Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Fwd: Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 07:07:19AM +1000, Liz wrote: - There is no tool yet to see the impact of the relicensing to the data. But this is the key need for those who are rather interested in the data than the legalese. Please develop the tool first or leave sufficient time to let develop such a tool. I’m still struggling with how to get such statistics without first getting an opinion—the catch‐22 I referred to earlier but John seemed to brush off without actually thinking about it. I’m in favour of a non‐binding straw poll to all OSM accounts before a “final” agree/disagree thing. Simon -- A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.—John Gall signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
I've split this from the original thread before it derails the one it was in any further, and cc'd legal-talk. [...] What could we (you/me/LWG) do to make this more inclusive? Just some bullet points at first, explanation follows: - There is no tool yet to see the impact of the relicensing to the data. But this is the key need for those who are rather interested in the data than the legalese. Please develop the tool first or leave sufficient time to let develop such a tool. - Please present a sound and complete technical solution to disentangle the data between the relicensed and the not relicensed. - Be prepared on a successive per-region move to the license. The communities in different parts of the world are at different pace. I don't think that the mappers in general are annoyed about that somebody works on legal issues. But don't forget that one of the key features of the project is the message: Care for the data and the applications - we promise you won't be affected by legal trouble. Thus, I would consider the license as a technical detail, like the change from API v0.5 to API v0.6. Now, if the API change would have damaged an unknown amount of data at unknown places, if would have been never done. This is because those responsible for the API change were aware that the new API is a mean, not and end. Legal things are less logical than technical things, thus everybody would accept more collateral damage. But still, I would expect good faith from the LWG: it is technical feasible to preview the impact of the license change on the data with an appropriate tool. Some suggestions - Have another read-only mirror that contains only the already relicensed data. This would allow to render a map with the ODbL-avaiable. Thus, the data loss or not-loss gets easily visible. We only need another server and a list of all user-ids that have so far relicensed, and about 4 weeks to make everything working. - Don't use an extra server, but make the relicensing data available via the main API. This needs much more brainpower, would save a server and prevents the user-id list from being published. I would estimate this takes at least 8 weeks to develop. I would volunteer to do option 1 if I get time until the end of the year. Maybe somebody else could offer this faster. Then, the algorithm unbroken chain of history of ODbL users is close to nonsense. An easy exploit would be a bot, possible camouflaged by different user accounts, that systematically deletes and re-inserts every object. Then, all data would have unbroken chain of history but won't have in general. Note that massive delete and re-create takes place from time to time, e.g. when imports and synced with pre-existing data. I claim more time to first get a more elaborate algorithm for the data move decision, so please remove the fixed timings from the plan. And, of course, things like translating messages into foreign languages and back, explaining the licensing issues at all to mappers in foreign systems of legislation and so on takes time. Indeed much more time than to implement a license within the special legal system it was designed for. I don't find the issues addressed in the implementation plan at all. Cheers, Roland ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
Roland Olbricht schrieb: - There is no tool yet to see the impact of the relicensing to the data. But this is the key need for those who are rather interested in the data than the legalese. I would say that the new licence might be good, beter than the old one BUT: I also interested MUCH MORE in the data than the legalese. The last days I read a lot on the process proposed on changing the licence, especially about the technical way of deciding which node/way might be ok, which not, if anyone of the mappers decided to say no. I saw that there will never be a solution that can work. E.g. the history is incomplete if ways are splitted or joined, so you cannot see all data affected of such mappers. Also you cannot decide, which copyright is more valuable if to persons did something. There were a lot of examples etc. in german forum and talk-de mailing list from me and others, but my english is not goog enough to repeat them all. The process will never work, so stop this process and find another solution! The solution now ALWAYS leads to data loss, more or less. But I don't will accept any data loss because only of legal reasons. Wikipedia and other projects changed licence without any loss of data. The process now gives me only one vote: a combination of new Contributor Terms, new licence for the whole project and new licence for my own data. Although the new licence is good: I have to say no because of the data loss, which ALWAYS will appear with changing licence. Much more arguments on talk-de But don't forget that one of the key features of the project is the message: Care for the data and the applications - we promise you won't be affected by legal trouble. Thus, I would consider the license as a technical detail, like the change from API v0.5 to API v0.6. +1 Legal things are less logical than technical things, thus everybody would accept more collateral damage. No, why? Wikipedia has lost 0 bytes Then, the algorithm unbroken chain of history of ODbL users is close to nonsense. +1024! Mueck ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
Heiko Jacobs-2 wrote: But I don't will accept any data loss because only of legal reasons. Wikipedia and other projects changed licence without any loss of data. Unfortunately Wikipedia took advantage of a loophole: contributors agreed to the current GFDL or any later version, and they convinced the people in charge of the GFDL to have the next version allow the license change. -- View this message in context: http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/What-could-we-do-to-make-this-licences-discussion-more-inclusive-tp5292284p5304613.html Sent from the General Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
Consider two cases: 1. Current license does not cover the OSM data (I think that's the OSMF view). In this case, OSMF can just change to ODBL without asking anyone. 2. Current license does cover the OSM data. Then there's no need to change. Where's the issue? On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 5:55 PM, Nathan Edgars II nerou...@gmail.comwrote: Heiko Jacobs-2 wrote: But I don't will accept any data loss because only of legal reasons. Wikipedia and other projects changed licence without any loss of data. Unfortunately Wikipedia took advantage of a loophole: contributors agreed to the current GFDL or any later version, and they convinced the people in charge of the GFDL to have the next version allow the license change. -- View this message in context: http://gis.638310.n2.nabble.com/What-could-we-do-to-make-this-licences-discussion-more-inclusive-tp5292284p5304613.html Sent from the General Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On 14 July 2010 14:05, James Livingston li...@sunsetutopia.com wrote: I.e. can the legal advice only be shared among people actually on the LWG conference call, and not all OSMF members? Who can be on the call - LWG members, any OSMF member, or anyone involved in the project? Actually, I can't even find how you get on the LWG in the first place. You get on the mailing by asking the phone number and the time of the next conference call. Emilie Laffray ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 13:05, James Livingston li...@sunsetutopia.com wrote: On 14/07/2010, at 10:28 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but there are probably a lot of well known pitfalls to avoid when trying to run an inclusive international project in many languages. I'd think having English-only discussion at a set time convenient for Europeans would be pretty high on that list. I don't know if you'll get out of being English-only, since like it or not it is the main working language of OSM (as with many open projects on the Internet). Using any other language is probably going to exclude even more people. I should have been clearer. The problem isn't that the communication happens in English, but that it's happening in real time over the telephone. My German is pretty basic, but I can follow everything on talk-de armed with Google Translate and dict.leo.org. However, I wouldn't be able to follow a real-time German teleconference. That applies to a lot of people that are involved in OpenStreetMap, and will increasingly apply as we attract more contributors outside of the US/European hacker community. As an example, during the live stream for SOTM's QA session in Girona someone in the audience interrupted Steve Coast and asked him (in broken English), to please speak slowly and enunciate carefully, because many in the audience couldn't understand spoken English at that pace. That person is a good example of someone interested in the project (at least interested enough to show up on SOTM), but would pretty much be naturally excluded from the current teleconference system. One thing that I've seen done in other projects is rotate between three meeting times eight hours apart. So for example one meeting would be 1800 UTC, the next 0200 UTC and the next 1000 UTC. Maybe that would mitigate it, I don't know. But since we're all volunteers living on a spinning globe I think what should be answered first is whether these discussions really have to be synchronous. Further to what Frederik has said, there's a couple more points that are important. The OSMF receives legal advice on matters relating to the license change, and as far as I'm aware they are forbidden from making the legal advice public. I can't speak for them, but I would guess it's more inadvisable than forbidden (with respect to licensing anyway). If you get advice saying we believe that sections A, B and C will hold up in court, section D probably would, E should unless XYZ happens and we don't know about F, then telling everyone that means anyone trying to get around it knows about the potential holes you found. I hope security through obscurity like that isn't something we're actually relying on. It'd also be trivially found out by anyone else willing to pay lawyers of equal caliber. Of course, people using the license will want to know about that kind of thing, so it's a trade-off. I.e. can the legal advice only be shared among people actually on the LWG conference call, and not all OSMF members? Who can be on the call - LWG members, any OSMF member, or anyone involved in the project? Actually, I can't even find how you get on the LWG in the first place. I can't find that either. It'd be nice if the criteria for joining / application process was oneline somewhere. Maybe it is and I just haven't found it. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
I've split this from the original thread before it derails the one it was in any further, and cc'd legal-talk. On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 10:57, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 11:22 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, Ęvar Arnfjörš Bjarmason wrote: That doesn't just go for the LWG, it seems that a lot of the people involved in the OSMF prefer to do things via conference calls. The calls aren't recorded and published (that I've seen) Recording and making public such conversations would mean that everyone would have to choose their words carefully in order to minimise the danger of being quoted out-of-context by people with a limited understanding of English (wo might, for example, not immediately understand the humour in certain expressions). It would also discourage straight talk in many cases (people would say someone has contacted me about this-and-that instead of saying who that someone was, and so on). The telephone calls are already, as you say yourself, time-consuming and thus not for everybody; they are also, if I may add from my tiny little personal exposure, tedious and not something one likes to do. Your suggestions would make the telephone calls even more tedious, more time consuming, and rob them of the last bit of fun (in the form of a humourous remark here and there). It would be even harder to find people doing the work if you expect that from them. Well, my main suggestion was to not use conference calls due to the inherent bias towards people near UTC+0, and those that speak English at a near-native level. Which wouldn't be the case if the communication was in textual and asynchronous form. It's not something I care deeply about myself, since I probably wouldn't participate. But it's unfortunate that the people in a position to enact such a change would be those already active in the OSMF, i.e. people who've largely self-selected for doing things via conference call in the first place. I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but there are probably a lot of well known pitfalls to avoid when trying to run an inclusive international project in many languages. I'd think having English-only discussion at a set time convenient for Europeans would be pretty high on that list. I'm not sure I've heard any of the LWG members have any fun whatsoever on their calls! Further to what Frederik has said, there's a couple more points that are important. The OSMF receives legal advice on matters relating to the license change, and as far as I'm aware they are forbidden from making the legal advice public. If I recall correctly there was a problem about a year ago where the legal advice was publicly quoted and it had to be redacted from the mailing lists. Such is the nature of legal advice. I would also expect there to be lots of other confidential matters discussed (such as contacting people external to the project) that again can't be publicly broadcast without heavy editing of any recording. I'm sure the Data Working Group also has similar problems of confidentiality when there are copyright accusations being dealt with - some things just can't be recorded and broadcast publicly. That's fair enough. But since the legal advice and confidential information is being given to the OSMF, is there anything preventing these from being recorded and distributed amongst paying OSMF members, and not members of the general public? I.e. can the legal advice only be shared among people actually on the LWG conference call, and not all OSMF members? And would it be possible to offer podcasts of working group conference calls that aren't (presumably) legally sensitive, like the SOTM group, Local Chapters, Strategy, Sysadmins etc.? (from http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups) I'm sure if there are specific things from the minutes that you'd like elaboration on, the LWG members will do their best to try to answer your questions. I think the LWG should be applauded for providing such up-to-date minutes for all of their regular meetings, it shows some insight into their dedication to doing things well. Well, since you mention it I proposed a human readable version of the contributor terms in May [1] which the LWG rewrote [2]. A mention of it in the minutes last appeared on 2010-06-22 [3] as - Summary of OpenStreetMap Contributor Terms http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Contributor_Terms_Summary Mike has removed This is a work in progress. Presumably that means they're ready for rollout, but I don't know. I have a patch to the website that's been sitting around for two months waiting for a LWG yay/nay on this. Now, I *don't* mean that as waa waa, they took two months to look at my issue. I understand that this is low priority and that Mike et al are busy with other stuff. What I think is unfortunate is that stuff like this which seemingly has no need for confidentiality is intermingled with
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On 14/07/2010, at 10:28 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but there are probably a lot of well known pitfalls to avoid when trying to run an inclusive international project in many languages. I'd think having English-only discussion at a set time convenient for Europeans would be pretty high on that list. I don't know if you'll get out of being English-only, since like it or not it is the main working language of OSM (as with many open projects on the Internet). Using any other language is probably going to exclude even more people. One thing that I've seen done in other projects is rotate between three meeting times eight hours apart. So for example one meeting would be 1800 UTC, the next 0200 UTC and the next 1000 UTC. Further to what Frederik has said, there's a couple more points that are important. The OSMF receives legal advice on matters relating to the license change, and as far as I'm aware they are forbidden from making the legal advice public. I can't speak for them, but I would guess it's more inadvisable than forbidden (with respect to licensing anyway). If you get advice saying we believe that sections A, B and C will hold up in court, section D probably would, E should unless XYZ happens and we don't know about F, then telling everyone that means anyone trying to get around it knows about the potential holes you found. Of course, people using the license will want to know about that kind of thing, so it's a trade-off. I.e. can the legal advice only be shared among people actually on the LWG conference call, and not all OSMF members? Who can be on the call - LWG members, any OSMF member, or anyone involved in the project? Actually, I can't even find how you get on the LWG in the first place. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 13:05, James Livingston li...@sunsetutopia.com wrote: On 14/07/2010, at 10:28 PM, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: I'm no expert on this sort of thing, but there are probably a lot of well known pitfalls to avoid when trying to run an inclusive international project in many languages. I'd think having English-only discussion at a set time convenient for Europeans would be pretty high on that list. I don't know if you'll get out of being English-only, since like it or not it is the main working language of OSM (as with many open projects on the Internet). Using any other language is probably going to exclude even more people. I should have been clearer. The problem isn't that the communication happens in English, but that it's happening in real time over the telephone. My German is pretty basic, but I can follow everything on talk-de armed with Google Translate and dict.leo.org. However, I wouldn't be able to follow a real-time German teleconference. That applies to a lot of people that are involved in OpenStreetMap, and will increasingly apply as we attract more contributors outside of the US/European hacker community. As an example, during the live stream for SOTM's QA session in Girona someone in the audience interrupted Steve Coast and asked him (in broken English), to please speak slowly and enunciate carefully, because many in the audience couldn't understand spoken English at that pace. That person is a good example of someone interested in the project (at least interested enough to show up on SOTM), but would pretty much be naturally excluded from the current teleconference system. One thing that I've seen done in other projects is rotate between three meeting times eight hours apart. So for example one meeting would be 1800 UTC, the next 0200 UTC and the next 1000 UTC. Maybe that would mitigate it, I don't know. But since we're all volunteers living on a spinning globe I think what should be answered first is whether these discussions really have to be synchronous. Further to what Frederik has said, there's a couple more points that are important. The OSMF receives legal advice on matters relating to the license change, and as far as I'm aware they are forbidden from making the legal advice public. I can't speak for them, but I would guess it's more inadvisable than forbidden (with respect to licensing anyway). If you get advice saying we believe that sections A, B and C will hold up in court, section D probably would, E should unless XYZ happens and we don't know about F, then telling everyone that means anyone trying to get around it knows about the potential holes you found. I hope security through obscurity like that isn't something we're actually relying on. It'd also be trivially found out by anyone else willing to pay lawyers of equal caliber. Of course, people using the license will want to know about that kind of thing, so it's a trade-off. I.e. can the legal advice only be shared among people actually on the LWG conference call, and not all OSMF members? Who can be on the call - LWG members, any OSMF member, or anyone involved in the project? Actually, I can't even find how you get on the LWG in the first place. I can't find that either. It'd be nice if the criteria for joining / application process was oneline somewhere. Maybe it is and I just haven't found it. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
