then the opinion is that the new licence has merit, we then need
> > work on how the contract provisions "fit in" with other legal codes not
> > just those derived from either the Westminster or Napoleonic codes.
>
> How long have you been in this discussion, Elizabeth? Quite a while,
> according to my recollection. Given that you seem to now see a
> requirement for this kind of validation, I find it strange that you
> wouldn't have sought it at a much earlier stage than this. Normally
> abject opposition should come after, not before, "neutral" appraisal
> of the proposal, shouldn't it?
>
> Dermot
>
> --
> --
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> ja ma oma ei leiagi üles
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Lester Caine]

John Smith wrote:

On 16 April 2011 17:37, Elizabeth Dodd  wrote:

OpenOffice.org has had a major fork just recently. The LibreOffice fork
has chosen different licensing arrangements, including the contributors
retaining their own copyright.
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/developers/
and interestingly this assessment of how LibreOffice is going
http://webmink.com/2011/02/11/is-libreoffice-open-by-rule/
We can also note how the new fork is handling their compound
licensing issue.


What's more interesting is Oracle's move to wash their hands of direct
control over OpenOffice...

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/15/oracle_letting_openoffice_go/


Probably pertinent how current this move is ...
I think that the fact that the main development team simply moved over to 
LibreOffice was something Oracle had not anticipated, but is exactly what open 
source is about?


Unlike OO, OSM has a number of 'competitors' providing the same data, so a split 
is less likely to happen, but I do wonder if it isn't about time to readdress 
the area of merging data from different sources? Rather than throwing everything 
in the one pot and mangling it, creating a more open data interface so that 
third parties can supply feeds in much the same way as we use a range of 
background tiles at the moment. I am thinking directly here about paralleling 
the current OS data with OSM data.


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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Lester Caine]

Dermot McNally wrote:

So let's see which point of view ends up mainstream and which belongs
to a dissenting minority. So far, as I look at the volume of map data,
as I look at the vast majority of the people who have built and
maintained the map and the infrastructure on which it runs, what I see
is people who, sometimes with misgivings, are throwing their weight
behind the licence change. Among such people I see unity of purpose.


While the 'public domain' tick box is a small olive branch, I still feel 
'railroaded' rather than 'convinced' that what is now being pushed is the 
correct way forward. I would have preferred the option to 'reluctant accept' 
rather than 'agree to' since this is NOT a simple yes/no question, but then what 
do you do if the majority are reluctant :(


I totally understand WHY a change needed to be made, and to my simple mind that 
is to prevent some large commercial operation hijacking the data totally legally 
in the future. But to be honest I can't see what is stopping them simply doing 
that today, apart from the fact that they will get more bad press than good? 
Does this new licence actually make any difference to anything?


The whole database should be public domain, and any third party pushing 
'commercial' data into that should understand that. Even the UK government have 
now accepted that we should have free access to this sort of data, so my own 
'need' for OSM has been somewhat diluted since I have an open alternative. I was 
looking at mirroring my own copy of OSM, but the OS data gives me the facilities 
I need with less hassle.


--
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-
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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[John Smith]

On 16 April 2011 17:42, Dermot McNally  wrote:
> wouldn't have sought it at a much earlier stage than this. Normally
> abject opposition should come after, not before, "neutral" appraisal
> of the proposal, shouldn't it?

There has been so many issues with the new license, the new
contributor terms and the way the whole thing as been handled that
it's hard to know where to start pulling at threads, pull the wrong
one and the whole jumper will fall to bits...

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[John Smith]

On 16 April 2011 17:37, Elizabeth Dodd  wrote:
> OpenOffice.org has had a major fork just recently. The LibreOffice fork
> has chosen different licensing arrangements, including the contributors
> retaining their own copyright.
> http://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/developers/
> and interestingly this assessment of how LibreOffice is going
> http://webmink.com/2011/02/11/is-libreoffice-open-by-rule/
> We can also note how the new fork is handling their compound
> licensing issue.

What's more interesting is Oracle's move to wash their hands of direct
control over OpenOffice...

http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/15/oracle_letting_openoffice_go/

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Dermot McNally]

On 16 April 2011 08:31, Elizabeth Dodd  wrote:

> So has anyone asked the FOSS gurus of licensing?
> I have never seen it mentioned while I was subscribed to legal-talk. I
> am quite prepared to start writing emails (phrased neutrally) requesting
> an opinion if these people have not been asked before.
>
> If then the opinion is that the new licence has merit, we then need
> work on how the contract provisions "fit in" with other legal codes not
> just those derived from either the Westminster or Napoleonic codes.

How long have you been in this discussion, Elizabeth? Quite a while,
according to my recollection. Given that you seem to now see a
requirement for this kind of validation, I find it strange that you
wouldn't have sought it at a much earlier stage than this. Normally
abject opposition should come after, not before, "neutral" appraisal
of the proposal, shouldn't it?

Dermot

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:34:20 +1000
David Murn  wrote:

> On Thu, 2011-04-14 at 20:10 +0100, Grant Slater wrote:
> 
> > I am sure there are going to be a few cases where difficult
> > decisions are going to have to be made. We will not have been the
> > only open source project to have had to make these sorts of
> > decisions.
> 
> Out of interest Grant, what other large-scale open source projects
> have changed their licence the way that OSM has?  In fact, changed
> their licence full-stop..?
> 
> David
> 

OpenOffice.org has had a major fork just recently. The LibreOffice fork
has chosen different licensing arrangements, including the contributors
retaining their own copyright.
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/developers/
and interestingly this assessment of how LibreOffice is going
http://webmink.com/2011/02/11/is-libreoffice-open-by-rule/
We can also note how the new fork is handling their compound
licensing issue.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Elizabeth Dodd]

On Sat, 16 Apr 2011 08:11:11 +0200
Mike  Dupont  wrote:

> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 6:55 PM, Frederik Ramm 
> > wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > David Murn wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Out of interest Grant, what other large-scale open source
> > >> projects have changed their licence the way that OSM has?  In
> > >> fact, changed their licence full-stop..?
> > >
> > > Wikipedia went from GFDL to CC-BY-SA.
> >
> > Wikipedia went from GFDL to a GFDL/CC-BY-SA dual license - with the
> > help of the FSF.
> >
> > If OSMF wanted to go from CC-BY-SA to a CC-BY-SA/ODbL dual license,
> > that would greatly simplify things.
> >
> >
> Yes, that would make great sense, but I would like to see some more
> expert opinions, expecially the people who build this entire open
> source thing to begin with.
> Did anyone ever contact Eben about this new license? The gpl was the
> basis for the creative commons, and you are saying it is not good
> enough, so I think you should be able to convince him as a lawyer
> about this.
> 
> If this new thing is really needed, then it should be easy to
> convince the experts about it.
> 
> Here are two points I would like to see :
> 1. a porting of the new terms to other languages and jurisdictions.
> 2. a review and blessing of the new contract by the software freedom
> law center, the open source institute and the creative commons
> 
> There is not even a porting of the new terms and license and contract
> to other jurisdictions, or translations.
> At least creative commons has tried to port itself to other places
> 
> You are asking people to agree to some contract that is not
> translated into their language and may not be applicable in their
> jurisdiction, they might even be minors, I find this needs to be
> looked at carefully.
> 
> Lets get the  license and contract submitted to  <
> license-rev...@opensource.org>,  and to
> , for even a discussion outside this
> little circle, even an opinion from Lawrence *Lessig* or Eben Moglen
> softwarefreedom.org,  would greatly interest me.
> 
> It should be possible to get bessings from legal experts and license
> experts in the world of open source and free software. It should be
> possible to get this contract reviewed and approved by OSI as well.
> 
> I personally will wait and see what people who I trust and respect
> have to say about this topic who are not involved and not partial,
> some type of neutral and calm review of the entire situation.
> 
> This entire discussion has gotten very emotional and personal, lets
> get some neutral third party expert opinions.
> 
> mike

So has anyone asked the FOSS gurus of licensing?
I have never seen it mentioned while I was subscribed to legal-talk. I
am quite prepared to start writing emails (phrased neutrally) requesting
an opinion if these people have not been asked before.

If then the opinion is that the new licence has merit, we then need
work on how the contract provisions "fit in" with other legal codes not
just those derived from either the Westminster or Napoleonic codes.

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Dermot McNally]

On 16 April 2011 08:28, Russ Nelson  wrote:

> In every schism, it's not clear who is splitting from whom. Don't
> presume an answer without first asking the question.

Actually, I have thought widely on this. My slightly earlier email
this morning outlines my thought on what defines the "mainstream" in
this difficult issue.

Dermot

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Re: [OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Dermot McNally]

On 16 April 2011 07:00, Elizabeth Dodd  wrote:

> Why does the ODbL faction not start with a fork of ODbL compliant data?
> Why do they need to force a split of the existing CC-by-SA data?

A lot of the differences of opinion on this matter are finding
expression in the words people choose to use to describe the different
points of view. I found your use of "faction" interesting enough to
check some dictionary definitions of the word. Here's one I found
particularly apt:

1.  a group of people forming a minority within a larger body, esp a
dissentious group

So let's see which point of view ends up mainstream and which belongs
to a dissenting minority. So far, as I look at the volume of map data,
as I look at the vast majority of the people who have built and
maintained the map and the infrastructure on which it runs, what I see
is people who, sometimes with misgivings, are throwing their weight
behind the licence change. Among such people I see unity of purpose.

Opposition to the change seems to stem from a number of disparate of
often contradictory reasons, none of which I personally find
compelling. What I can not with any seriousness regard the opposition
I have seen as is "the mainstream". It is on the anti-change side that
I see not one faction, but several.

Others may not (yet) share my view, and should observe the rate at
which the remaining community votes yes and no. Nothing in this
process will remove the freedom from anybody to continue to use the
data already mapped exactly as they always have, nor to continue
maintaining a data set under those terms. But if The Community should
be seen to support the licence change, I will see it as irresponsible
for individual mappers to take their ball and go home just because
they can.

Dermot

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