Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ulf Lamping]

Tobias Knerr schrieb:
> Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> I have never mapped anything thinking 
>> "hey, maybe someone else is going to make a nice map from this that I 
>> can then use". Not one single time. I don't know if that makes me an 
>> exception. Most people I talked to were enthusiastic about the data 
>> being collected, and were talking about cool things *they* could do with 
>> the data, but I might be moving in the wrong circles ;-)
> 
> My (completely unscientific) observation is that liberal opinions about
> licensing (esp. PD-advocacy) are more common with people who actually
> write software / make map styles / do other "advanced" things with OSM
> data. Support for liberal licensing also appears to be more prevalent on
> the mailing lists than anywhere else in the project.

I'm writing OSS (and being involved in JOSM devel) for quite a while. 
Most of the time I was talking with other developers about licensing 
results that the GPL was the preferred way to go. Your milage may vary.

As Frederik (and other people) prominently advocating PD on our lists 
doesn't mean that this is common sense throughout the developers or 
"makers" community.

> One possible explanation might be that these "liberals" have experienced
> the problems of incompatible licenses etc. themselves. However, I'm
> starting to think that there's something else: If people are able to
> create cool OSM stuff themselves, they care most about licensing not
> getting in their way. 

Personally, I'm preferring the copyleft idea, as that's what I've seen 
to be the most benefit return for me - in the long run.

The very unfortunate thing here is simply that there's no golden rule to 
choose as there's no "GPL for data" (as GPL is common in software 
development), so we have incompatible data licenses get in our way - 
which is very, very sad indeed.


However, I've spend a lot of effort in OSM both with JOSM development 
and with mapping.

If OSM we're PD or BSD licensed, I certainly wouldn't have even started 
to spend an hour of my time ...

Regards, ULFL

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Ed Avis]

Simon Ward  bleah.co.uk> writes:

>Are you responding to my mail, or one earlier in the thread?  I stated
>that everything should be reverted to before each incompatible change.

I wanted to make the general point that while technically we can devise rules
for deciding what changes are compatible and incompatible, there is a certain
maximum level of complexity, and rules that generate long discussions on the
mailing list are probably too complex to stand up in court.  (Taking a
pessimistic view.)

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Dave Stubbs]

2009/3/5 SteveC :
>
> On 27 Feb 2009, at 05:04, Ben Laenen wrote:
>
>> It looks like we finally got some kind of "License plan" for the step
>> towards the new license, so everyone check
>> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Implementation_Plan
>>
>> Let me start with the obvious questions first:
>>
>>
>>
>> * why don't you split between the votes whether you like license X and
>> the question whether you're allowing the change of license on your
>> data?
>>
>> After all, I want to have an idea *how much* of the data will still be
>> there after the second vote. If it turns out that any data from
>> someone
>> who gave his approval would be deleted, then count me as no vote.
>
> so vote method is an interesting constraint... but I think we're being
> really hardcore in making sure that everyone who added data has to
> agree or we reset the process back to zero.
>
>> * I still have no response to the question what would happen with my
>> data if it's derived from someone who doesn't give it's approval for a
>> license change.
>
> My view, personally, is that it should be dropped. But y'know I just
> don't think it will happen like that. If we build a positive process
> and bring people with us then we'll get the majority of the people
> along. We will lose small bits of data but thats ok, we have fantastic
> volunteer community to fix those edges, we'll be in shape in no time.
>
>> And how are you going to check that anyway? You can do lots of things
>> with CC-BY-SA data (copying, splitting, merging) where it's impossible
>> to
>
> Well it's all in the database... every single edit (oh and the dump of
> the segments stuff). Because one day, about 4.5 years ago I knew it
> would be needed and designed it in. No need to thank me. No. Really.
>

I think he's referring to the more complex derivatives (such as
splitting a way) which are clearly logically derived but have no
obvious connection in our data model (splitting creates a new way with
no history, as well as leaving the original way in place but
truncated). But this is only an issue if you're taking the literal
unwind objects only approach and still regard such artefacts as in any
way significant. Mostly nodes will get in the way anyway and force you
to do some kind of cascade delete, but there are still more than a few
ways these bits and bobs will leak through.


>> My understanding is for example that if you split a way, there's not a
>> single connection between the two parts of the way telling that one
>> derived from the other.
>
> I can't comment on what potlatch does to my beautiful database.
>

You can however comment on your crappy data model that doesn't allow
forking an object to share a common history :-)

Dave

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[SteveC]

On 27 Feb 2009, at 05:04, Ben Laenen wrote:

> It looks like we finally got some kind of "License plan" for the step
> towards the new license, so everyone check
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Implementation_Plan
>
> Let me start with the obvious questions first:
>
>
>
> * why don't you split between the votes whether you like license X and
> the question whether you're allowing the change of license on your
> data?
>
> After all, I want to have an idea *how much* of the data will still be
> there after the second vote. If it turns out that any data from  
> someone
> who gave his approval would be deleted, then count me as no vote.

so vote method is an interesting constraint... but I think we're being  
really hardcore in making sure that everyone who added data has to  
agree or we reset the process back to zero.

> * I still have no response to the question what would happen with my
> data if it's derived from someone who doesn't give it's approval for a
> license change.

My view, personally, is that it should be dropped. But y'know I just  
don't think it will happen like that. If we build a positive process  
and bring people with us then we'll get the majority of the people  
along. We will lose small bits of data but thats ok, we have fantastic  
volunteer community to fix those edges, we'll be in shape in no time.

> And how are you going to check that anyway? You can do lots of things
> with CC-BY-SA data (copying, splitting, merging) where it's impossible
> to

Well it's all in the database... every single edit (oh and the dump of  
the segments stuff). Because one day, about 4.5 years ago I knew it  
would be needed and designed it in. No need to thank me. No. Really.

> My understanding is for example that if you split a way, there's not a
> single connection between the two parts of the way telling that one
> derived from the other.

I can't comment on what potlatch does to my beautiful database.

> And what with the countless relations? If there's one way added to  
> it by
> someone that didn't give approval, the only thing you can do is remove
> the relation as it was derived from CC-BY-SA data. Goodbye to your
> hundreds of kilometers long routes.

Be positive Ben-san. All will work out if we build it together, lets  
not drop it all at step one. Lets start from the fact we want to have  
a great license. That it wont be perfect but it is a fantastic first  
step and that if we build it together then we will get there and get  
on with the most important thing in our world - building the map.

> * "Website to allow users to voluntarily agree to new license. Design
> allows you to click yes, or if you disagree a further page explaining
> the position and asking to reconsider as there may be a requirement to
> ultimately remove the users data. This will help stop people
> accidentally clicking 'no'. Sign up page now states you agree to
> license your changes under both CCBYSA and also ODbL."
>
> Question: how's that not pushing the new license onto the mappers?

You remember the entire plan is open to comment right? You can suggest  
an alternative like wait until an asteroid hits and wipes out  
civilisation Then we won't need to worry about the license!

Best

Steve


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[MP]

OK, so lets assume that some data would have to be deleted (hopefully
not lot of them, otherwise it would probably kill the project and
spawn some forks with "complete" cc-by-sa data). Where there is the
exact line between deleted and kept data is on another debate, but I
wonder the way how the data would be deleted:

- Would people know in advance what data are going to be
deleted/reverted, so they can perhaps delete and redraw them themself?
- If yes, how that would be done and how long before marking the data
and actual deletion?
- After deletion, would there be some marker like "there is something
deleted from here"/"this way was reverted" for people to see, so they
can improve the data again?
- Would there be some "log" summarizing what data was/are going to be
deleted from where after/before the deletion?

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Simon Ward]

On Wed, Mar 04, 2009 at 11:18:48AM +, Ed Avis wrote:
> You have discussed some elaborate plans about what data from a non-relicensing
> contributor would have to be deleted and what would have to be kept.

Are you responding to my mail, or one earlier in the thread?  I stated
that everything should be reverted to before each incompatible change.

> The only sound rule that can be sure to stand up in court is to delete all 
> data
> from the contributors who didn't give explicit permission, and all data that
> depends on it.  Period.

Yes, like this.

If you are referring to my mail, I can only assume you are referring to
the last example sequence of edits I gave, and you assume that C’s edits
are dependent on B’s incompatible edits.  C created a completely new way
where there was none.  C may or may not have seen B’s removal of A’s
scribble, but regardless, his edit is a completely new work.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Nop]

Hi!

Steve Chilton schrieb:
> Having said all that, my real point is that I
> know a lot of "traditional" cartographers (some in a commercial
> environment and some not) and have observed an actual reluctance to
> consider using OSM data. This might be surprising given that OSM has
> always said "OpenStreetMap creates and provides free geographic data
> such as street maps to anyone who wants them. The project was started
> because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or
> technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using
> them in creative, productive, or unexpected ways" [top of homepage].
> My perception is that there are two things that stop this: Firstly,
> there seems to be either a misunderstanding of what the licence
> currently means, or a feeling that it is not possible to work within
> it's current terms.

Thank you for bringing this up. It has been on the back of my mind that 
OSM does not really live up to this mission statement on the top of the 
front page. It is good (or rather it is sad, but confirmation) to hear 
that there actually is reluctance among cartographers to use OSM data. I 
have found the same doubts in some forums in the geocommunity.

The statement "The project was started because most maps you think of as 
free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding 
back people from using them in creative, productive, or unexpected ways"
describes very accurately the problem I have with the CC BY SA licence 
(apart from insufficient protection against abuse):

I think of the OSM maps as free. But when I try to use them together 
with other sources in a creative, productive and not even unexpected 
way, I find  myself bound by legal restrictions of the licence that 
disallow these use cases. This would indicate to me one of two cases:
- The mission statement is wrong and needs to be changed to express the 
uncompromising disapproval of any non-totally-free use
- The CC licence fails to provide the freedom of usage OSM was started 
for and needs to be replaced or augmented

I believe/hope it was the latter and that is the reason why I approve 
the change of the licence. I want those two lines to be true and I want 
OSM to live up to them.

bye
  Nop

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Richard Fairhurst]

Peter Miller wrote:

> The clear advice (verbal so far) from our lawyer is that in the 
> UK/EU map data is covered by copyright (as well as DB rights).

I will quote the following from an Ordnance Survey agreement as much for
people's amusement as for edification.

"Intellectual Property Rights means copyright, patent, trade 
mark, design right, topography right, database right, trade 
secrets, know-how, rights of confidence, broadcast rights 
and all other similar rights anywhere in the world whether 
or not registered and including applications for registration 
of any of them"

I have not made any of that up. Though I think Fake Ed Parsons put it more
succinctly:

"Not only do we own all your data, we also own your 
trademarks, your logo and your fucking pet cat. Thanks."

As ever with these things, either you join in on the arms race (which is why
ODbL has three prongs: copyright, database right, contract), or you put down
your arms and hope enough people will respect it (PD).

cheers
Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Ed Avis]

Peter Miller  itoworld.com> writes:

>The clear advice (verbal so far) from our lawyer is that in the UK/EU  
>map data is covered by copyright (as well as DB rights).

In that case what is  referring to with its
'curious unlicensed limbo' remark?

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Gustav Foseid]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Ed Avis  wrote:

> >http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22crown+copyright+and+database+right%22
>
> Heh.  My maps are too old to have this.
>

That would be an uphill battle, but there is a chance you might win. If you
have old digital map data, you might have an even better chance.

Do you have the resources to start a fight with OS? Thought so...

 - Gustav
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Peter Miller]

On 4 Mar 2009, at 16:43, Ed Avis wrote:

> Richard Fairhurst  systemed.net> writes:
>
>>> I could start tracing in things from Ordnance Survey maps
>>> right away.  Note that these maps are 'Crown Copyright', not
>>> 'Crown Database Right'
>>
>> http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22crown+copyright+and+database+right%22
>
> Heh.  My maps are too old to have this.
>
> The point still stands: if it turns out that map data is copyright- 
> free then this
> will be a great boost to the project.  However, I wouldn't bet on  
> that outcome.

The clear advice (verbal so far) from our lawyer is that in the UK/EU  
map data is covered by copyright (as well as DB rights). When one  
products an index of street names for a town then it starts to look  
more like a DB but some recent case law concluded that copyright was  
more significant that had been expected even in the case where two  
different people who didn't communicate and worked independently would  
come up with exactly the same answer - however somewhere in this  
second sentence I should have stopped and let our lawyer say it for  
herself.


Regards,



Peter


>
>
> And if the OSM Foundation has a database right in the collected  
> data, it could
> use it to sue anyone incorporating the data in proprietary maps  
> right now.  You
> do not need to relicense the data to cause that database right to  
> appear.
>
> -- 
> Ed Avis 
>
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Ed Avis]

Richard Fairhurst  systemed.net> writes:

>>I could start tracing in things from Ordnance Survey maps
>>right away.  Note that these maps are 'Crown Copyright', not 
>>'Crown Database Right'
>
>http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22crown+copyright+and+database+right%22

Heh.  My maps are too old to have this.

The point still stands: if it turns out that map data is copyright-free then 
this
will be a great boost to the project.  However, I wouldn't bet on that outcome.

And if the OSM Foundation has a database right in the collected data, it could
use it to sue anyone incorporating the data in proprietary maps right now.  You
do not need to relicense the data to cause that database right to appear.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ed Avis wrote:
> I could start tracing in things from Ordnance Survey maps
> right away.  Note that these maps are 'Crown Copyright', not 
> 'Crown Database Right'

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22crown+copyright+and+database+right%22

:)

cheers
Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Gervase Markham]

On 04/03/09 10:51, MP wrote:
> Thayt is the worst thing - now you don't know who will agree to new
> license and who don't (unless you have some magic crystal ball). So
> you don't know which data are going to be removed and how much of them
> would it be until the last moment.

Right. And then we decide whether or not to go ahead with the 
relicensing, depending on what the figures are.

The alternative seems to be to get lots of people to make guesses about 
what they would do in certain situations, and then throw all that 
information away when we have actual data and ask people again, just 
like above. I don't see that as a good use of time.

Gerv


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Ed Avis]

Andy Allan  gmail.com> writes:

>>Or if I might make a slightly different suggestion: keep the CC-BY-SA
>>licence because that's what we have, and it's the standard adopted by
>>Wikipedia and other collections of free content.
>
>Not a helpful suggestion.

Isn't this rather prejudging the outcome of the licence debate and
vote?  I would expect that keeping the existing licence will be one of
the options presented.

>It's been explained many times why sticking with CC-BY-SA on our
>geographical data set just isn't an option.

I have read the explanation but I'm not convinced.  As far as I can
tell the only major point is that:

>OSM data is potentially in a curious unlicensed limbo at the moment,
>which will not protect us if a major geodata company, for example,
>decides to take our data without respecting the intent of the licence.

I do not believe this scenario is at all likely, and even if it did
happen it is a far lesser evil than losing big chunks of the OSM data
and contributor base through a painful relicensing exercise.  It is
also a lesser evil than ending up with a new licence which is too
restrictive and blocks reuse of the OSM data.  (What 'too restrictive'
means is a matter of opinion, but everyone can see that such an
outcome is possible.)

Further, as has been pointed out, this would be a very good outcome
for OSM if it set the precedent that map data is not covered by
copyright.  I could start tracing in things from Ordnance Survey maps
right away.  Note that these maps are 'Crown Copyright', not 'Crown
Database Right' or requiring you to agree to a contract or EULA to buy
them.  If it's good enough for the OS and their notoriously jealous
legal department, it's good enough for OpenStreetMap.

(The OS maps are printed maps and do not contain the OS's source
database - but if the mere placement of map features is not covered by
copyright, you could easily trace them and make your own independent
database.)

For this reason and others I do not think that any mapping agency
would try to deny the enforceability of copyright and OSM's
share-alike restrictions.  But if they do, and it goes to court, it
would be great news for OSM to lose!

(If the database right can be used to patch holes in copyright's
scope, then by all means do so.  But there is no need to relicense to
do that.  The copyright licensing can continue to be done using
CC-BY-SA as at present, and then the compiler of the database - which
is the Foundation, not the individual contributors - can grant
database right permission to those who distribute under the terms of
CC-BY-SA.)

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Andy Allan]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Ed Avis  wrote:

> Or if I might make a slightly different suggestion: keep the CC-BY-SA licence
> because that's what we have, and it's the standard adopted by Wikipedia and
> other collections of free content.

Not a helpful suggestion. It's been explained many times why sticking
with CC-BY-SA on our geographical data set just isn't an option. These
reasons are what spurred the initial considerations of changing the
license all that time ago, and isn't something that's been undertaken
lightly. If you're not up to speed on why, then please go find out.

Cheers,
Andy

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[David Lynch]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 08:19, Ed Avis  wrote:
> Ben Laenen  writes:
>
>>Suppose I split a way into two parts. The second part now gets uploaded
>>as a completely new object, with nothing in its history pointing
>>towards its origin.
>
> Although the way is new, don't the nodes along it keep their identity?

True, but what if I create a node at the same place I split? For
instance, if I take an existing way and split it in two places to add
a bridge tag, you'd end up with something like this:

( 1 )--A( 2 )B( 3 )--C--( 4 )

Nodes 2 and 3 have no reference to the original user in their
individual histories, so it would be impossible to know that they are
derived from whoever did the original way. Similarly, neither Way B
nor any of its nodes have any reference back.

Or, what if I happen to move every node in a way and change every
single tag, and then the original mapper opts out of the license? What
appears in the database at the current time is entirely my work, even
though the refusenik appears in the history.

Someone upthread suggested reverting to the database as it stood just
before the first contribution from someone who refuses the new
license, and I'm beginning to fear that's the only way to guarantee a
completely clean version.

-- 
David J. Lynch
djly...@gmail.com

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Ed Avis]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  gmail.com> writes:

>>For the benefit of countries where a database right exists, and 'for the
>>avoidance of doubt' as the ODbL says, add a short remark that the OSM
>>foundation (which is the entity which has collated together all of the
>>individual bits of mapmaking work into a giant database) will not assert its
>>database right to stop distribution of OSM data, provided it's done under the
>>CC-BY-SA.
> 
>What gives the OSMF special DB right to the collection of user-owned
>CC-BY-SA data as opposed to anyone else running a mirror of the DB?

If the OSMF doesn't in fact have the right to stop people using and distributing
the database under database right laws, the above permission notice is redundant
but harmless.

If it does have that power, just as well to waive it so we can all get on with
sharing the data under CC-BY-SA as intended.

-- 
Ed Avis 





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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Ed Avis  wrote:
> For the benefit of countries where a database right exists, and 'for the
> avoidance of doubt' as the ODbL says, add a short remark that the OSM 
> foundation
> (which is the entity which has collated together all of the individual bits of
> mapmaking work into a giant database) will not assert its database right to 
> stop
> distribution of OSM data, provided it's done under the CC-BY-SA.

What gives the OSMF special DB right to the collection of user-owned
CC-BY-SA data as opposed to anyone else running a mirror of the DB?

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Andreas Fritsche]

Hi!

Frederik Ramm wrote:
>[..]
> Could we perhaps shred all this legalese then [..]
> and instead write an one-page statement of
> intent that says how we'd like our data to be used and how not, and
> that's it?

I don't want to sound stupid or offensive, but - sarcastic or whatever
- I absolutely like Frederiks idea.

Sorry...
  - Andreas

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - minimum-legalese option

[Ed Avis]

Frederik Ramm  remote.org> writes:

>Could we perhaps shred all this legalese then, be done with the license 
>(which is, in effect, an attempt at codifying things in a manner you and 
>Steve have just discounted), and instead write an one-page statement of 
>intent that says how we'd like our data to be used and how not, and 
>that's it?

Excellent idea.

Or if I might make a slightly different suggestion: keep the CC-BY-SA licence
because that's what we have, and it's the standard adopted by Wikipedia and
other collections of free content.

For the benefit of countries where a database right exists, and 'for the
avoidance of doubt' as the ODbL says, add a short remark that the OSM foundation
(which is the entity which has collated together all of the individual bits of
mapmaking work into a giant database) will not assert its database right to stop
distribution of OSM data, provided it's done under the CC-BY-SA.

It is not necessary to have a big relicensing-and-deletion exercise to add this
extra waiver of database rights, because everyone already agreed to let OSM
distribute the data under CC-BY-SA and that's all we are doing.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

>>Also, technically, when "mixing licenses", we won't have mashup of
>>cc-by-sa and odbl, we will have mashup of cc-by-sa without consent to
>>relicense later under odbl and cc-by-sa with consent to relicense
>>later under odbl.
>
> I guess that would work.  The resulting collection would be distributable 
> under
> CC-BY-SA only.  If all of the old work without the extra consent is deleted, 
> and
> all work derived from it (see earlier discussion), then you could distribute 
> the
> result under the ODbL.

I think this should be the way we'll be going instead of deletion.
While it will postpone the moment from which all the data will be
ODbLed, perhaps maybe year or alike in future, no or very little
deletion would be necessary.

> ... PD mappers just have better to do mapping with JOSM
> and save their incontestable edits as an own local copy for the future needs 
> to
> be uploaded into OSM PD-repository or something.  Main OSM database is not a
> place to store PD data to be extracted out afterwards. I suppose it is not 
> even
> OK to add POIs with Potlatch and read them back to JOSM for making a local 
> copy.

Why not? Unless someone modifies the data in meantime, what is wrong
about reading back your own data as PD?

> One question:  All edits of PD mappers could of course be tranferred under the
> new license even without asking us.  But is is possible to connect our PD
> declarations in the wiki with our OSM data in a reliable way so that the 
> tranfer
> could be automatic?  User names used for mapping and in the wiki are not the
> same thing, or are they? ...

No, they are not. In my case they are different (the one I picked for
wiki was already taken by someone else for mapping, so I had to use
another name for mapping). While I have on my wiki page (User:Bilbo)
the template that tells everybody my edits are PD, the template
actually does not tell which user's edits. So in my case, the matching
username in mapping is completely different person.

Best would be to add the ability directly to OSM (perhaps to the user
settings somewhere)

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Ed Avis]

Ben Laenen  writes:

>Suppose I split a way into two parts. The second part now gets uploaded 
>as a completely new object, with nothing in its history pointing 
>towards its origin.

Although the way is new, don't the nodes along it keep their identity?

>Or another example: I can align the outline of a forest to the road 
>which I know is its boundary.

Yes, indeed.  If the road is exactly along the forest boundary then you can
again look at the nodes, but if there is some separation between the two there
is no clue in the database.

Yet clearly, tracing a road from the boundary of a forest, when you don't have
permission to distribute the forest data itself under the licence you want, is
no different to tracing a road from the boundary of an object you saw on Google
Maps and overlaid on your screen.

So, sadly, I suppose an 'exclusion zone' would have to be imposed.

--
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Ed Avis]

Richard Fairhurst  systemed.net> writes:

>We don't actually have a clean dataset. Nowhere near.

>The reason we haven't been sued is exactly the same. Intent and good faith.

You are right.  So what is the way of dealing with a relicensing that preserves
the intent of the contributors and is done in good faith?

I would argue that only a conservative approach is good enough - removing all
the 'no' contributions and things that depend on them.  A complex set of rules
and hand-waving to see what we can get away with isn't really acting in good
faith and doesn't really respect the intent of people who uploaded data
expecting it to have a CC-BY-SA licence.

Again I would suggest the 'Google Maps Test' for any proposed scheme.  Suppose
back in 2005 somebody made substantial changes that were blatantly copied from
Google Maps.  They have lain undetected until now and others have made
improvements to that area of the map.  But now the copying has been detected,
how much data must be deleted?

Another way to consider it is that one OSM contributor, having done most but not
all of the work in a particular region, wants to make a proprietary, copyrighted
map of the region based on OSM data.  How much of the data contributed by other
OSM mappers does he need to remove?  What about if another contributor
originally added a feature and then he improved it?  And so on.

It is very tempting to give ourselves special indulgences when considering all
this.  Surely it won't matter if we just do X; we can mix together different
licences for a transition period; it would be unkind and inconvenient to throw
away large chunks of data just because the person who happened to map the region
first couldn't be contacted.  After all, we're all conscientious people acting
in good faith and we want to do the right thing - that's the main thing, surely?

Acting in good faith means taking the most cautious approach, seeing things from
the other side, and not treating the OSM project any differently from another
entity which wants to take the contributed work and strip off CC-BY-SA.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Jukka Rahkonen wrote:
> Main OSM database is not a
> place to store PD data to be extracted out afterwards. I suppose it is not 
> even
> OK to add POIs with Potlatch and read them back to JOSM for making a local 
> copy.

That is disputed; there are those who say that something cannot lose its 
PD-ness by being transferred through a PD-unfriendly environment.

> One question:  All edits of PD mappers could of course be tranferred under the
> new license even without asking us.  But is is possible to connect our PD
> declarations in the wiki with our OSM data in a reliable way so that the 
> tranfer
> could be automatic?  User names used for mapping and in the wiki are not the
> same thing, or are they? 

They are not; but there is a template that people can use on their Wiki 
pages to give the name(s) they're mapping under. Was it "{{User}}"? Not 
sure.

I think that before interpreting a Wiki PD dedication one would need to 
take a close look (Wiki user pages can be modified by anybody). Maybe we 
should, before we delete someone's data, do a quick check if we find him 
on the Wiki and he has PD'ed his data, by way of a manual process.

Bye
Frederik


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Jukka Rahkonen]

MP  gmail.com> writes:

 
> I thought of one improvement - in addition to allowing people to
> consent to new license, allow them also to (completely voluntary)
> agree to Public domain their contributions. Some of the people on
> wikipedia (though not nearly a majority) does that for their
> contributions and many photos on wikimedia commons are under PD, so I
> assume some contributors may like it here too - then give them the
> possibility. Some tools to extract only PD subset of data could be
> added later if necessary (export list of users agreeing to PD would
> make this possible).
> And as wikipedia offers their complete dump with entire history, we
> maybe can offer planet dump with entire history in it too, so it could
> be easier to pick up only the PD contributions (or basically to dig
> through history for any reason without querying the main server)

OpenStreetMap has in a way advertised that users can decide to dual-license
their data.  I mean thes PD template system in the wiki
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Category:Users_whose_contributions_are_in_the_public_domain

In the beginning I thought that was a real alternative, but discovered soon that
it was just a manifestation.  I believe that majority of OSM users does not even
like the idea of asking users now if they actually think that their data could
well be in public domain.  PD mappers just have better to do mapping with JOSM
and save their incontestable edits as an own local copy for the future needs to
be uploaded into OSM PD-repository or something.  Main OSM database is not a
place to store PD data to be extracted out afterwards. I suppose it is not even
OK to add POIs with Potlatch and read them back to JOSM for making a local copy.

One question:  All edits of PD mappers could of course be tranferred under the
new license even without asking us.  But is is possible to connect our PD
declarations in the wiki with our OSM data in a reliable way so that the tranfer
could be automatic?  User names used for mapping and in the wiki are not the
same thing, or are they? However, wasting PD data just because the author can
perhaps not be contacted feels silly.


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> What really makes the difference, [...]
> is intent. Intent, and acting in good faith at all times. 

Could we perhaps shred all this legalese then, be done with the license 
(which is, in effect, an attempt at codifying things in a manner you and 
Steve have just discounted), and instead write an one-page statement of 
intent that says how we'd like our data to be used and how not, and 
that's it?

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Richard Fairhurst]

Dave Stubbs wrote:
> But don't kid yourselves it's a simple A or B choice.

Absolutely.

Steve actually answers this in his (very good IMO) "Licence to kill" post.
You can theoretically work out a complicated Boolean system of "is this
derived from an ODbL refusenik's work?". You can read every bit of
discussion about what "substantial" might mean in different jurisdictions,
and write some clever fuzzy-matching software to reflect that. I think
that's what people are talking about here.

But as Steve points out, that's a programmer's answer, all very
black-and-white. It doesn't actually work like that.

What really makes the difference, in my very limited understanding (but hey,
I'm a journalist not a programmer, limited understanding is a speciality :)
), is intent. Intent, and acting in good faith at all times. If we can
demonstrate that we've taken reasonable precautions; that we have removed
people's data on request (which, of course, we can do at any time); 


And for those who say "well, let's stick with the clean dataset we have
now":

We don't actually have a clean dataset. Nowhere near. We have material from
Google Maps in there. We have material from the Ordnance Survey. We may even
have entire countries which have been taken from a source not compatible
with our current licence - see the discussion about some of the ex-USSR
states.

The reason we haven't been sued is exactly the same. Intent and good faith.
Things like community pressure, the stuff in the FAQ, and the warning you
get when you start Potlatch. The efforts we go to to gather our own data.
That is real, hard proof. And that won't change - we should make real
efforts, and we will, but clinical boolean precision is a distraction.

(Ed asked how we'd "convince a court of law" - that's how. At the very
least, if Paul The Disaffected Mapper doesn't want to go to ODbL, some of
his stuff somehow remains in, and he says "ha, I'm going to sue", that
_very_ instant a crowd of OSMers would go and survey the place in question
to replace his data. You know what we're like. We like a challenge. :) )

cheers
Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[80n]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Dave Stubbs wrote:

> 2009/3/4 80n <80n...@gmail.com>:
> > On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Ed Avis  wrote:
> >>
> >> You have discussed some elaborate plans about what data from a
> >> non-relicensing
> >> contributor would have to be deleted and what would have to be kept.
> >>
> >> In the worst case, in the event of a dispute, do you really fancy trying
> >> to
> >> convince a court of law that the elaborate heuristics you applied are
> >> sufficient
> >> to make the map completely independent of the work of the users who said
> >> 'no'?
> >>
> >> The only sound rule that can be sure to stand up in court is to delete
> all
> >> data
> >> from the contributors who didn't give explicit permission, and all data
> >> that
> >> depends on it.  Period.
> >>
> >> You may think this is unnecessarily paranoid.  Indeed it is: but if the
> >> relicensing exercise doesn't put the project on a legally unassailable
> >> footing,
> >> it is not worth doing.  At the moment we can say with certainty that
> 100%
> >> of the
> >> contributors have clicked 'yes' to an agreement to distribute their
> >> changes under
> >> CC-BY-SA.  Any legal niceties tidied up by a move to a different licence
> >> are good
> >> to have, all other things being equal, but are hugely outweighed if the
> >> data
> >> becomes a questionable mishmash of contributions that have agreement,
> and
> >> those
> >> that don't have agreement but pass some odd set of rules we invented
> >> ourselves to
> >> convince ourselves that we didn't need to get permission.
> >
> >
> > I believe this is a wise approach.  OSM is traditionally very
> conservative
> > about using any data not from a know clean source.  On the grand scale
> its
> > relatively easy to capture map data, the value of a clean database far
> > outweighs the risks associated with infringing anyone's copyright.  We
> > should apply the same degree of conserativism to our CC-BY-SA licensed
> data
> > as we would to any other copyrighted data.
> >
> > Perhaps we are thinking about this all wrong.  If we considered the ODbL
> to
> > be a license fork of the project (albeit a friendly from the inside fork)
> > then it makes it much easier to think about how all this should happen.
> >
>
> I think the problem here is the statement, "delete all data
> from the contributors who didn't give explicit permission, and all data
> that
> depends on it.  Period."
>
> If only it was that simple.
>
> There's two options:
>
> 1) Start again from the first point of time at which someone not
> agreeing to the switch contributed data.
>
> 2) Draw a pragmatic line somewhere to determine what constitutes a
> copyrightable derivation from CC-BY-SA data.
>
> Option 2 is what just about everybody is talking about. They're just
> putting the line in different places.
>
> So the question isn't ever really going to end in a Period. We're
> going to have to make a call, and that can be extremely conservative
> with large zones of reversion around every contaminated edit, or
> extremely aggressive with complex heuristics to determine
> "significant" edits, or any point in between.
> Most people seem to be aiming for middle ground with object based
> reversion only and extremely few heuristics (ie: a zero change edit
> doesn't count). Which makes some sense.
> But don't kid yourselves it's a simple A or B choice.
>

If someone were to fork the OSM database and try to make a PD version that
only contained contribution from people who had self-declared their content
as PD then we'd be right in demanding that they err on the side of caution.


It's the same situation for ODbL.  The fact that it's us doing this and not
"them" is immaterial.

80n




>
> Dave
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Steve Chilton]

I am not at all happy about how this sub-thread has developed into the realms 
of suggesting cartographers are somehow "bad guys" in this licence context. 
Richard correctly identifies me as one of the few cartographers working within 
the OSM project. However I am not, and never have been, a commercial 
cartographer. I prefer to be seen as a professional cartographer (in both 
senses of the word), or can live with traditional cartographer (as opposed to 
all the neo-cartographers) - and have worked in Higher Education rather than 
commercial cartography. Anyone that knows me will know that I have contributed 
in several ways to OSM (/resists temptation to list ) and have never wanted 
or expected any payback or to "take advantage of other OSM players".
Having said all that, my real point is that I know a lot of "traditional" 
cartographers (some in a commercial environment and some not) and have observed 
an actual reluctance to consider using OSM data. This might be surprising given 
that OSM has always said "OpenStreetMap creates and provides free geographic 
data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. The project was started 
because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical 
restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, 
productive, or unexpected ways" [top of homepage]. My perception is that there 
are two things that stop this:
Firstly, there seems to be either a misunderstanding of what the licence 
currently means, or a feeling that it is not possible to work within it's 
current terms.
Secondly (and not directly relevant to this debate) the barriers to getting 
usable data from the DB. The Export tab offers XML format data (not a natural 
format for say an Illustrator user to encompass). Digging deeper gives the 
possibility of raw data or shape files from geofabrik, or cloudmade - giving 
those two plus formats such as Garmin, Navit and TomTom. And yes commercial 
cartographers can go to either of these named companies to pay for customised 
data output if they wish.
I am hopeful (being of a fundamentally optimistic outlook by nature) that some 
resolution to the current licence issue will actually allow ALL cartographers 
to realise the fundamental aims of the project, and that we will see more and 
more innovative maps produced from this superb data source by both traditional 
and neo-cartographers.

Cheers
STEVE

Steve Chilton, Learning Support Fellow
Manager of e-Learning Academic Development
Centre for Educational Technology
Middlesex University
phone/fax: 020 8411 5355
email: ste...@mdx.ac.uk
http://www.mdx.ac.uk/schools/hssc/staff/profiles/technical/chiltons.asp

Chair of the Society of Cartographers: http://www.soc.org.uk/

SoC conference 2008:
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cartographers08/

-Original Message-
From: talk-boun...@openstreetmap.org [mailto:talk-boun...@openstreetmap.org] On 
Behalf Of Richard Fairhurst
Sent: 03 March 2009 23:17
To: talk@openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] License plan


OJ W wrote:
> [routing source code]
> I saw that as a bit of a loophole in the license which is unfortunate
> but rather difficult to close

Ok, that's consistent. Extreme, perhaps, but consistent. But:

> [...]
> we can just declare that it should meet sharelike standards to 
> ensure that OSM players are not trying to take advantage of 
> each other.

is inordinately offensive.

As far as I know there are only two "OSM players" who are commercial
cartographers in some way (though for neither of us is it our main job): me
and Steve Chilton. To allege that we are aiming to take advantage of other
contributors is, yes, offensive, but also insane beyond belief. You might
not like Potlatch, you might not trace from NPE or ever use any traced data,
you might never use the Mapnik layer. But there is no denying that all three
of them are very major contributions to OSM without any - _any_ - payback.

Meanwhile, the guys releasing the routing software are, er, the ones who've
got €2.4m of venture capital. I don't begrudge them that - quite the
contrary. I don't think anyone does. But you might want to open your eyes.

Sheesh.

Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Dave Stubbs]

2009/3/4 80n <80n...@gmail.com>:
> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Ed Avis  wrote:
>>
>> You have discussed some elaborate plans about what data from a
>> non-relicensing
>> contributor would have to be deleted and what would have to be kept.
>>
>> In the worst case, in the event of a dispute, do you really fancy trying
>> to
>> convince a court of law that the elaborate heuristics you applied are
>> sufficient
>> to make the map completely independent of the work of the users who said
>> 'no'?
>>
>> The only sound rule that can be sure to stand up in court is to delete all
>> data
>> from the contributors who didn't give explicit permission, and all data
>> that
>> depends on it.  Period.
>>
>> You may think this is unnecessarily paranoid.  Indeed it is: but if the
>> relicensing exercise doesn't put the project on a legally unassailable
>> footing,
>> it is not worth doing.  At the moment we can say with certainty that 100%
>> of the
>> contributors have clicked 'yes' to an agreement to distribute their
>> changes under
>> CC-BY-SA.  Any legal niceties tidied up by a move to a different licence
>> are good
>> to have, all other things being equal, but are hugely outweighed if the
>> data
>> becomes a questionable mishmash of contributions that have agreement, and
>> those
>> that don't have agreement but pass some odd set of rules we invented
>> ourselves to
>> convince ourselves that we didn't need to get permission.
>
>
> I believe this is a wise approach.  OSM is traditionally very conservative
> about using any data not from a know clean source.  On the grand scale its
> relatively easy to capture map data, the value of a clean database far
> outweighs the risks associated with infringing anyone's copyright.  We
> should apply the same degree of conserativism to our CC-BY-SA licensed data
> as we would to any other copyrighted data.
>
> Perhaps we are thinking about this all wrong.  If we considered the ODbL to
> be a license fork of the project (albeit a friendly from the inside fork)
> then it makes it much easier to think about how all this should happen.
>

I think the problem here is the statement, "delete all data
from the contributors who didn't give explicit permission, and all data that
depends on it.  Period."

If only it was that simple.

There's two options:

1) Start again from the first point of time at which someone not
agreeing to the switch contributed data.

2) Draw a pragmatic line somewhere to determine what constitutes a
copyrightable derivation from CC-BY-SA data.

Option 2 is what just about everybody is talking about. They're just
putting the line in different places.

So the question isn't ever really going to end in a Period. We're
going to have to make a call, and that can be extremely conservative
with large zones of reversion around every contaminated edit, or
extremely aggressive with complex heuristics to determine
"significant" edits, or any point in between.
Most people seem to be aiming for middle ground with object based
reversion only and extremely few heuristics (ie: a zero change edit
doesn't count). Which makes some sense.
But don't kid yourselves it's a simple A or B choice.

Dave

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Ben Laenen]

On Wednesday 04 March 2009, Ed Avis wrote:
> The only sound rule that can be sure to stand up in court is to
> delete all data from the contributors who didn't give explicit
> permission, and all data that depends on it.  Period.

I agree that the only legal sound way to do it is by removing all 
dependent data. But we can't even tell what data depends on data from 
contributors who didn't give permission...

Suppose I split a way into two parts. The second part now gets uploaded 
as a completely new object, with nothing in its history pointing 
towards its origin.

Or another example: I can align the outline of a forest to the road 
which I know is its boundary. So the forest is also a dependency, but 
not a single clue in the database the two might be related to each 
other.

That's all becoming quite a minefield really.

Ben

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[80n]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Ed Avis  wrote:

> You have discussed some elaborate plans about what data from a
> non-relicensing
> contributor would have to be deleted and what would have to be kept.
>
> In the worst case, in the event of a dispute, do you really fancy trying to
> convince a court of law that the elaborate heuristics you applied are
> sufficient
> to make the map completely independent of the work of the users who said
> 'no'?
>
> The only sound rule that can be sure to stand up in court is to delete all
> data
> from the contributors who didn't give explicit permission, and all data
> that
> depends on it.  Period.
>
> You may think this is unnecessarily paranoid.  Indeed it is: but if the
> relicensing exercise doesn't put the project on a legally unassailable
> footing,
> it is not worth doing.  At the moment we can say with certainty that 100%
> of the
> contributors have clicked 'yes' to an agreement to distribute their changes
> under
> CC-BY-SA.  Any legal niceties tidied up by a move to a different licence
> are good
> to have, all other things being equal, but are hugely outweighed if the
> data
> becomes a questionable mishmash of contributions that have agreement, and
> those
> that don't have agreement but pass some odd set of rules we invented
> ourselves to
> convince ourselves that we didn't need to get permission.
>


I believe this is a wise approach.  OSM is traditionally very conservative
about using any data not from a know clean source.  On the grand scale its
relatively easy to capture map data, the value of a clean database far
outweighs the risks associated with infringing anyone's copyright.  We
should apply the same degree of conserativism to our CC-BY-SA licensed data
as we would to any other copyrighted data.

Perhaps we are thinking about this all wrong.  If we considered the ODbL to
be a license fork of the project (albeit a friendly from the inside fork)
then it makes it much easier to think about how all this should happen.

80n




>
> --
> Ed Avis 
>
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan - what data would need deleting

[Ed Avis]

You have discussed some elaborate plans about what data from a non-relicensing
contributor would have to be deleted and what would have to be kept.

In the worst case, in the event of a dispute, do you really fancy trying to
convince a court of law that the elaborate heuristics you applied are sufficient
to make the map completely independent of the work of the users who said 'no'?

The only sound rule that can be sure to stand up in court is to delete all data
from the contributors who didn't give explicit permission, and all data that
depends on it.  Period.

You may think this is unnecessarily paranoid.  Indeed it is: but if the
relicensing exercise doesn't put the project on a legally unassailable footing,
it is not worth doing.  At the moment we can say with certainty that 100% of the
contributors have clicked 'yes' to an agreement to distribute their changes 
under
CC-BY-SA.  Any legal niceties tidied up by a move to a different licence are 
good
to have, all other things being equal, but are hugely outweighed if the data
becomes a questionable mishmash of contributions that have agreement, and those
that don't have agreement but pass some odd set of rules we invented ourselves 
to
convince ourselves that we didn't need to get permission.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ed Avis]

MP  gmail.com> writes:

>>Try this thought experiment: suppose a user imported data from Google
>
>Well, this is disallowed completely in first place.

And so is importing the CC-BY-SA contributions into a new map which is not
licensed CC-BY-SA.  If one is disallowed then so is the other.
 
>Also, technically, when "mixing licenses", we won't have mashup of
>cc-by-sa and odbl, we will have mashup of cc-by-sa without consent to
>relicense later under odbl and cc-by-sa with consent to relicense
>later under odbl.

I guess that would work.  The resulting collection would be distributable under
CC-BY-SA only.  If all of the old work without the extra consent is deleted, and
all work derived from it (see earlier discussion), then you could distribute the
result under the ODbL.

-- 
Ed Avis 


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

> If we follow the rule of reverting incompatible changes only 2 is
> reverted to 1 (A’s scribble gets added back in).  3 is considered an
> independent change.  We end up with both a scribble and a neat road in
> the same area.  This situation likely won’t be easy to detect until
> after the changes, when validators will gleefully litter the map with
> warnings about overlapping ways.

That is perhaps worse than "we'll just delete/revert 5% of data".
Because this revertion/deletion would cause another perhaps 20% of
data (and it won't be always easy to spot them in the remaining 95%)
to be left in more or less inconsistent state that would need some
work to get consistent again.

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 23:50, Gervase Markham  wrote:
> On 03/03/09 18:39, Matthias Julius wrote:
>> It is not that simple.  What if those 5% is half of South Africa?  You
>> certainly can not interpolate overall OSM growth to re-surveying South
>> Africa.
>
> ...which is why this is an unanswerable question. Let's go through the
> exercise, see what the percentage actually is and where the data is, and
> then decide what to do.

Thayt is the worst thing - now you don't know who will agree to new
license and who don't (unless you have some magic crystal ball). So
you don't know which data are going to be removed and how much of them
would it be until the last moment. You can only guess or estimate
that, though once we start gathering consent for new license, we'll be
having lower bound for the estimate - we will know for some data that
these will stay there for sure (data for people wioth consent for new
license) and the rest maybe yes, maybe no.

I thought of one improvement - in addition to allowing people to
consent to new license, allow them also to (completely voluntary)
agree to Public domain their contributions. Some of the people on
wikipedia (though not nearly a majority) does that for their
contributions and many photos on wikimedia commons are under PD, so I
assume some contributors may like it here too - then give them the
possibility. Some tools to extract only PD subset of data could be
added later if necessary (export list of users agreeing to PD would
make this possible).
And as wikipedia offers their complete dump with entire history, we
maybe can offer planet dump with entire history in it too, so it could
be easier to pick up only the PD contributions (or basically to dig
through history for any reason without querying the main server)

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

MP wrote:
> We have now tool to convert OSM data to garmin format (Mkgmap). 
> The tool is opensource. Garmin can do routing (at least I assume it can, 
> I don't posses any garmin devices or software myself) and is closed
> source. Would the new license make mkgmap unusable/illegal with 
> odbl'd data?

No. Not at all.

I don't know where this idea is coming from. ODbL does _not_ insist that the
data can only be accessed by open-source programs or in open formats.

A couple of people appear to have suggested that _their_ ideal licence would
require this; but given that a) they haven't actually proposed such a
licence, b) nor have they argued for the easy and obvious step of
browser-sniffing to prevent IE/Safari/Opera users from using osm.org (well,
exactly), I suggest said suggestions are politely ignored until they do.

cheers
Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 23:47, Roland Olbricht  wrote:
> And what to users who do not log in with a browser?

Send them email. If they don't respond in some time (few weeks?) by
visiting their account, deny them access to uploading new data. That
will make them look in their acount and try to figure out what is
wrong.

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

> It would be great to require that only free software could use OSM
> maps.  I saw other peoples agreement on this when we discussed
> someone's 3D viewer for OSM data, and the #1 comment on this mailing
> list was "we shouldn't glorify the use of non-free software".
>
> Proprietary routing software on OSM data was seen as something outside
> of this community, not necessarily unacceptable of itself, but
> certainly something that needed to be discarded and replaced with a
> free alternative.

We have now tool to convert OSM data to garmin format (Mkgmap). The
tool is opensource. Garmin can do routing (at least I assume it can, I
don't posses any garmin devices or software myself) and is closed
source. Would the new license make mkgmap unusable/illegal with odbl'd
data? What about distributing maps converted to garmin format
(assuming they are still under ODbL). If that would be allowed, then
it won't prevent using closed-source SW for routing over OSM data, as
anyubody can simply get converted maps and upload them to their garmin
device.

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ulf Lamping]

Frederik Ramm schrieb:
> Hi,
> 
> OJ W wrote:
>> Currently OSM surveyors do their thing in the understanding that
>> cartographers will turn the result into something nice that they can
>> use (and the surveyors know that they will benefit from this due to
>> the map images being sharealike)
> 
> This is your assumption, not mine; I have never mapped anything thinking 
> "hey, maybe someone else is going to make a nice map from this that I 
> can then use". Not one single time. I don't know if that makes me an 
> exception. Most people I talked to were enthusiastic about the data 
> being collected, and were talking about cool things *they* could do with 
> the data, but I might be moving in the wrong circles ;-)

Well, I guess you're really the minority here ;-)

My feeling is that most of the "mapping" people involved in the project 
right now are really depending on what the developers/designers are 
doing. And they are happy with the map results the "major maps" offer.


Personally I would love to see a motorcycle dedicated map - but 
hesitated to start the effort ...

Regards, ULFL

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Simon Ward]

On Wed, Mar 04, 2009 at 12:33:56AM +0100, MP wrote:
> This could be perhaps "optimized": if user A creates some
> highway=road, user B changes it to residential and user C changes it
> to secondary. A and C agrees to new license, B won't.
> But contribution of B was completely removed by C's edit, so it won't
> be necessary to revert to highway=road in this case. Basically, if the
> edits of "incompatible users" got later reverted or altered so their
> contribution is not there anymore, there is no need to rollback, just
> delete their revision from history.

This seems reasonable, but (there’s always one) what happens in the case
that A creates highway=road, B changes it to highway=residenital
(intentional mis‐spelling), and C corrects it to highway=residential?

Unless C can be said to have surveyed it, this looks like an
“improvement” to B’s efforts, and a trivial one at that.  It should
probably be reverted to A’s edit, and tagged for resurvey.

> > There is the idea floating around that modifications to existing data
> > are insubstantial, and successive contributions could potentially be
> > kept without issue, but I think it is safest to remove them.
> 
> Perhaps for really minor changes, like alterations to created_by or
> conversion from "true" to "yes" or alike we could make an exception.

Reasonable: Changes that don’t change the semantics, or are just
meta‐data about the change, can be excepted.

> Would there be at least some information like "this object was
> reverted because of new license" (which would signal that the object
> perhaps need to be re-improved somehow) and for deleted objects
> information that "something was deleted from here"?

I don’t see why not.

> Also, what if someone who disagrees to new license deletes some data
> (either because that data is wrong or is replaced by something else
> that he draws). Will the deleted data get restored?

I know what OSM needs:  Changesets! ;)

I think all incompatible edits should get restored, although I
understand it could lead to a little bit of a mess.  Hopefully, in most
cases:

 1. A scribbles on the map. [compatible change]
 2. B removes the scribble [incompatible change]; and
 3. B replaces it with a neat road [incompatible change].

B doesn’t agree to the licence and the neat road gets deleted, and the
scribble gets added back in.

The following looks more messy, however:

 1. A scribbles on the map [compatible]
 2. B removes the scribble [incompatible]
 3. C adds a neat road [compatible]

If we follow the rule of reverting incompatible changes only 2 is
reverted to 1 (A’s scribble gets added back in).  3 is considered an
independent change.  We end up with both a scribble and a neat road in
the same area.  This situation likely won’t be easy to detect until
after the changes, when validators will gleefully litter the map with
warnings about overlapping ways.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

>> - if you decide to delete contributions and those contributions are
>> only part of the history of objects, do you rollback  to a previous
>> version of these objects ?
>
> Rollback to the last version before any changes incompatible with the
> new licence are made.

This could be perhaps "optimized": if user A creates some
highway=road, user B changes it to residential and user C changes it
to secondary. A and C agrees to new license, B won't.
But contribution of B was completely removed by C's edit, so it won't
be necessary to revert to highway=road in this case. Basically, if the
edits of "incompatible users" got later reverted or altered so their
contribution is not there anymore, there is no need to rollback, just
delete their revision from history.

This could help in cases where user B just make lot of mistakes that
got later reverted/corrected.

Technically, for ways we would have problems with restoring old
revision, since the nodes referenced by the old revision could have
been moved/deleted in the meantime, so that would possibly create some
invalid data.

> There is the idea floating around that modifications to existing data
> are insubstantial, and successive contributions could potentially be
> kept without issue, but I think it is safest to remove them.

Perhaps for really minor changes, like alterations to created_by or
conversion from "true" to "yes" or alike we could make an exception.
Or in cases where the object was "completely modified" from the last
"license-incompatible" version.

> In the interests of keeping it clean, any reverts made due to
> incompatible changes would not be kept in the history.

Would there be at least some information like "this object was
reverted because of new license" (which would signal that the object
perhaps need to be re-improved somehow) and for deleted objects
information that "something was deleted from here"?

> A backup can be kept of the old database of CC-by-sa compatible data.
> It might come in handy if some non‐responders pipe up and say “yes”, or
> the “no” voters change their minds.

Won't be of much use after longer time, since the missing data are
probably first to get readded and merging contribution of people who
changed their mind with the parts that was restored by remapping the
affected area in meantime would be difficult and won't be posible to
automate.

Also, what if someone who disagrees to new license deletes some data
(either because that data is wrong or is replaced by something else
that he draws). Will the deleted data get restored?

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

OJ W wrote:
> [routing source code]
> I saw that as a bit of a loophole in the license which is unfortunate
> but rather difficult to close

Ok, that's consistent. Extreme, perhaps, but consistent. But:

> [...]
> we can just declare that it should meet sharelike standards to 
> ensure that OSM players are not trying to take advantage of 
> each other.

is inordinately offensive.

As far as I know there are only two "OSM players" who are commercial
cartographers in some way (though for neither of us is it our main job): me
and Steve Chilton. To allege that we are aiming to take advantage of other
contributors is, yes, offensive, but also insane beyond belief. You might
not like Potlatch, you might not trace from NPE or ever use any traced data,
you might never use the Mapnik layer. But there is no denying that all three
of them are very major contributions to OSM without any - _any_ - payback.

Meanwhile, the guys releasing the routing software are, er, the ones who've
got €2.4m of venture capital. I don't begrudge them that - quite the
contrary. I don't think anyone does. But you might want to open your eyes.

Sheesh.

Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Andy Allan]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 10:58 PM, OJ W  wrote:

> It would be great to require that only free software could use OSM
> maps.

Seriously? Should I only be able to read Wikipedia articles in Firefox
and not Internet Explorer? That's nuts! It's the content that's
important - the wikipedia text, the OSM data. If gcc could only be
used to compile GPL software I'll bet it would be far less well
developed, if wikipedia could only be seen on Linux fewer people would
write it, and if OSM could only be used with free software then we'd
be staring at giant blank maps.

This is written on my Ubuntu laptop, of course.

Cheers,
Andy

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Tobias Knerr]

Frederik Ramm wrote:
> I have never mapped anything thinking 
> "hey, maybe someone else is going to make a nice map from this that I 
> can then use". Not one single time. I don't know if that makes me an 
> exception. Most people I talked to were enthusiastic about the data 
> being collected, and were talking about cool things *they* could do with 
> the data, but I might be moving in the wrong circles ;-)

My (completely unscientific) observation is that liberal opinions about
licensing (esp. PD-advocacy) are more common with people who actually
write software / make map styles / do other "advanced" things with OSM
data. Support for liberal licensing also appears to be more prevalent on
the mailing lists than anywhere else in the project.

One possible explanation might be that these "liberals" have experienced
the problems of incompatible licenses etc. themselves. However, I'm
starting to think that there's something else: If people are able to
create cool OSM stuff themselves, they care most about licensing not
getting in their way. Mappers who don't have the technical or artistic
skills or simply the time to do so will still want cool stuff to be done
with OSM. Of course, they have to rely on others creating it, and, more
importantly, others allowing them to use it under attractive conditions.
A license that guarantees the last part might seem rather appealing for
many of them.

Just a side note because I found this aspect of the statement especially
interesting. Most probably overly generalizing, misleading and/or simply
wrong. ;-)

Tobias Knerr

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[OJ W]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 10:18 PM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> OJ W wrote:
>
>> If the cartographers then devise a new license that says "my
>> contributions are more important than yours, I should get exclusive
>> rights over my additions to the map with a paintbrush while you
>> shouldn't get exclusive rights over your additions to the map with a
>> GPS" then it reduces the incentive for people to survey, since the
>> work they do can be published in a way that they can't use or copy.
>
> So to return to the point you have completely ignored, can you tell me
> why you're happy that the (current) licence doesn't require routing
> program source code to be released, please?

I saw that as a bit of a loophole in the license which is unfortunate
but rather difficult to close, whereas you seem to see it as "other
people have the ability to restrict views of OSM data, so why
shouldn't I", i.e. as an opportunity to extend the non-free
visualisations of the map to other areas, specifically those where
systemeD hopes to create a retirement fund by charging for access to
copyrighted OSM maps.

It would be great to require that only free software could use OSM
maps.  I saw other peoples agreement on this when we discussed
someone's 3D viewer for OSM data, and the #1 comment on this mailing
list was "we shouldn't glorify the use of non-free software".

Proprietary routing software on OSM data was seen as something outside
of this community, not necessarily unacceptable of itself, but
certainly something that needed to be discarded and replaced with a
free alternative.

However taking a view on the types of software permitted would be a
licensing problem of difficulty that makes ODbL look like a walk in
the park, whereas the choice of license for images derived from an
ODbL (i.e. maps, the purpose of this project!) is trivial - we can
just declare that it should meet sharelike standards to ensure that
OSM players are not trying to take advantage of each other.

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Gervase Markham]

On 03/03/09 18:39, Matthias Julius wrote:
> It is not that simple.  What if those 5% is half of South Africa?  You
> certainly can not interpolate overall OSM growth to re-surveying South
> Africa.

...which is why this is an unanswerable question. Let's go through the 
exercise, see what the percentage actually is and where the data is, and 
then decide what to do.

Gerv


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Roland Olbricht]

> Everything is up for debate.

For me, this license change resembles the EULA story with openSuse, see
http://zonker.opensuse.org/2008/11/26/opensuse-sports-a-new-license-ding-dong-the-eulas-dead/
and
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/opensuse-ends-eula

At least in Germany, this EULA story might had more impact on openSuse than 
the cooperation of Microsoft and Novell. And it started as a clash of 
cultures when Novell changed the Suse pages from the Suse way of organizing a 
site to the Novell way of organizing a site.

A lot of end users have been trained to the following way of perceiving: a 
screen mask that consists of several pages of scrollable text and then two 
buttons "Yes" or "Abort" means
"We never warrant that any part of this software works. But we always let you 
pay again when you do something we haven't planned."
no matter what's actually written in the text.

For a lot of people who are not primarly interested in law, this is 
what "commercial" means.

So I would like to suggest the following:
1. Create a message like
---
We are trying to get out of the caveats and flaws of copyright law and 
therefore need a new license. The final draft can be found at
http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/
and
http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/fil/
For non-law-experts, this means
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_Licence/Use_Cases
---

2. When a useful version of that message exists, request for as many 
translations as possible. Even doing here on talk@ would be a good place.

3. After some days, make the thing available at every user login.

4. Don't start the license commit itself at most a month after this message 
has been announced.

At least for those who perceive Yes-Abort-pages that way, this would much more 
look like the behaviour of an "open" project.

And what to users who do not log in with a browser?

Cheers,
Roland

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Nop]

Hi!

OJ W schrieb:
> If anyone who converts map data into a map image is provided with
> WTFYW license and gets to choose who is permitted to use, view,
> modify, overlay, and copy their images then lots of websites might
> decide "I paid for hosting and rendering, so only people who agree to
> these conditions can use my maps", leading to a fragmentation of
> licenses for the various slippy maps available.
> 
> Do we want to see the slippy-map tileservers becoming a commercial
> battleground for who can make the most money while imposing the most
> restrictions, where currently it's a nice easy "everything is
> CC-BY-SA" level playing-field where tangogps doesn't have to worry
> about enforcing the terms and conditions of 20 different rendererers?

Actually, the opposite is the case.

Right now, the restrictive SA-licence keeps the community people from 
creating better maps using both OSM data and other sources with other 
licences. At the same time, the data ist not sufficiently protected and 
any unscrupulous company or person can just grab everything and create a 
much better map combining any sources, completely disregarding the 
spirit of the licence. The community could not compete with such 
multi-sourced maps and puplic usage would likely prefer the stolen, but 
much more complete maps.

The new license will *enable* the community to create better works based 
on OSM and as long as these are available for free, the evil commercial 
cartographer has no leverage to sell his commercial products if he 
doesn't add considerable effort and due to the DB-license everything he 
adds is available to the community to build upon it, too.


bye
Nop

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Andy Allan]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 10:14 PM, OJ W  wrote:

> Do we want to see the slippy-map tileservers becoming a commercial
> battleground for who can make the most money while imposing the most
> restrictions, where currently it's a nice easy "everything is
> CC-BY-SA" level playing-field where tangogps doesn't have to worry
> about enforcing the terms and conditions of 20 different rendererers?

I think you're severely misunderstanding the current situation. There
are certainly conditions on the use of the opencyclemap tiles that are
not covered by cc-by-sa. You can't scrape all the z18 tiles, because
you'll be banned if you try. If you're app relies on being able to
scrape all the z18 tiles from tile.osm.org, then it'll be incompatible
with the cycle map.

Every server that I'm aware of has terms and conditions already, and
they are all different. However, you are right in saying that as it
stands, once you've actually acquired a tile you can be sure that you
have a consistent license.

I don't think it's a problem. If someone makes a tileserver with
crappy Ts&Cs then someone else can make another one with the same data
and Ts&Cs that are acceptable to whichever standard.

Cheers,
Andy

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

OJ W wrote:

> If the cartographers then devise a new license that says "my
> contributions are more important than yours, I should get exclusive
> rights over my additions to the map with a paintbrush while you
> shouldn't get exclusive rights over your additions to the map with a
> GPS" then it reduces the incentive for people to survey, since the
> work they do can be published in a way that they can't use or copy.

So to return to the point you have completely ignored, can you tell me  
why you're happy that the (current) licence doesn't require routing  
program source code to be released, please?

Richard

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Paul Wagener]

Thank you for your post Frederick!
I've been lurking on this discussion for awhile and you just summed up  
exactly my thoughts on it.

> Hi,
>
> OJ W wrote:
>> Currently OSM surveyors do their thing in the understanding that
>> cartographers will turn the result into something nice that they can
>> use (and the surveyors know that they will benefit from this due to
>> the map images being sharealike)
>
> This is your assumption, not mine; I have never mapped anything  
> thinking
> "hey, maybe someone else is going to make a nice map from this that I
> can then use". Not one single time. I don't know if that makes me an
> exception. Most people I talked to were enthusiastic about the data
> being collected, and were talking about cool things *they* could do  
> with
> the data, but I might be moving in the wrong circles ;-)
>
>> If the cartographers then devise a new license that says "my
>> contributions are more important than yours, I should get exclusive
>> rights over my additions to the map with a paintbrush while you
>> shouldn't get exclusive rights over your additions to the map with a
>> GPS"
>
> I don't like "more important".
>
> I think that the designer is actually doing something *less* important
> in the grand scheme of things. (His work might make up 90% of the work
> that goes into his particular product, but for us, it is negligible.)
> The surveyors are directly working towards the declared aim of this
> project; creating a free world map. Everything a surveyor does (well
> unless he's malicious or extremely stupid) will further this goal; his
> work is important to us.
>
> The cartographer goes off on a tangent; he does not help us in  
> reaching
> the goal of a free world map; he is a *user* of the free world map and
> not a *creator*. It is nice if he makes his work available because it
> allows us to show off what can be done with our data (although if he  
> at
> least attributes us that's also a good thing). But him releasing his
> work does not contribute to the free world map; or, turned the other  
> way
> round, him keeping his work for himself does not slow us down in any  
> way
> (because what would we do with his painted maps? trace our data off  
> them?).
>
> It all boils down to ideology. Forcing the cartographer to release his
> work means that we're not only about the free world map but also about
> free map images, free art installations, free t-shirt designs, free
> computer games, and so on. Concentrating on the data and ignoring the
> other stuff means, well, concentrating on the free world map.
>
> I am a great believer in the principal goodness of men, and I sure  
> would
> encourage everyone who takes anything from OSM, be it data, or just
> inspiration, to catch the spirit and give cool things away as well.  
> But
> trying to *force* people to do so will, I believe, create unnecessary
> problems and friction and unease (witness inability to use CGIAR  
> data by
> OpenCycleMap for example) and just make things worse for everyone.
>
> Bye
> Frederik


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[OJ W]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:40 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> The cartographer goes off on a tangent; he does not help us in reaching the
> goal of a free world map; he is a *user* of the free world map and not a
> *creator*. It is nice if he makes his work available because it allows us to
> show off what can be done with our data (although if he at least attributes
> us that's also a good thing). But him releasing his work does not contribute
> to the free world map; or, turned the other way round, him keeping his work
> for himself does not slow us down in any way (because what would we do with
> his painted maps? trace our data off them?).

what would we do with the cartographer's map images?  (other than
print them to navigate with or, put them in an encyclopedia, seems
reasonable after *we* mapped the area...)

the obvious one is: we would use them in software

currently, there are many different slippy-maps showing different
renderings of OSM data.  They are all technically compatible (due to
the tilenames) and they are all legally compatible (due to the CC-SA
license on images).  An application can swap between any of the maps
(and cache or distribute copies as they please) just by changing a
URL.

As with many other open standards, this leads to a wealth of
innovation in the devices, websites, applications and products which
use these mapservers (e.g. tangoGPS, the iphone app, the mediawiki
plugin, the variety of OSM website designs)

If anyone who converts map data into a map image is provided with
WTFYW license and gets to choose who is permitted to use, view,
modify, overlay, and copy their images then lots of websites might
decide "I paid for hosting and rendering, so only people who agree to
these conditions can use my maps", leading to a fragmentation of
licenses for the various slippy maps available.

Do we want to see the slippy-map tileservers becoming a commercial
battleground for who can make the most money while imposing the most
restrictions, where currently it's a nice easy "everything is
CC-BY-SA" level playing-field where tangogps doesn't have to worry
about enforcing the terms and conditions of 20 different rendererers?

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Tobias Knerr]

Simon Ward wrote:
> I have had to explain to free software advocates before (I am one) that
> OpenStreetMap is about free geodata, not necessarily free software.

The problem is that while the distinction between software and geodata
has been around from the start, the one involving images is to be
introduced only now.

Imagine this in the software example: If we had been requiring that all
software using OSM data had to be GPL until now and decided to drop this
requirement, telling people that they simply misunderstood the project's
goals and that it never was about free software -- I'd imagine that
there would be some mappers who firmly opposed that move.

> It turns out that much of
> the software for OpenStreetMap is free software.

Which isn't surprising because few people outside the OSM and free
software/content communities are using OSM-based software so far. This
doesn't make it reasonably attractive for authors of proprietary
software. I expect that to change once we are competitive in terms of
data quality and coverage. Same for not-so-free produced works.

>> I don't think explaining that data is more useful for us than images
>> will help (I've already tried that), because that won't stop them from
>> demanding both.
> 
> Similarly, we can put enough free images out there for them to be useful
> to all, and make the non‐free ones hardly worth the pixels/vectors.

Well, this doesn't really help to explain why we should allow those
non-free ones to be created in the first place.

Tobias Knerr

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[wer-ist-roger]

Am Dienstag 03 März 2009 schrieb Gustav Foseid:
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 5:22 PM, wer-ist-roger wrote:
> > The only thing I'm missing right now is a little more explenation on the
> > wiki
> > page. For example why needs the database a license at all? The database
> > is nothing without the data init. So first of all why dose the database
> > need a license and why do we need two different licenses for database and
> > the data within?
>
> What is an appropriate wiki page?
>
>  - Gustav

First of all it would be interesting for what we need the Open Database 
License and the Factual Information License? So we are actully not talking 
about just one (everyone just talks about ODbL) but two licenses, so what's 
als about this factual information license thing? 
An appropriat wiki page for me would be a page that explains to a "law noob" 
like me what happens to my data that I submit. What can be done with the data 
once it's uploaded (from an contributer and user perspectiv) and what could 
happen with it in the future (especially concerning the licenses, new versions 
of them and how we want to prevent another discussion like this). Who is the 
owner of this material. Maybe one should point out the differences between the 
current licens and the new licenseS and what it means to the regular 
contributer.
It is not important to show every aspect of the licens but to give a good and 
short overview.

Giving more information about the licenses might be good to get them more 
popular. Because the more I read about it here on the mailing list the more I 
get confused and by now I even disagree a little with the license change. A 
good wiki page that shows a little more then just the current one might help 
more.

Roger

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

OJ W wrote:
> Currently OSM surveyors do their thing in the understanding that
> cartographers will turn the result into something nice that they can
> use (and the surveyors know that they will benefit from this due to
> the map images being sharealike)

This is your assumption, not mine; I have never mapped anything thinking 
"hey, maybe someone else is going to make a nice map from this that I 
can then use". Not one single time. I don't know if that makes me an 
exception. Most people I talked to were enthusiastic about the data 
being collected, and were talking about cool things *they* could do with 
the data, but I might be moving in the wrong circles ;-)

> If the cartographers then devise a new license that says "my
> contributions are more important than yours, I should get exclusive
> rights over my additions to the map with a paintbrush while you
> shouldn't get exclusive rights over your additions to the map with a
> GPS" 

I don't like "more important".

I think that the designer is actually doing something *less* important 
in the grand scheme of things. (His work might make up 90% of the work 
that goes into his particular product, but for us, it is negligible.) 
The surveyors are directly working towards the declared aim of this 
project; creating a free world map. Everything a surveyor does (well 
unless he's malicious or extremely stupid) will further this goal; his 
work is important to us.

The cartographer goes off on a tangent; he does not help us in reaching 
the goal of a free world map; he is a *user* of the free world map and 
not a *creator*. It is nice if he makes his work available because it 
allows us to show off what can be done with our data (although if he at 
least attributes us that's also a good thing). But him releasing his 
work does not contribute to the free world map; or, turned the other way 
round, him keeping his work for himself does not slow us down in any way 
(because what would we do with his painted maps? trace our data off them?).

It all boils down to ideology. Forcing the cartographer to release his 
work means that we're not only about the free world map but also about 
free map images, free art installations, free t-shirt designs, free 
computer games, and so on. Concentrating on the data and ignoring the 
other stuff means, well, concentrating on the free world map.

I am a great believer in the principal goodness of men, and I sure would 
encourage everyone who takes anything from OSM, be it data, or just 
inspiration, to catch the spirit and give cool things away as well. But 
trying to *force* people to do so will, I believe, create unnecessary 
problems and friction and unease (witness inability to use CGIAR data by 
OpenCycleMap for example) and just make things worse for everyone.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Stanislav Brabec]

Richard Fairhurst wrote in Tue 03/03 2009 at 06:55 -0800:
> Pieren wrote:
> > It's very confusing now about who, how and what is deleted with 
> > the license change. I would appreciate if someone could answer 
> > the following questions:
> 
> It's not been decided. What do you think should happen?
> 
> Everything is up for debate. ODbL itself is up for debate. As Jordan
> (co-author) said on odc-discuss earlier re: a point we raised: "It (like the
> rest of the ODbL) isn't set in stone and so totally open for discussion."

Learning from history of open projects, nearly all of them forked before
the license change. You should expect, that OSM will do it as well.

But I can imagine two completely different scenarios with two totally
different reasons to fork. Only one of them would be destructive to the
community.


Scenario 1 (as is, destructive):

+ 2 months
  * Final cut-off. Delete data from people who have said no to ODbL
or not responded or revert. Delete data with source tag related
to organizations, that did not response or did not accept the
new license.

Forks:
 1. OSM: ODbL, 0-30% loss, depending on country
 2. CC-BY-SA-OSM: CC-BY-SA fork, full database, community fork


Scenario 2 (modified license, more work, non-destructive):

Make OSM ODbL upwards compatible to CC-BY-SA. Ensure that OSM ODbL
license allows to incorporate CC-BY-SA licensed data as they are.

+ 1 week
OSM database has a new tag: osm_license. All existing submissions are
marked as osm_license=CC-BY-SA. This tag is immutable by editors.

Another database is populated by set of rules:
  * User John allows to re-license everything to ODbL
  * User Adam allows rejects the re-license
  * User Jan did not respond
  * Provider of data with source="map_company_donate" allows to
re-license everything to ODbL
  * Provider of data with source="big_map_company" refused the
re-license
  * Provider of data with source="small_company" did not respond

+ 2 weeks
Once a week run a privileged license_migration_script, that has the
privilege to change the license tag if:
  * Only allows_relicense users are mentioned in the history
  * Only allows_relicense companies are mentioned in the source tag
  * The above applies for all points, lines and relations of the
element

+ 2 months 
  * 80-100% of the data was migrated to ODbL. It's no more legally
possible to use these data for closed source routing. There are
still potentially some parts of the database with the old
license, maybe they will stay forever.

Forks:
 1. OSM: ODbL+CC-BY-SA-OSM (dual license for old data), full
database
 2. CC-BY-SA-OSM: full database, commercial fork created by closed
source providers, full database

+ ~188 years
  * Legislation will probably allow to convert all submissions done
by individuals to ODbL.



Stanislav Brabec
http://www.penguin.cz/~utx


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Simon Ward]

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 05:21:02PM +0100, Tobias Knerr wrote:
> because of a change to the data, but the (unpublished) tools creating
> the images, thus nothing of use would be contributed back to the "free
> world" with ODbL.

Then we need to make sure as many tools as possible are free software,
and are at least as good as the proprietary competition.

I have had to explain to free software advocates before (I am one) that
OpenStreetMap is about free geodata, not necessarily free software.

Still, some free software advocates will go off in a hissy fit because
they believe the project has its priorities wrong.  The better answer
would to get behind the free software tools that are already out there,
maybe even help to develop more, and compete with proprietary software
the same way free software always has done.  It turns out that much of
the software for OpenStreetMap is free software.

> I don't think explaining that data is more useful for us than images
> will help (I've already tried that), because that won't stop them from
> demanding both.

Similarly, we can put enough free images out there for them to be useful
to all, and make the non‐free ones hardly worth the pixels/vectors.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[OJ W]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> It might be easy to do an automated rendering. That's not what I'm talking
> What concerns me is hand-drawn cartography. The "program code" for
> that, in my case, is something like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator, which
> anyone can have - but that's incidental.
>
> I spend days on getting the cartography right for the maps we produce in the
> magazine every month. It isn't "rendering". It's entirely done by hand.
> Getting the label placement right, choosing the colour set, working on the
> pull-outs, generalising features so that they don't collide but the user
> doesn't notice the distortion: that _is_ a great deal of effort. I try to
> aspire to OS Landranger quality of cartography, not MapQuest!

Currently OSM surveyors do their thing in the understanding that
cartographers will turn the result into something nice that they can
use (and the surveyors know that they will benefit from this due to
the map images being sharealike)

If the cartographers then devise a new license that says "my
contributions are more important than yours, I should get exclusive
rights over my additions to the map with a paintbrush while you
shouldn't get exclusive rights over your additions to the map with a
GPS" then it reduces the incentive for people to survey, since the
work they do can be published in a way that they can't use or copy.

The only counter-argument to this seems to be that the freetards are
invited to do a free version of cartography themselves, duplicating
effort that has already been done in the proprietary world in order to
get access to the results (as nice map images) of their own surveying

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Simon Ward]

On Tue, Mar 03, 2009 at 03:28:10PM +0100, Pieren wrote:
> It's very confusing now about who, how and what is deleted with the
> license change. I would appreciate if someone could answer the
> following questions:

My take:

> - do you delete only data from contributors who explicitly say 'no' to
> the new licence or also if you have no response ?

Delete both.

> what is the argument to consider an absence of response to be a 'yes'
> or 'no' ?

The main thing is, no contributor, unless they have specifically stated
otherwise, has (or in some cases, can) assign the rights to OSM, and OSM
cannot just assume rights other than those given by the licence they
were contributed under.

Some users have declared their contributions to be in the public domain
(or as close as law permits).  Whether or not they respond, I think it’s
safe to assume their data can be distributed under the terms of the new
licence (I’d hope we’d be polite and ask anyway).

> - do you delete data from big contributors only or also all small or
> single contributions ?

All data incompatible with the new licence, large or small.

> - if you decide to delete contributions and those contributions are
> only part of the history of objects, do you rollback  to a previous
> version of these objects ?

Rollback to the last version before any changes incompatible with the
new licence are made.

There is the idea floating around that modifications to existing data
are insubstantial, and successive contributions could potentially be
kept without issue, but I think it is safest to remove them.

Maybe if a user responds “no”, a further page could ask whether or not
they agree with their modifications to other peoples’ data being
used under the terms of the new licence.

> remove completely the objects if the contributor is the creator or the
> last modifier ?

Remove the object completely if the contributor is the creator.

If the contributor is the last modifier, revert to the revision before
as above.

> only if the contributor is the single contributor on the whole history
> of the object ?

Remove the object completely.

> - if the objects you delete are part of a relation, do you keep the
> relation at the end even if all members have to be deleted ?
> or you also delete the relation in this case ?

I am not sure there is much point in keeping the relation.  If someone
needs to use a relation to describe the same thing they can always
create a new one.

There is another question here:  If the contributor created a relation
and added ways and nodes appropriately, do you delete the relation even
when it includes references to objects from other contributors?

I think, to be safe, you do, but I also feel there is a looser coupling
if the relation only relates objects compatible with the new licence.

> what happen if another contributor (who accepted the new license)
> added/changed properties of a relation where all members have to be
> deleted ?

I still don’t think there is much point in keeping the relation.

> - if someone says 'no' to the new license and wrote a bot, do you also
> delete the bot contributions ?

Yes, unless they say otherwise.  It may well be that the bot author
feels that, while they do not agree to the new licence for their own
modifications, those made by the bot may be insubstantial (e.g. spelling
corrections), and say “no” for their own edits, and “yes” for their
bot’s edits.

> - after deletion, do you keep the trace in the history of other
> related objects ?

In the interests of keeping it clean, any reverts made due to
incompatible changes would not be kept in the history.

A backup can be kept of the old database of CC-by-sa compatible data.
It might come in handy if some non‐responders pipe up and say “yes”, or
the “no” voters change their minds.

> will it be possible for someone else to revert the deletion through
> Potlatch for instance ?

It shouldn’t be.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Matthias Julius]

Richard Fairhurst  writes:

> 80n wrote:
>> What percentage of data would other people feel willing to see 
>> sacrificed in order to move forward with the new license?
>
> I'd be interested to see this related to our userbase and editing stats.
>
> If (say) we lose 5%, how many months - at current rates of growth - does it
> take us to get back to the previous level?

It is not that simple.  What if those 5% is half of South Africa?  You
certainly can not interpolate overall OSM growth to re-surveying South
Africa.

Matthias

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Gervase Markham wrote:
>> 4. People who don't dislike ODbL per se but dislike the manner in which
>> it was brought about, and thus feel rushed/excluded. People who make
>> sensible suggestions for improvement but see their suggestions brushed
>> away or simply ignored because this would just delay the license release
>> (which seems to be planned for 28th March),
> 
> I agree that the timeline is too tight, particularly given that people 
> have to manage communication with communities other than English. But 
> where are suggestions being "brushed away"?

Nothing has been "brushed away" as far as I am aware; I just think there 
is a (considerable IMHO) risk that things will either be brushed away or 
at least be seen to.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Dave Stubbs]

2009/3/3 MP :
>>>I think we should find some way to avoid deleting at all. For some
>>>transitional time (in which the data will be still under cc-by-sa but
>>>we will be collecting consent of users for ODbL) mark data coming
>>>from/derived from people uncontactable/disagreeing with license with
>>>some special tag. Let people delete these parts and redraw them from
>>>scratch (from allowed sources/existing GPS tracks, anything except
>>>the original data).
>>
>> You would have to be very careful about doing that.  I don't think it
>> would work to view the map, see a street tagged 'bad licence', delete
>> it and then add it back.  Even if you were honest enough to close your
>> eyes, turn around three times and then re-trace it from the aerial
>> photography, it still looks very suspect.  And when deleting the
>> street you would have to delete all its nodes, including those that
>> are intersections with other streets, since it obviously doesn't do
>> anything to delete the way but leave all the nodes there to be
>> straightaway reconnected.
>
> Sometimes (if current data are drawn very inaccurately and do not
> contain any valuable tags like name, etc..) I do this - delete current
> data, then draw it again from scratch from aerial photography with
> greater accuracy. It is faster than trying to move existing vertices
> around, splitting and merging the ways in the process.
>
> Yes, you have to be very catious when redrawing, but I think it may be 
> possible.
>
>> Try this thought experiment: suppose a user imported data from Google
>
> Well, this is disallowed completely in first place. But here we have
> good data, just under different (but similar) license.
>

And what makes Google's data /bad/? Presumably that it's copyrighted
and we can't copy it right? Well, guess what... so's the cc-by-sa
data.


>> Since the reason for relicensing is to be ultra-cautious and take care
>> of certain theoretical legal bogeymen, it makes sense to be ultra-cautious
>> in removing possibly tainted data.  There is no point doing a relicensing
>> that leaves the project in a more questionable legal situation than before.
>
> Well, but how can you then explain to users that half of the data is
> lost just due to small incompatibilities between cc and odbl?
>

By telling them?
No body wants to loose data here. That doesn't mean we can just go
around violating our own license.


> Also, technically, when "mixing licenses", we won't have mashup of
> cc-by-sa and odbl, we will have mashup of cc-by-sa without consent to
> relicense later under odbl and cc-by-sa with consent to relicense
> later under odbl. I think such "mashup" could work for short time
> (before we persuade all to get consent or delete and replace their
> data if we have no consent), once we have all "cc-by-sa with consent
> for odbl", we can just switch to odbl.

Sure, but somebody copying the data and then deleting the original
doesn't make it OK and "with consent". All this idea does is muddy the
water by inviting people to copy data and cause us problems.
If we have to delete stuff, we should delete it properly and keep
ourselves clean.

Dave

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

>>I think we should find some way to avoid deleting at all. For some
>>transitional time (in which the data will be still under cc-by-sa but
>>we will be collecting consent of users for ODbL) mark data coming
>>from/derived from people uncontactable/disagreeing with license with
>>some special tag. Let people delete these parts and redraw them from
>>scratch (from allowed sources/existing GPS tracks, anything except
>>the original data).
>
> You would have to be very careful about doing that.  I don't think it
> would work to view the map, see a street tagged 'bad licence', delete
> it and then add it back.  Even if you were honest enough to close your
> eyes, turn around three times and then re-trace it from the aerial
> photography, it still looks very suspect.  And when deleting the
> street you would have to delete all its nodes, including those that
> are intersections with other streets, since it obviously doesn't do
> anything to delete the way but leave all the nodes there to be
> straightaway reconnected.

Sometimes (if current data are drawn very inaccurately and do not
contain any valuable tags like name, etc..) I do this - delete current
data, then draw it again from scratch from aerial photography with
greater accuracy. It is faster than trying to move existing vertices
around, splitting and merging the ways in the process.

Yes, you have to be very catious when redrawing, but I think it may be possible.

> Try this thought experiment: suppose a user imported data from Google

Well, this is disallowed completely in first place. But here we have
good data, just under different (but similar) license.

> Since the reason for relicensing is to be ultra-cautious and take care
> of certain theoretical legal bogeymen, it makes sense to be ultra-cautious
> in removing possibly tainted data.  There is no point doing a relicensing
> that leaves the project in a more questionable legal situation than before.

Well, but how can you then explain to users that half of the data is
lost just due to small incompatibilities between cc and odbl?

Also, technically, when "mixing licenses", we won't have mashup of
cc-by-sa and odbl, we will have mashup of cc-by-sa without consent to
relicense later under odbl and cc-by-sa with consent to relicense
later under odbl. I think such "mashup" could work for short time
(before we persuade all to get consent or delete and replace their
data if we have no consent), once we have all "cc-by-sa with consent
for odbl", we can just switch to odbl.

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Gervase Markham]

On 03/03/09 09:43, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> 4. People who don't dislike ODbL per se but dislike the manner in which
> it was brought about, and thus feel rushed/excluded. People who make
> sensible suggestions for improvement but see their suggestions brushed
> away or simply ignored because this would just delay the license release
> (which seems to be planned for 28th March),

I agree that the timeline is too tight, particularly given that people 
have to manage communication with communities other than English. But 
where are suggestions being "brushed away"?

Gerv


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Gustav Foseid]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 5:22 PM, wer-ist-roger wrote:

> The only thing I'm missing right now is a little more explenation on the
> wiki
> page. For example why needs the database a license at all? The database is
> nothing without the data init. So first of all why dose the database need a
> license and why do we need two different licenses for database and the data
> within?


What is an appropriate wiki page?

 - Gustav
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Dave Stubbs]

2009/3/3 Pieren :
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 2:13 PM, OJ W  wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Richard Fairhurst  
>> wrote:
>>> 2. People who don't like ODbL and withdraw their data. _Assuming_ we can get
>>> the bugs sorted in ODbL, and we can't take that for granted yet, this
>>> percentage should be very small.
>>
>
> It's very confusing now about who, how and what is deleted with the
> license change. I would appreciate if someone could answer the
> following questions:

As has been said, a lot of this is up for discussion of various
kinds... here's my brief attempt at answering... all responses are
just my interpretation... feel free to say I'm wrong :-)

> - do you delete only data from contributors who explicitly say 'no' to
> the new licence or also if you have no response ? what is the argument
> to consider an absence of response to be a 'yes' or 'no' ?

No response == no... but they might change their mind later and ask
for their data to be reintegrated which really is /fun/. See next q
though.

> - do you delete data from big contributors only or also all small or
> single contributions ?

YMMV on this one. For cleanest DB you delete everything, for most data
kept we run the risk with small "uncopyrightable" contributions. Also
we may treat no response differently to no for this.
From now on I'm assuming a cleanest DB scenario...

> - if you decide to delete contributions and those contributions are
> only part of the history of objects, do you rollback  to a previous
> version of these objects ?

yes

> remove completely the objects if the
> contributor is the creator or the last modifier ?

yes for creator, revert for modifier

> only if the
> contributor is the single contributor on the whole history of the
> object ?

yes

> - if the objects you delete are part of a relation, do you keep the
> relation at the end even if all members have to be deleted ?

or do you revert the relation to the point before the object was added
to the relation, or even to the point before the object was edited (as
otherwise your remaining relation maybe "derived" from the object).
Personally I think you're probably OK removing the object.
Does an empty, unreferenced relation serve any purpose? And if it
doesn't do we care?

> or you
> also delete the relation in this case ? what happen if another
> contributor (who accepted the new license) added/changed properties of
> a relation where all members have to be deleted ?

relations are like any other object -- revert to the relation state
before the person edited, then start removing things from it.

> - if someone says 'no' to the new license and wrote a bot, do you also
> delete the bot contributions ?

we can't tell the difference, so yes. But we may be able to mark most
of the edits as trivial and not remove them.

> - after deletion, do you keep the trace in the history of other
> related objects ? will it be possible for someone else to revert the
> deletion through Potlatch for instance ?

Nasty question :-)
Really the history should be deleted. You can leave a trace that
something happened, but details shouldn't be available, neither should
revert. We don't currently have a way to do that.

Dave

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ed Avis]

Thanks, what you wrote about hand-drawn cartography makes some sense.  There
might indeed be a case for removing the copyleft requirement for maps drawn from
the OSM data.  I don't believe however that wanting copyleft on the maps and not
on derived databases is a necessarily inconsistent position.

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> except that the ODbL does represent a fundamental change in licensing
> of map images - previously they were sharealike, but with ODbL it will
> only require attribution?

The source data will be available for anyone.

So either the cartographer has invested a lot of time to artfully create 
a beautiful map that nobody else can make; in which case I'm tempted to 
say let him enjoy ownership of the result.

Or he has simply run some automated rendering engine, in which case 
anyone else can trivially do the same.

Share-alike starts to eat itself if it becomes too greedy. Results of 
"map image share-alike" are (a) map image does not get produced at all 
or (b) map image is produced and available to OSM for tracing data off 
of it. Neither helps bring OSM forward.

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[wer-ist-roger]

> There were only very few news on talk/talk-de available for such an
> important thing as a license change.

I admit that I feal a little left out too but talk and talk-de are not the 
right place for leagel stuff. I assume that the "legal-talk" or "legal-general" 
discussed this a little more and these mailing lists are free for all. I 
didn't sign up for them because I'm just not a persone who knows a lot about 
legel things.
The only thing I'm missing right now is a little more explenation on the wiki 
page. For example why needs the database a license at all? The database is 
nothing without the data init. So first of all why dose the database need a 
license and why do we need two different licenses for database and the data 
within?

Roger

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Tobias Knerr]

Gustav Foseid wrote:
>> This could potentially alienate anyone who wonders why they are doing
>> surveying for free so that cartographers can sell all-rights-reserved
>> map images based on their data.
> 
> It could, potentially, even if I agree with Richard. I think it is important
> to explain why this change is to the better in the majority of the cases.
> [...]
> With the ODbL, the image of the map does not have to be free, but the data
> have to be shared. This means that the design elements are proprietary, but
> the data are easily available.

I agree. However, judging from some feedback on the German forums (where
I have explained exactly this situation), it seems that some users are
not going to accept the possibility of creating produced works under
non-free licenses, pointing out that the added value might not even be
because of a change to the data, but the (unpublished) tools creating
the images, thus nothing of use would be contributed back to the "free
world" with ODbL.

I don't think explaining that data is more useful for us than images
will help (I've already tried that), because that won't stop them from
demanding both.

Tobias Knerr

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists)]

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>Sent: 03 March 2009 2:55 PM
>To: talk@openstreetmap.org
>Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] License plan
>
>
>Pieren wrote:
>> It's very confusing now about who, how and what is deleted with
>> the license change. I would appreciate if someone could answer
>> the following questions:
>
>It's not been decided. What do you think should happen?
>
>Everything is up for debate. ODbL itself is up for debate. As Jordan
>(co-author) said on odc-discuss earlier re: a point we raised: "It (like
>the
>rest of the ODbL) isn't set in stone and so totally open for discussion."
>
>Really, there's no evil force presenting a fait accompli here.
>There is no "you" or "them", only "us".

Its about time you added that tag to Map Features ;-)

>
>cheers
>Richard
>--
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>tp22245532p22310154.html
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>
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ed Avis wrote:
> What you wrote above is a very good argument for it.
> 
> Rendering the data into a printed map is not a great deal of effort.
> Anyone can do it and many already do so.  There are not many 
> people who would be put off from rendering maps by being unable to 
> make the result proprietary. The copyleft requirement is pretty trivial 
> and doesn't create disincentives to rendering a map, because 
> rendering a map is so easy.

I think you're approaching that from a very programmatic perspective, and
this confirms it:

> (In any case, even though you can freely copy a PNG file of a map 
> or photocopy a page, and even though you can see for yourself what 
> colour scheme was used, you don't have the program code that was 
> used to render the ways and the text, which is the hard part.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

It might be easy to do an automated rendering. That's not what I'm talking
about. What concerns me is hand-drawn cartography. The "program code" for
that, in my case, is something like Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator, which
anyone can have - but that's incidental.

I spend days on getting the cartography right for the maps we produce in the
magazine every month. It isn't "rendering". It's entirely done by hand.
Getting the label placement right, choosing the colour set, working on the
pull-outs, generalising features so that they don't collide but the user
doesn't notice the distortion: that _is_ a great deal of effort. I try to
aspire to OS Landranger quality of cartography, not MapQuest!

http://www.systemeD.net/osm/caldon_2.jpg
http://www.systemeD.net/osm/caldon_3.jpg
http://www.systemeD.net/osm/caldon_4.jpg

(There's no OSM data in there - and conversely, OSM doesn't have all that
data either; and even if the maps were CC-BY-SA, which they weren't, the
generalisation is such that CC-BY-SA doesn't give much useful return to the
project.)

Believe me, I first wrote a passable routing program with reasonably decent
weighting at the age of 19 or so (heh, I found a review -
http://www.thecompclub.org.uk/newsletters/12.pdf), and it was a whole host
more trivial than the n years of experience that have, I hope, given me the
skills to design attractive maps.

cheers
Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ed Avis]

Richard Fairhurst  systemed.net> writes:

>Under CC-BY-SA, as I'm sure you know, a printed map can only be
>licensed as copyleft. The cartographer therefore no longer has
>exclusive rights to their "added value" (colours, selection of data to
>include, and so on), which are clearly apparent from the map. These
>can be trivially copied.
>
>Under CC-BY-SA, a routing service does not have to be licensed as
>copyleft.[1] The author of the routing service does not have to
>disclose their "added value" (weightings for different types of road,
>any transformations applied to the data, etc.). These cannot be
>trivially copied: to do so would require reverse-engineering a
>near-infinite set of requests and you'd probably be banned for DoSing
>before that. ;)

>But I don't see how arguing for full disclosure by cartographers, but
>not by routing system authors, is tenable.

What you wrote above is a very good argument for it.

Rendering the data into a printed map is not a great deal of effort.
Anyone can do it and many already do so.  There are not many people
who would be put off from rendering maps by being unable to make the
result proprietary.  The copyleft requirement is pretty trivial and
doesn't create disincentives to rendering a map, because rendering a
map is so easy.

(In any case, even though you can freely copy a PNG file of a map or
photocopy a page, and even though you can see for yourself what colour
scheme was used, you don't have the program code that was used to
render the ways and the text, which is the hard part.  That code
doesn't have to be distributed.)

On the other hand, the data for a routing service such as road
weightings takes a bit of effort to get right and is something that
many companies wish to keep secret (while nobody thinks that map
coloration can be a secret).  If using OSM data meant you also had to
reveal your routing database, it might act as a serious brake on use
of OSM by the commercial routing services, and perhaps even in
academic projects.  Tele Atlas are quite happy to license their data
without insisting that you disclose your algorithms or weights, and if
OSM ends up being more restrictive then the companies won't use it.
No loss to them - only to us.

I support the principle of copyleft, but it is important not to get
too greedy.  Just because some seeming bad use of the data can
technically be prevented by a certain extra clause in the licence does
not mean that it should be.

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

Pieren wrote:
> It's very confusing now about who, how and what is deleted with 
> the license change. I would appreciate if someone could answer 
> the following questions:

It's not been decided. What do you think should happen?

Everything is up for debate. ODbL itself is up for debate. As Jordan
(co-author) said on odc-discuss earlier re: a point we raised: "It (like the
rest of the ODbL) isn't set in stone and so totally open for discussion."

Really, there's no evil force presenting a fait accompli here.
There is no "you" or "them", only "us".

cheers
Richard
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Gustav Foseid]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 2:13 PM, OJ W  wrote:

> except that the ODbL does represent a fundamental change in licensing
> of map images - previously they were sharealike, but with ODbL it will
> only require attribution?


That is hos the license is understood by most people, yes. Some questions on
the final wording are still outstanding, as you have probably seen.


> This could potentially alienate anyone who wonders why they are doing
> surveying for free so that cartographers can sell all-rights-reserved
> map images based on their data.
>

It could, potentially, even if I agree with Richard. I think it is important
to explain why this change is to the better in the majority of the cases.

It is no longer possible to make massive amendments to the OSM data set,
make a mp of this and not share the data. Previously, you had to share the
map image, including design elements like pictograms, but to get the updated
map data into the database again, someone would have to to georectification
of the map and trace the changes.

With the ODbL, the image of the map does not have to be free, but the data
have to be shared. This means that the design elements are proprietary, but
the data are easily available.

This also opens up uses where you can combine data sources with different
licenses. One example could be digital elevation models combined with data
from OSM, to make a good hiking map.

Two examples:

I want to make a map of Copenhagen, with some good beer pubs. I am a lousy
artist, and would like to grab some pictograms from istockphoto.com to make
a good looking map. This is not possible today, and the map will lack good
pictograms. I will also be adding some extra pubs and other information
which is not in the database today. If anyone want to add this extra
information to the database, so they will be available for other users, they
will have to do this manually and the project gains very little.

Cloudmade and Geofabrik have some nice looking stylesheets that I would like
to base the above map on. Even if the map tiles are available to me, they
are little of no use to me. I will need to customize some things, like
rendering of pubs and restaurants, and cannot use the tiles directly. The
share alike properties of these images is not worth very much to me.


I think the bottom line here, is that the _data_ are very much more valuable
than any image made with them.

 - Gustav
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

OJ W wrote:
> Could you expand that answer?  Removing cartography from the scope 
> of OSM's license would seem to deserve a better explanation than a
> dismissal like that.

Sure.

A printed map; an online routing service (like, say, YOURS,
OpenRoutingService, or CloudMade routing); and a dedicated satnav device all
perform the same function: they communicate a subset of map data to the user
in an understandable, friendly way.

Under CC-BY-SA, as I'm sure you know, a printed map can only be licensed as
copyleft. The cartographer therefore no longer has exclusive rights to their
"added value" (colours, selection of data to include, and so on), which are
clearly apparent from the map. These can be trivially copied.

Under CC-BY-SA, a routing service does not have to be licensed as
copyleft.[1] The author of the routing service does not have to disclose
their "added value" (weightings for different types of road, any
transformations applied to the data, etc.). These cannot be trivially
copied: to do so would require reverse-engineering a near-infinite set of
requests and you'd probably be banned for DoSing before that. ;)

It's an artefact of the fact we're currently using a "creative works"
licence - the copyleft therefore applies to creative works. ODbL is a
database licence, therefore the copyleft applies to data. ODbL is not
interested either in art or in computer source code. The really good thing
is that OSM therefore gets [2] the "added value", the data, in
computer-readable form from both - something CC-BY-SA doesn't offer.

You could, of course, argue the opposite of ODbL - that the routing service
author should have to publish their added value in full, just as the
cartographer does - and indeed Lutz.horn on the wiki has said exactly that.
I think that would be a very honest position to take, and if you're the kind
of guy who believes everything should be Free in the RMS sense, I respect
your opinion though it's obviously not one I share. But I don't see how
arguing for full disclosure by cartographers, but not by routing system
authors, is tenable.

I think Rob Myers summed it up well on legal-talk:

"It's a pragmatic step to ensure that what users of free maps actually need
(free maps generated using quality geodata) isn't denied by ensuring that
the subject of copyleft in the wild is something else (low-resolution maps
rendered from that data)."

cheers
Richard

[1] and indeed several aren't, e.g. CloudMade routing, OpenRouteService
[2] subject to the "bug" Frederik and I raised on odc-discuss yesterday, and
Dave raised on legal-talk today
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Pieren]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 2:13 PM, OJ W  wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Richard Fairhurst  
> wrote:
>> 2. People who don't like ODbL and withdraw their data. _Assuming_ we can get
>> the bugs sorted in ODbL, and we can't take that for granted yet, this
>> percentage should be very small.
>

It's very confusing now about who, how and what is deleted with the
license change. I would appreciate if someone could answer the
following questions:
- do you delete only data from contributors who explicitly say 'no' to
the new licence or also if you have no response ? what is the argument
to consider an absence of response to be a 'yes' or 'no' ?
- do you delete data from big contributors only or also all small or
single contributions ?
- if you decide to delete contributions and those contributions are
only part of the history of objects, do you rollback  to a previous
version of these objects ? remove completely the objects if the
contributor is the creator or the last modifier ? only if the
contributor is the single contributor on the whole history of the
object ?
- if the objects you delete are part of a relation, do you keep the
relation at the end even if all members have to be deleted ? or you
also delete the relation in this case ? what happen if another
contributor (who accepted the new license) added/changed properties of
a relation where all members have to be deleted ?
- if someone says 'no' to the new license and wrote a bot, do you also
delete the bot contributions ?
- after deletion, do you keep the trace in the history of other
related objects ? will it be possible for someone else to revert the
deletion through Potlatch for instance ?

Pieren

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[OJ W]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
>
> OJ W wrote:
>> This could potentially alienate anyone who wonders why they are
>> doing surveying for free so that cartographers can sell all-rights-
>> reserved map images based on their data.
>
> Yeah, just like I lie in bed at night fretting that people can sell
> all-rights-reserved, closed-source routing services based on my data. Come
> on.

Could you expand that answer?  Removing cartography from the scope of
OSM's license would seem to deserve a better explanation than a
dismissal like that.

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ed Avis]

MP  gmail.com> writes:

>I think we should find some way to avoid deleting at all. For some
>transitional time (in which the data will be still under cc-by-sa but
>we will be collecting consent of users for ODbL) mark data coming
>from/derived from people uncontactable/disagreeing with license with
>some special tag. Let people delete these parts and redraw them from
>scratch (from allowed sources/existing GPS tracks, anything except
>the original data).

You would have to be very careful about doing that.  I don't think it
would work to view the map, see a street tagged 'bad licence', delete
it and then add it back.  Even if you were honest enough to close your
eyes, turn around three times and then re-trace it from the aerial
photography, it still looks very suspect.  And when deleting the
street you would have to delete all its nodes, including those that
are intersections with other streets, since it obviously doesn't do
anything to delete the way but leave all the nodes there to be
straightaway reconnected.

Try this thought experiment: suppose a user imported data from Google
Maps and randomly scattered it around the map.  But he added a
special tag to it so that people could later delete these tainted map
features and recreate them.  Even after the last bit of tagged data
had been deleted and re-added, could you really claim that the
resulting map was clean and legally sound?

If a mishmash of CC-BY-SA and ODbL licensed map data is workable, then
let's trace all the missing towns from Google Maps right now and mark
them with a special tag to be replaced later when we get round to it.
I'm sure the Google licence doesn't allow you to mix it with your own
data and release the result under a licence of your choice, but then
neither does CC-BY-SA or the permission grant made by users when they
sign up to the project.

Since the reason for relicensing is to be ultra-cautious and take care
of certain theoretical legal bogeymen, it makes sense to be ultra-cautious
in removing possibly tainted data.  There is no point doing a relicensing
that leaves the project in a more questionable legal situation than before.

-- 
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

OJ W wrote:
> This could potentially alienate anyone who wonders why they are 
> doing surveying for free so that cartographers can sell all-rights-
> reserved map images based on their data.

Yeah, just like I lie in bed at night fretting that people can sell
all-rights-reserved, closed-source routing services based on my data. Come
on.

cheers
Richard

(On a point of order, I don't believe ODbL _does_ allow all-rights-reserved
anyway; that's what the reverse-engineering clause is about.)
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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[OJ W]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:11 AM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> 2. People who don't like ODbL and withdraw their data. _Assuming_ we can get
> the bugs sorted in ODbL, and we can't take that for granted yet, this
> percentage should be very small.

except that the ODbL does represent a fundamental change in licensing
of map images - previously they were sharealike, but with ODbL it will
only require attribution?

This could potentially alienate anyone who wonders why they are doing
surveying for free so that cartographers can sell all-rights-reserved
map images based on their data.

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

> A little bit more respect to the people that actually did the mapping
> work would probably be a very good idea. "We're only loosing 5% of the
> data" is a very, very strange attitude for me. Not because of the data
> but because of the people behind that data.

Losing 5% of data will do much more damage than it looks - as we can
probably assume, that the 5% would be rather randomly distributed,
random 5% of objects would "disappear". Now you need to go through the
remaining 95% and check/remap it, especially for areas that are
already mapped "almost completely", to find out what was lost and
redraw it. People will be "stuck" for weeks/months checking the data
and repairing the damage - and some of them may get frustrated and
leave the project.

I think we should find some way to avoid deleting at all. For some
transitional time (in which the data will be still under cc-by-sa but
we will be collecting consent of users for ODbL) mark data coming
from/derived from people uncontactable/disagreeing with license with
some special tag. Let people delete these parts and redraw them from
scratch (from allowed sources/existing GPS tracks, anything except the
original data).

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ulf Lamping wrote:
> Personally I am feeling excluded from what's going on behind 
> the scenes and I think this is not the way for a project that 
> has "open" in his name ...

If it helps, there _isn't_ anything going on behind the scenes... well, at
least not that I know of.

Post in German, or French, or whatever, on here if you like - we all have
Google Translate, someone will step up to translate manually, and it's a
million times better than not posting. Put stuff on the wiki. Ask questions.
Vent. Rant. Anything from a misplaced capital in ODbL to a serious doubt
about the entire licensing philosophy. Just say it.

Far, far better that you speak up and post "I'm worried about this
because...", even in Schwabisch dialect if you like, than you sit there in
silence thinking "there's this conspiracy to make OSM commercial and I feel
left out". Because There Is No Cabal. Look around you - who's organised
enough to come up with a conspiracy? If there was a conspiracy they'd be
doing it better. But OSM is at heart a disorganised rabble - that's why the
communication on the licence issue has been shit, yes, but that's also why
we've mapped large portions of the world, because you couldn't organise it
better than that.

I've said it a million times before but: there is no "you" in this project,
there is only "us". Of course, this might be why Steve thinks I'm a filthy
communist.

If I could cross-post this to talk-de, talk-fr, talk-it and the rest, I
would do.

cheers
Richard

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Ulf Lamping wrote:
> "We're only loosing 5% of the 
> data" is a very, very strange attitude for me. Not because of the data 
> but because of the people behind that data.

Well, we always said "we have unlimited free labour" ,-)

> But I just won't continue to spend effort if OSM in 
> the long run probably ends up as a commercial thing.

The idea that the new license is somehow paving the way for OSM to "end 
up as a commercial thing" is utterly wrong, and whoever claims this 
should be hit over the head with a large cluebat.

However the fact that there seem to more such people than cluebats tells 
us that somewhere there's a lesson to be learned about communication. It 
seems that the new license effort, so far, has been a prime example of 
how *not* to do it.

Bye
Frederik


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ulf Lamping]

Frederik Ramm schrieb:
> Hi,
> 
> Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>> There's three categories to consider relating to existing data.
> 
>> 1. People who have made edits and can't be contacted. 
>> 2. People who don't like ODbL and withdraw their data. 
>> 3. Large organisations. 
> 
> I have a fourth category to add:
> 
> 4. People who don't dislike ODbL per se but dislike the manner in which 
> it was brought about, and thus feel rushed/excluded. People who make 
> sensible suggestions for improvement but see their suggestions brushed 
> away or simply ignored because this would just delay the license release 
> (which seems to be planned for 28th March), or people who have 
> legitimate concerns and find them answered with an "I don't know" from 
> the legal counsel and an "we'll press ahead anyway" from OSMF.
> 
> Having a proper process that takes our project members and their 
> concerns seriously, rather than holding a gun to their heads and saying 
> "agree to this license or go away", is not only important for keeping as 
> much data as possible, it is also, in my eyes, a requirement of project 
> ethics.
> 
> I can live with some data being lost. But I would like to avoid press 
> headlines like "20% of OpenStreetMap members quit over license row / 
> Disgruntled mappers say they feel ignored /  Fake SteveC: 'Crisis? What 
> Crisis?'" - I think *that* kind of thing would hurt us more than having 
> to redraw a few villages.

FULL ACK!!!

Personally I am feeling excluded from what's going on behind the scenes 
and I think this is not the way for a project that has "open" in his 
name ...

There were only very few news on talk/talk-de available for such an 
important thing as a license change.


A little bit more respect to the people that actually did the mapping 
work would probably be a very good idea. "We're only loosing 5% of the 
data" is a very, very strange attitude for me. Not because of the data 
but because of the people behind that data.

I must say that this is the first time that I'm seriously thinking about 
to stop my effort with OpenStreetMap completely and I'm feeling very 
sorry about that. But I just won't continue to spend effort if OSM in 
the long run probably ends up as a commercial thing.

You're probably not aware, but with the way the current license 
discussion is done you are spreading a lot of FUD on your own project :-(


Just wanted to let you know how the current actions are received from 
people not being directly involved in legal talk ...

Regards, ULFL

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> There's three categories to consider relating to existing data.

> 1. People who have made edits and can't be contacted. 
> 2. People who don't like ODbL and withdraw their data. 
> 3. Large organisations. 

I have a fourth category to add:

4. People who don't dislike ODbL per se but dislike the manner in which 
it was brought about, and thus feel rushed/excluded. People who make 
sensible suggestions for improvement but see their suggestions brushed 
away or simply ignored because this would just delay the license release 
(which seems to be planned for 28th March), or people who have 
legitimate concerns and find them answered with an "I don't know" from 
the legal counsel and an "we'll press ahead anyway" from OSMF.

Having a proper process that takes our project members and their 
concerns seriously, rather than holding a gun to their heads and saying 
"agree to this license or go away", is not only important for keeping as 
much data as possible, it is also, in my eyes, a requirement of project 
ethics.

I can live with some data being lost. But I would like to avoid press 
headlines like "20% of OpenStreetMap members quit over license row / 
Disgruntled mappers say they feel ignored /  Fake SteveC: 'Crisis? What 
Crisis?'" - I think *that* kind of thing would hurt us more than having 
to redraw a few villages.

Bye
Frederik


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

wer-ist-roger wrote:
> But we could lose even more! The ones that don't agree on the change might 
> start a fork and that would be the worst thing that could happen. 

That's why we talk to each other before taking the next step. If people 
feel rushed or left out then they are likely to fork; if we work hard to 
include as many people as possible - sometimes a symbolic gesture is 
enough to make people feel that their concerns are heard, sometimes the 
wording of the license needs to be adapted -, then we might just get 
this through.

> And one more thing. How can we be sure that the coming up license suites the 
> project? I don't want to have this discussion in 3 years again.

The ODbL has a provision for automatic upgrades to later versions. It is 
currently unclear (a) who decides what a "later version" is, (b) whether 
we can convince everybody to trust them enough, and (c) how we can be 
sure that *if* we require a change to the license, a matching "later 
version" will be provided by them.

But if these things are sorted out then we should be reasonably safe...

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Kevin Peat]

I can't see how any plan that involves deleting non-trivial amounts of 
data is ever going to work anyway as who is going to stop people from 
re-uploading the data with minor changes to tags and all the nodes moved 
by a metre or two?

Kevin




Ed Loach wrote:
> I wrote:
> 
>> As I think someone else pointed out, if it is abusable then we
>> could abuse it and not lose any data with the switch.
> 
> And before the flood of emails - I forgot the smiley. 
> 
> I'm sure I read somewhere lots of suggestions about what would
> happen to various items based on whether the people who created
> it/amended it agreed to the new licence or not, but can't find
> where. Was it in the wiki or on an email list? Can anyone remember. 
> 
> Anyway, I don't understand all these legal aspects. I joined the
> project to help improve the map and will continue to do so whether
> the licence changes or not, hoping that those people who do know
> what they are talking about are acting in the best interest of the
> project. 
> 
> Ed
> 
> 
> 
> ___
> talk mailing list
> talk@openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
> 

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Richard Fairhurst]

wer-ist-roger wrote:
> First of all we will lose data. We won't get everyone to agree on the 
> new license. No matter why. Maybe they don't approve the new 
> license or we just can't reach them anymore.

There's three categories to consider relating to existing data.

1. People who have made edits and can't be contacted. This is the hard one.
(As said previously, I think _minor_ contributors - whose work isn't
"substantial" - could be moved across automatically if they don't respond,
though still given the right to withdraw at a later time, but this isn't a
universally-held opinion.)

2. People who don't like ODbL and withdraw their data. _Assuming_ we can get
the bugs sorted in ODbL, and we can't take that for granted yet, this
percentage should be very small. I'm reminded of a participant at the SOTM
licence debate (I won't identify him, he can speak up if he wants) who spoke
fervently against PD - which of course isn't what's being proposed here -
but later said "I think if you moved to PD, I wouldn't withdraw my data, I
just wouldn't contribute any more". If that's the case for PD then surely he
wouldn't withdraw from a different share-alike/attribution licence.

3. Large organisations. I believe Canada has been done with the expectation
of a move anyway; the US is PD so no bother; it's immaterial to Yahoo. So
the issue is largely reassuring the original owners of the European imports.
IMO ODbL should always be better for them because of its "contribute back
the source of improvements" clause, which of course CC-BY-SA doesn't have:
so, AND (for example) are guaranteed access to all improvements based upon
their work. But this is probably an evangelism job for the foundation.

So all in all, if done right (and that's a big if), the amount of data we
lose _should_ be very small assuming that ODbL is deemed acceptable and the
bugs are ironed out.

There's then a second question: how does a licence move change future
contributions?

Much harder to measure, but my gut feeling is that because the licences are
both attribution/share-alike, the move will be largely neutral, maybe even
positive.

I know a bunch of people who haven't contributed significantly to OSM
because of CC-BY-SA, generally either because of unclarity ("I don't have
any confidence this will stand up, so I'm not contributing to something that
could easily be exploited") or the old derived work issue. For myself, I'm
spending every evening this week working on a detailed map of the
Chesterfield Canal and the surrounding area: data which I'd put into OSM
under ODbL, but which at present I do entirely standalone under Adobe
Illustrator, because of CC-BY-SA. This is a regular occurrence (our magazine
runs a detailed set of canal maps every month) and it frustrates me every
time.

But, on the other side, there will be a handful who genuinely prefer
CC-BY-SA, and we'll lose them.

Re: automatically moving from CC-BY-SA to ODbL via a licence upgrade: for
those who don't follow legal-talk, I raised the idea there in the
expectation that the nice chap from Creative Commons would respond, and sure
enough, he did. However, his reply was that CC's position is that data
should be licensed as public domain, so they wouldn't be interested in such
a move.

cheers
Richard
-- 
View this message in context: 
http://www.nabble.com/License-plan-tp22245532p22304926.html
Sent from the OpenStreetMap - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ed Loach]

I wrote:

> As I think someone else pointed out, if it is abusable then we
> could abuse it and not lose any data with the switch.

And before the flood of emails - I forgot the smiley. 

I'm sure I read somewhere lots of suggestions about what would
happen to various items based on whether the people who created
it/amended it agreed to the new licence or not, but can't find
where. Was it in the wiki or on an email list? Can anyone remember. 

Anyway, I don't understand all these legal aspects. I joined the
project to help improve the map and will continue to do so whether
the licence changes or not, hoping that those people who do know
what they are talking about are acting in the best interest of the
project. 

Ed



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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Nop]

Hi!

Ed Loach schrieb:
 >
 > As I think someone else pointed out, if it is abusable then we could 
abuse it and not lose any data with the switch.

Yep, we would just loose the people and the credibility.

This could only be considerd a last resort for data of people that still 
cannot be reached after trying really hard.


bye
Nop

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Ed Loach]

> Well, then there is question: what is worse?
> 
> 1. Have all the data, but risk someone "abusing it"?
> 2. Or force the license change, therefore enforcing the share-
> alike
> rights correctly, but tossing some data away?
> 
> Note that if cc-by-sa is somehow abusable, anybody that want to
> abuse
> the license using some loophole will simply grab last dump
> srill
> published under cc-by-sa instead of the new license - and then
> abuse
> the non-enforcability of cc-by-sa to databases.

As I think someone else pointed out, if it is abusable then we could abuse it 
and not lose any data with the switch. 

Ed



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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Nop]

Hi!

MP schrieb:
> What about finding a loophole that will allow convert from cc-by-sa to
> ODbL without asking anybody? :) I think wikipedia is doing something
> similar with their transition from GFDL to cc-by-sa

An extremely bad idea. This is the perfect way to alienate people even 
more and cause a counter-initative or split in the community.

 From the reactions I see, many people are annoyed that the initiative 
for a new licence has been conducted in secret by a small group of 
people, that the information has not been spread and not been translated 
and that they are being overrun and forced to agree by threat of 
deletion of their data. These are not my words but taken from posts in 
lists and forum.

The only way to get this rolling is to inform people and ask for their 
cooperation. It has had a very bad start, but looking for loopholes will 
feel to many people like you're stealing their data.

bye
Nop

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Nop]

Hi!

MP schrieb:
 >>> This seems rather apocalyptic.  What do you mean by 'lose 
everything' and
 >>> how would changing to a different licence avoid that?
 >> It is my opinion that CC-by-sa poses a high risk of not being 
enforceable to
 >> databases. That would mean losing the share-alike rights to the data.
 >
 > So you mean the data will become sort of "public domain"?

That is not the same. PD means the data is open to everybody. Abusing a 
bad licence means the data is open for grabbing for unscrupulous people 
that don't care about violating the idea.

But it is still restricted to honest users respecting the licence. A 
ridiculous situation.

bye
Nop


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 03:39, Iván Sánchez Ortega  wrote:
> El Martes, 3 de Marzo de 2009, MP escribió:
>> Note that if cc-by-sa is somehow abusable, anybody that want to abuse
>> the license using some loophole will simply grab last dump srill
>> published under cc-by-sa instead of the new license - and then abuse
>> the non-enforcability of cc-by-sa to databases.
>
> ... Which is, IMHO, the reason for the migration to ODbL to be as fast as
> possible.
>
> (If this happens, though, we should start looking for loopholes in other
> people's data).

What about finding a loophole that will allow convert from cc-by-sa to
ODbL without asking anybody? :) I think wikipedia is doing something
similar with their transition from GFDL to cc-by-sa

>> So if we assume we will contact everybody who has logged/uploaded data
>> at least once in last month and we will fail to contact the others -
>> how many data will be removed?
>
> We won't know until we ask.

I tried running some statistics on extract of Czech Republic from (~
78000 km^2, 684 Mb uncompressed)
If i take data from all users, that have uploaded/modified at least
one node, way or relation in last month, I end up with 72.66% of all
the data. If I use last two months instead, I end up with 85.56% of
data. That is only current state, not considering any history or
possible derivative work, etc 

When I tried the same for germany, I get 59.82% for one-month-recent
contributors and 79.17% for two-month-recent. Even worse. If we assume
people without contribution in last two months as unreachable (lack of
interest in OSM for them), we lose at least 20% data.

If the loss would be such high, I think we'll have another fork very soon.

Martin

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

El Martes, 3 de Marzo de 2009, MP escribió:
> Note that if cc-by-sa is somehow abusable, anybody that want to abuse
> the license using some loophole will simply grab last dump srill
> published under cc-by-sa instead of the new license - and then abuse
> the non-enforcability of cc-by-sa to databases.

... Which is, IMHO, the reason for the migration to ODbL to be as fast as 
possible.

(If this happens, though, we should start looking for loopholes in other 
people's data).

> So if we assume we will contact everybody who has logged/uploaded data
> at least once in last month and we will fail to contact the others -
> how many data will be removed?

We won't know until we ask.

-- 
--
Iván Sánchez Ortega 

- ¿Cuanto tiempo lleva muerto?
- Unas cinco horas.
- Interrogadle
 -- "Fringe", 2008


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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[wer-ist-roger]

So now we are talking about changing the OSM license. On the one hand I agree 
that this is necessary but we have to be quite sure that this is the right 
thing to do. We might lose more during this process then we gain:

First of all we will lose data. We won't get everyone to agree on the new 
license. No matter why. Maybe they don't approve the new license or we just 
can't reach them anymore. The worst thing would be a huge data lose that we 
gained because of governments or organizations.

But we could lose even more! The ones that don't agree on the change might 
start a fork and that would be the worst thing that could happen. We got 
already more then enough to do but splitting our resources into two or more 
different projects would be awe full.

And one more thing. How can we be sure that the coming up license suites the 
project? I don't want to have this discussion in 3 years again.

Roger

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Re: [OSM-talk] License plan

[MP]

>> This seems rather apocalyptic.  What do you mean by 'lose everything' and
>> how would changing to a different licence avoid that?
>
> It is my opinion that CC-by-sa poses a high risk of not being enforceable to
> databases. That would mean losing the share-alike rights to the data.

So you mean the data will become sort of "public domain"?

Well, then there is question: what is worse?

1. Have all the data, but risk someone "abusing it"?
2. Or force the license change, therefore enforcing the share-alike
rights correctly, but tossing some data away?

Note that if cc-by-sa is somehow abusable, anybody that want to abuse
the license using some loophole will simply grab last dump srill
published under cc-by-sa instead of the new license - and then abuse
the non-enforcability of cc-by-sa to databases.

As for the possible data loss - since new license is basically still
in spirit of cc-by-sa we can assume that most users will agree to
license change, if we can contact them.

So if we assume we will contact everybody who has logged/uploaded data
at least once in last month and we will fail to contact the others -
how many data will be removed?

Martin

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