Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 10:08 PM, Ulf Lamping ulf.lamp...@googlemail.com wrote: Now I'm asking you about a list of the OSMF members publicly. I'm not an OSMF member for the record. The OSMF is asking for an OSM license change, so I really want to know what the persons in question are that want to change the license. The OSMF hasn't asked anyone for a license change. The OSMF Board hasn't yet agreed to put any new license to the OSMF for consideration, never mind the OSM community. I'm sure it will at some point soon, but don't go thinking that the list of OSMF members have had anything to do with the new license *yet*. Cheers, Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
SteveC schrieb: (This is meant as a funny way to say that, when other important business has been resolved, we should perhaps one day clean up the AoA; it is not meant to suggest that there was something wrong with those serving on the OSMF board.) Well I don't really get the joke, but I see your point. And lets be very clear for the audience Frederik that recently you asked for a list of OSMF members and in response I offered and encouraged you to join the board phone call itself to experience what happens and to lay any concerns you have out with people. You refused. So lets be clear again that communications are a two way street and you have a set of ways of communicating and ways you dont want to communicate just like everyone else in the world. Ok. Now I'm asking you about a list of the OSMF members publicly. I'm not an OSMF member for the record. The OSMF is asking for an OSM license change, so I really want to know what the persons in question are that want to change the license. Regards, ULFL ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! SteveC schrieb: We've not always done a great job of communicating for a variety of reasons but it was never with malice. But you have actually succeeded in making quite a number of people suspect malice - and warn others about that. I do not agree, but I think it is a natural reaction, especially in a community concerned about freedom: - You keep me in the dark and suprise me - You try to force my consent while I have had no chance to inform myself = What are you hiding? What are you up to? I don't know you. And I had to google to check your affiliation with OSMF. I have no reason to trust you. I have no reason to suspect you of malice. But your repeated Not our job statements towards this matter worries me a lot. It is your initiative. It is your job. And if you don't do a better job of including the community and breaking the news in an acceptable way to everybody really quick, I fear desaster. You are inviting hundreds of No decisions just because of bad information policy. I recon there was no way to find out about this short of subscribing to legal talk - and why on earth would any mapper do that if he has no idea that anything concerning him is going on? This is the first time an ordinary OSM member had a chance to get notice of the licence change and I bet you that there are 8 account holders who still have no idea that anything is going on - so the process is just starting now. And we still have failed to give notice and understandable (translated) information to the majority of participants. I want to correct something here, there is this view of 100,000 users needing consent. The number is in fact far smaller for people who ever made an edit (about 30% of the users). It's vastly smaller still for anyone who has edited anything significant. It's an easier problem than you might think, is what I'm saying. Far easier than convincing you I don't have a satanic portal in my basement. You know what you're saying? You don't care about 10 people who are interested or want to contribute, you just care about the data of the 8000 (?) who have substantially contributed? This is a community. This is about people. At least it should be. Can't you understand why people do not trust you and suspect you are just out to grab their work when you argue like this? Even though I am in favour of the licence itself, this way of thinking is unacceptable to me. bye Nop ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Nop wrote: I want to correct something here, there is this view of 100,000 users needing consent. The number is in fact far smaller for people who ever made an edit (about 30% of the users). It's vastly smaller still for anyone who has edited anything significant. It's an easier problem than you might think, is what I'm saying. Far easier than convincing you I don't have a satanic portal in my basement. You know what you're saying? You don't care about 10 people who are interested or want to contribute, you just care about the data of the 8000 (?) who have substantially contributed? That's not what he is saying at all. Nobody is planning to ditch contributions below some threshold for the sake of it, however things should not stall simply because one person who's contributed one post-box two years ago can't be contacted any more. All he's saying is that although we might have 100K registered users, only 30K of them have made an edits whatsoever. Looking at the stats page, only about 8K are making edits each month (a different 8K each month, sure). This paper (http://tinyurl.com/5p2w65) looked at contributors in the UK, and found that of the 1100 users in their sample some 92 of them had contributed 80% of the data (or 0.08% - about 8K again, a nice coincidence). This is a community. This is about people. At least it should be. Can't you understand why people do not trust you and suspect you are just out to grab their work when you argue like this? Nobody is trying to grab anyone's work. Doing so would take far less effort. But a licence change is effectively like an (internal) fork, and we may find that some people disagree so strongly that their contributions can't be carried forward. Or simply that we decide to be very cautious, and feel we can't take forward data we can't be 100% sure about. It's sensible to understand just what impact that would have, since we are going to lose some data no matter what (some contributors are now dead; we're not going to contact their relatives, so we either unilaterally put their data under a new licence or we remove it). Even though I am in favour of the licence itself, this way of thinking is unacceptable to me. So what are you doing to help? -dair ___ d...@refnum.com http://www.refnum.com/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi, Andy Allan wrote: 1) Make the plan and the draft public. Ask for feedback. 2) Wait for feedback to be taken into account and expect/hope for a final version of the ODbL 3) See if the OSMF board approves 4) See if OSMF members like what results The word final should probably be struck out here because it has kind of gun to your head ring to it: Take this license or be stuck with CC-BY-SA forever. Instead, if either the OSMF board, or the members, are unhappy with the license (which is quite likely given that only ONE week is scheduled for phase 2 and I can safely say that the status quo would not pass a vote), then we need a new iteration; what is your final version then becomes the draft, and back to phase 1. And this must be made clear when the vote is taken; that this is not a vote about ODbL now or CC-BY-SA forever but a vote about ODbL or wait for revisions. Bye Frederik ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, Andy Allan wrote: 1) Make the plan and the draft public. Ask for feedback. 2) Wait for feedback to be taken into account and expect/hope for a final version of the ODbL 3) See if the OSMF board approves 4) See if OSMF members like what results The word final should probably be struck out here because it has kind of gun to your head ring to it: Take this license or be stuck with CC-BY-SA forever. Instead, if either the OSMF board, or the members, are unhappy with the license (which is quite likely given that only ONE week is scheduled for phase 2 and I can safely say that the status quo would not pass a vote), then we need a new iteration; what is your final version then becomes the draft, and back to phase 1. And this must be made clear when the vote is taken; that this is not a vote about ODbL now or CC-BY-SA forever but a vote about ODbL or wait for revisions. Absolutely. I meant final as in non-draft - bad choice of words on my behalf. Like saying when we have a final version of API 0.6 ;-) Cheers, Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 23:51, Nop wrote: 2. Provide translations of this in the major languages. Most people speak English to some degree, but some don't and something of this importance and with so much legalese involved does need to be in your native language to be sure you understood it. Keep translations current, also. That would be great, when will you start organising them? Would have been the job of OSMF in a more diplomatic process. It seems you didn't get my point. A convincing attempt at informing the community would have had to be organized by the OSMF, not by volunteers stepping in to fix parts of a bungled job. The OSMF *are* volunteers. I'll count you out from pitching in your help then! I can assure you that there is plenty of vitiriol in store for you on the German forum for example that just doesn't make it here yet due to the language barrier. Is that just in general or because of the license process? BAN POTLATCH eh? Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 23:42, Nop wrote: Hi! SteveC schrieb: To me this is similar to ignorance of the law is no defence. The data, people and facts are out there and it's not our job to serve them up to you in the specific best way you want. We will help all we can when you ask though. Thank your for bringing it down to this simple point. np Actually, it *IS* your job. That simple. You want a change. You want their consent. Your job. Well if you think about it you would want it too, right. Oh you're the guy who doesn't want to help.. I forgot. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 5 Mar 2009, at 00:14, Nop wrote: Hi! SteveC schrieb: We've not always done a great job of communicating for a variety of reasons but it was never with malice. But you have actually succeeded in making quite a number of people suspect malice - and warn others about that. I do not agree, but I think it is a natural reaction, especially in a community concerned about freedom: - You keep me in the dark and suprise me - You try to force my consent while I have had no chance to inform myself Yeah I'm still baffled by this one... where have I or the license working group tried to force any consent? I think we've been clear again and again that the whole process is up for discussion. = What are you hiding? What are you up to? Sorry my satanic portal has just opened up again and 6 legged dinosaur- monkey-spiders have charged through screaming... I don't know you. And I had to google to check your affiliation with OSMF. I have no reason to trust you. I have no reason to suspect you of malice. But your repeated Not our job statements towards this matter worries me a lot. Yeah I'm just a total idiot and you shouldn't trust me because I want your brains. nom nom nom. I only said it's not our job to back up what russ said about there being lots of things you don't know and we can't figure them all out for you. It is your initiative. It is your job. And if you don't do a better job of including the community and breaking the news in an acceptable way to everybody really quick, I fear desaster. You are inviting hundreds of No decisions just because of bad information policy. You can keep blaming me personally for everything. I think when Eve ate that apple it was also my fault at least I think so. Or you could help build the process now. This is the first time an ordinary OSM member had a chance to get notice of the licence change and I bet you that there are 8 account holders who still have no idea that anything is going on - so the process is just starting now. And we still have failed to give notice and understandable (translated) information to the majority of participants. I want to correct something here, there is this view of 100,000 users needing consent. The number is in fact far smaller for people who ever made an edit (about 30% of the users). It's vastly smaller still for anyone who has edited anything significant. It's an easier problem than you might think, is what I'm saying. Far easier than convincing you I don't have a satanic portal in my basement. You know what you're saying? You don't care about 10 people who are interested or want to contribute, you just care about the data of the 8000 (?) who have substantially contributed? No that's your mad interpretation of what I said. Mad. This is a community. This is about people. At least it should be. Look I invented that, and I concentrated on the people and not the technology from the very beginning which is why this project succeeded where others didn't. Can't you understand why people do not trust you and suspect you are just out to grab their work when you argue like this? Of course I can, it's called paranoia. You all attack me when I haven't even been the one responsible for the communications, that was Mikel and Grant. You don't even spend the 2.6 seconds required to think that there is a working group and a board and they might be responsible as well. No no no, it's all steve and his satanic portal. Mwahahhaha. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thursday 05 March 2009, SteveC wrote: On 4 Mar 2009, at 23:51, Nop wrote: 2. Provide translations of this in the major languages. Most people speak English to some degree, but some don't and something of this importance and with so much legalese involved does need to be in your native language to be sure you understood it. Keep translations current, also. That would be great, when will you start organising them? Would have been the job of OSMF in a more diplomatic process. It seems you didn't get my point. A convincing attempt at informing the community would have had to be organized by the OSMF, not by volunteers stepping in to fix parts of a bungled job. The OSMF *are* volunteers. I'll count you out from pitching in your help then! Right, but volunteering to be in the OSMF is actually volunteering to do all these kinds of tasks, right? Or am I seeing it wrong and is it just there to decide some things now and then without really bothering about it let others sort everything out? Ben ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
You too Andy, great post. On 5 Mar 2009, at 02:57, Andy Allan wrote: On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 12:40 AM, MP singular...@gmail.com wrote: Yes. At least when you expect 10 people to go along and the issue has the potential to break OSM apart, it would not be a bad idea to send monthly information about the state of things. Hmm ... perhaps sometimes it would be good to mass-email all members when it is about changes with possibly devastating (mass deletion) effect. Not everybody reads various blogs or parts of wiki around OSM, but almost everybody reads their email. Hang on, here's something which has been misunderstood. There's a good reason that we haven't emailed all 100,000 people yet. We're not sure whether the OSMF endorses the new license, which is itself still in a draft. If you look at the license plan ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Implementation_Plan ) you'll see it comes in the following stages: 1) Make the plan and the draft public. Ask for feedback. 2) Wait for feedback to be taken into account and expect/hope for a final version of the ODbL 3) See if the OSMF board approves 4) See if OSMF members like what results 5) If they do, then start asking the rest of the community *So we're at point 1*. We've always assumed that if you're the kind of person who wants to be involved in drafting licenses, reviewing incomplete licenses and so on you'll get involved. Most people probably don't care. That's why legal-talk subscriptions aren't compulsory in order to use the API. If you feel left out of stage 3, then maybe you should become a member of the OSMF. That's what it's there for. But again, not everyone is interested in the running of the project, doing behind the scenes stuff, holding the OSMF Board to account etc. Which is why OSMF membership isn't compulsory either. There's all chances that the OSMF members won't vote for the license, in which case it won't be put to the community at all Or maybe they will. The way the plan is seems to me a sensible staged approach of involvment - first the Board, then the Members, then the community at large. It needs to get through all three stages to work, and if any group disapproves, it stops. And we involve the smallest group first, then a bigger, then the biggest. Now because things are being done publicly, lots of people who are only interested in stage 5 think that we've skipped a few stages. Maybe we've found some people who want to be invovled in stage 1 who didn't realise until now that they did. Good. It's nice to have more people interested. Cheers, Andy ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Great post Dair! On 5 Mar 2009, at 02:04, Dair Grant wrote: Nop wrote: I want to correct something here, there is this view of 100,000 users needing consent. The number is in fact far smaller for people who ever made an edit (about 30% of the users). It's vastly smaller still for anyone who has edited anything significant. It's an easier problem than you might think, is what I'm saying. Far easier than convincing you I don't have a satanic portal in my basement. You know what you're saying? You don't care about 10 people who are interested or want to contribute, you just care about the data of the 8000 (?) who have substantially contributed? That's not what he is saying at all. Nobody is planning to ditch contributions below some threshold for the sake of it, however things should not stall simply because one person who's contributed one post-box two years ago can't be contacted any more. All he's saying is that although we might have 100K registered users, only 30K of them have made an edits whatsoever. Looking at the stats page, only about 8K are making edits each month (a different 8K each month, sure). This paper (http://tinyurl.com/5p2w65) looked at contributors in the UK, and found that of the 1100 users in their sample some 92 of them had contributed 80% of the data (or 0.08% - about 8K again, a nice coincidence). This is a community. This is about people. At least it should be. Can't you understand why people do not trust you and suspect you are just out to grab their work when you argue like this? Nobody is trying to grab anyone's work. Doing so would take far less effort. But a licence change is effectively like an (internal) fork, and we may find that some people disagree so strongly that their contributions can't be carried forward. Or simply that we decide to be very cautious, and feel we can't take forward data we can't be 100% sure about. It's sensible to understand just what impact that would have, since we are going to lose some data no matter what (some contributors are now dead; we're not going to contact their relatives, so we either unilaterally put their data under a new licence or we remove it). Even though I am in favour of the licence itself, this way of thinking is unacceptable to me. So what are you doing to help? -dair ___ d...@refnum.com http://www.refnum.com/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 5 Mar 2009, at 03:35, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, Andy Allan wrote: 1) Make the plan and the draft public. Ask for feedback. 2) Wait for feedback to be taken into account and expect/hope for a final version of the ODbL 3) See if the OSMF board approves 4) See if OSMF members like what results The word final should probably be struck out here because it has kind of gun to your head ring to it: Take this license or be stuck with CC-BY-SA forever. Agreed, I don't think that's the intention. Instead, if either the OSMF board, or the members, are unhappy with the license (which is quite likely given that only ONE week is scheduled for phase 2 and I can safely say that the status quo would not pass a vote), then we need a new iteration; what is your final version then becomes the draft, and back to phase 1. Lets expand it from one week then? And this must be made clear when the vote is taken; that this is not a vote about ODbL now or CC-BY-SA forever but a vote about ODbL or wait for revisions. Right... but we should quantify what the cost/benefit of that will be. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
SteveC wrote: On 4 Mar 2009, at 23:42, Nop wrote: Hi! SteveC schrieb: To me this is similar to ignorance of the law is no defence. The data, people and facts are out there and it's not our job to serve them up to you in the specific best way you want. We will help all we can when you ask though. Thank your for bringing it down to this simple point. np Actually, it *IS* your job. That simple. You want a change. You want their consent. Your job. Well if you think about it you would want it too, right. Oh you're the guy who doesn't want to help.. I forgot. Sorry, I did not really cared about it. Could have been PD from the begin. Was a surprised by the announcement. Read the license and mails. Would probably have said yes. But I do not like the way this went on. The fact that those who want to change it just say you do not want to help. That's my free time, that's your's. If you think the change is important for the OSM, the better. If you want to do it, your right. But take the burden on you, inform people, ask opinions, and be aware that there are some that disagree, and some indifferent. I do not say you do not help because you do come here helping me mapping my remote place. Your sentences are only rude. F#@@# now I CARE. If I have to choose now, I will say NO. Not due to the license, just due to sarcastic, overstated comments. first last time I loose time on this subject until it is handled on a factual basis. regards ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Pierre-André Jacquod wrote: Was a surprised by the announcement. Read the license and mails. Would probably have said yes. But I do not like the way this went on. The fact that those who want to change it just say you do not want to help. That's my free time, that's your's. Seriously, don't react to the style, react to the substance. I know it's not always easy but we're none of us great at communication, we're none of us actually paid to think that carefully about what we write, so it's all too easy to get wound up in a http://xkcd.com/386/ kind of way. At which point Steve does something between amused and sarcastic, Frederik does deadpan, I do flying off the handle, Etienne does inscrutable, someone on talk-de will do BAN POTLATCH!!1!1?lol, etc. etc. lots of hints for Fake blogs there But none of that matters, really. If we're to get things done then occasionally biting your lip is helpful. The number of mails I write to this list and then close before sending... cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/OSM-license-change%3A-A-license-to-kill---%3E-How-to-make-a-nightmare-come-true%21-tp22325041p22355771.html Sent from the OpenStreetMap - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Richard Fairhurst wrote: I know it's not always easy but we're none of us great at communication, we're none of us actually paid to think that carefully about what we write, so it's all too easy to get wound up in a http://xkcd.com/386/ kind of way. At which point Steve does something between amused and sarcastic, Frederik does deadpan, I do flying off the handle, Etienne does inscrutable, someone on talk-de will do BAN POTLATCH!!1!1?lol, etc. etc. Yes, but unfortunately the result is that various threads which were at least discussing/explaining (however confusedly) substantive issues seem to have been hijacked into an attack/defend SteveC thread, which I suspect doesn't interest many people. I really want a better understanding of the licenses and their consequences in terms which a non-lawyer can understand and convey to other people. It doesn't help telling me 'this is magic stuff only a lawyer could understand'. For example, the Italian list is discussing the license in a way which I think shows it's really not understood, but I'm not sure enough of my own understanding to try to explain - maybe they are right and I'm wrong (this centres on the nature of the relationship between the database and factual licenses). The best way I can see to get the explanation at the moment is by listening to substantive discussions on this list. Longer term, I think it would be extremely helpful if the licenses themselves included an explanation for non-lawyers, in the way the gpl always did. Graham ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mar 5, 2009, at 12:19 PM, graham wrote: I think it would be extremely helpful if the licenses themselves included an explanation for non-lawyers, in the way the gpl always did. Not always a good idea. If your license has any ambiguities, then a judge will go outside your license to see if you've said anything else about the meaning of the license. Potentially, anything you say about the license could become part of the license. So your non-legal explanation actually may have legal import. In principle, you're suggesting that code should be explained in the comments, when actually, comments should explain things that *aren't* in the code. If you want to know what the code says, you should be reading the code, not the comments. If you want to know what a legal agreement says, you should read it. It's tedious, yes, but I've read every one of the OSI approved Open Source licenses at least twice, and I lived through it. if you call this living, of course. I could be a zombie, and how would you know?? -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 04:57, Andy Allan gravityst...@gmail.com wrote: If you look at the license plan you'll see it comes in the following stages: 1) Make the plan and the draft public. Ask for feedback. 2) Wait for feedback to be taken into account and expect/hope for a final version of the ODbL 3) See if the OSMF board approves 4) See if OSMF members like what results 5) If they do, then start asking the rest of the community Maybe we've found some people who want to be invovled in stage 1 who didn't realise until now that they did. Good. It's nice to have more people interested. Agreed. It's a good thing that we're getting interest now and not after it's too late. I think some of the anger that's resulted from all of this is because we're writing an OSM license -- yes, I know it's not *just* an OSM license, but we look to be the first big user and seem to be one of the major forces behind its creation -- at arm's length through ODC. The dark side of the free-as-in-speech nature of open source/databases/etc. is that people get very unhappy when they feel like they haven't been able to contribute. Not having the license as an OSM project, or even prominently pointed out from the OSM site, makes people feel left out. I think three months would be reasonable if a finalized ODbL 1.0 had been published for a while or we were going to some other license that had already had the what-ifs answered and/or dealt with, but when the text isn't finalized yet and there's already a timeline with specific dates to move to the new license, it feels like we're being pushed. Personally, I'd love to see 5 moved up to before or concurrent with 3 and 4, even if it's just a straw poll that results in x% say they they think OSM should adopt ODbL, y% say they would probably agree to the license but think it still needs work, z% say they don't want to change, and w% of the people who logged in didn't answer the poll. I assume that there would be a second vote required to actually approve moving to the new license, but it lets people feel like they're involved before the OSMF and/or its board make any decision. -- David J. Lynch djly...@gmail.com ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 5:36 PM, Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com wrote: On Mar 5, 2009, at 12:19 PM, graham wrote: I think it would be extremely helpful if the licenses themselves included an explanation for non-lawyers, in the way the gpl always did. Not always a good idea. If your license has any ambiguities, then a judge will go outside your license to see if you've said anything else about the meaning of the license. Potentially, anything you say about the license could become part of the license. So your non-legal explanation actually may have legal import. ummm good? as long as the explanation doesn't contradict the license, what is the problem? In principle, you're suggesting that code should be explained in the comments, when actually, comments should explain things that *aren't* in the code. isn't it more like comments having an effect on program behaviour (like openmp annotations)? i'm not endorsing it - its really nasty to work with - just trying to clarify the analogy... :-( If you want to know what the code says, you should be reading the code, not the comments. If you want to know what a legal agreement says, you should read it. but if the code confuses you then you read the comments for enlightenment, right? i don't think you're saying that code without comments is OK (although a heated discussion to have on another day, perhaps), so why should a license without an explanation be OK? i've been looking at the use cases for this sort of extra information, but it wouldn't hurt to have more information, especially in lay language that can be translated for our non-english-speaking comrades. It's tedious, yes, but I've read every one of the OSI approved Open Source licenses at least twice, and I lived through it. if you call this living, of course. I could be a zombie, and how would you know?? did you come out of steve's evil basement portal of dooom? :-P cheers, matt ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mar 5, 2009, at 1:06 PM, Matt Amos wrote: ummm good? as long as the explanation doesn't contradict the license, what is the problem? The problem is that you've got an impedance mismatch. If you comment about your license, it can become PART OF your license, which means that you need to be careful that everything you say has a proper legal meaning, which breaks the idea of explaining things without using legalese. but if the code confuses you then you read the comments for enlightenment, right? /* Add one to the length */ length += l; i don't think you're saying that code without comments is OK (although a heated discussion to have on another day, perhaps), so why should a license without an explanation be OK? Code: interpreted by computer; comments: interpreted by a human. License: interpreted by a human; comments: interpreted by a human. And my point from above is that the barrier between the two is not hard and fast. did you come out of steve's evil basement portal of dooom? :-P I don't understand why people think steve has an evil portal of doom in his basement. It's in his attic. -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com wrote: On Mar 5, 2009, at 1:06 PM, Matt Amos wrote: ummm good? as long as the explanation doesn't contradict the license, what is the problem? The problem is that you've got an impedance mismatch. If you comment about your license, it can become PART OF your license, which means that you need to be careful that everything you say has a proper legal meaning, which breaks the idea of explaining things without using legalese. i assumed from your explanation that the judge, realising that he's going outside the license for context, wouldn't apply the same hardcore legal interpretation to these comments. in any case, isn't the cat out of the bag anyway with the comments on the co-ment.net site? wouldn't a court look to those as well? but if the code confuses you then you read the comments for enlightenment, right? /* Add one to the length */ length += l; as you said: comments should explain things that *aren't* in the code, not repeat the code (incorrectly) in english. your example of a bad comment doesn't answer my question: if you are reading code and you do not understand why it is written the way it is, don't you read the comments to find out? to turn the analogy around: us trying to read a complex license without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without comments. i don't think you're saying that code without comments is OK (although a heated discussion to have on another day, perhaps), so why should a license without an explanation be OK? Code: interpreted by computer; comments: interpreted by a human. code is interpreted both by a computer and humans, but i understand your point. License: interpreted by a human; comments: interpreted by a human. And my point from above is that the barrier between the two is not hard and fast. i understand, but lawyers have been doing this for a while and surely they have a way of explaining stuff to people who aren't going to understand hardcore legal documents. maybe we could have a background image repeating without prejudice all over the document? just as a compiler shouldn't interpret comments, isn't there a way of shielding comments from the court? did you come out of steve's evil basement portal of dooom? :-P I don't understand why people think steve has an evil portal of doom in his basement. It's in his attic. if thats in his attic, what were all those ghastly and inhuman screams coming from his basement? cheers, matt ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Matt Amos wrote: us trying to read a complex license without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without comments. They're mostly hard to read because they're tedious in their detail. Legal writing isn't actually THAT impenetrable, if you can stay awake (no, seriously, I can only read 2-3 licenses at a time before I start to nod off. Takes me DAYS to read all the OSI-approved licenses). i understand, but lawyers have been doing this for a while and surely they have a way of explaining stuff to people who aren't going to understand hardcore legal documents. Yes, well, since a legal document is written for a customer, the lawyer explains it in confidence to the customer. Everyone else is supposed to rely on the text of the license itself. Or, at least, that's my experience of how it's supposed to go. I may be wrong. if thats in his attic, what were all those ghastly and inhuman screams coming from his basement? Oh, that's from the people who've ridden home with him in the back seat of his convertible. -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 8:09 PM, Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com wrote: On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Matt Amos wrote: us trying to read a complex license without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without comments. They're mostly hard to read because they're tedious in their detail. Legal writing isn't actually THAT impenetrable, if you can stay awake (no, seriously, I can only read 2-3 licenses at a time before I start to nod off. Takes me DAYS to read all the OSI-approved licenses). and, as has been pointed out by steve and others, you can't 100% understand a license unless you also understand the case law. so it seems to me that some extra information (comments, advice - call it what you will) is needed for those of us without 7-8 years of law school and an army of paralegals. Yes, well, since a legal document is written for a customer, the lawyer explains it in confidence to the customer. Everyone else is supposed to rely on the text of the license itself. Or, at least, that's my experience of how it's supposed to go. I may be wrong. i guess its difficult having a whole community with varied opinions as a customer. with a single customer the question well, what do you want it to be like? can be sensibly and quickly answered... does anyone know if a similar situation arises in class action lawsuits? cheers, matt ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
2009/3/5 Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com: On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Matt Amos wrote: us trying to read a complex license without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without comments. They're mostly hard to read because they're tedious in their detail. Legal writing isn't actually THAT impenetrable, if you can stay awake (no, seriously, I can only read 2-3 licenses at a time before I start to nod off. Takes me DAYS to read all the OSI-approved licenses). The whole code/comments analogy seems the wrong one. Most people are after the user manual -- I don't want a step by step description of how the license works, I want a nice manual telling me how to use it. And like most open source projects there currently isn't one (at least not an up-to-date one). And for pretty much the same reasons (lack of people who are not one of: busy coding, rubbish at writing manuals, don't understand the program). Dave ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
2009/3/5 Dave Stubbs osm.l...@randomjunk.co.uk: 2009/3/5 Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com: On Mar 5, 2009, at 2:54 PM, Matt Amos wrote: us trying to read a complex license without comments is like lawyers trying to read complex code without comments. They're mostly hard to read because they're tedious in their detail. Legal writing isn't actually THAT impenetrable, if you can stay awake (no, seriously, I can only read 2-3 licenses at a time before I start to nod off. Takes me DAYS to read all the OSI-approved licenses). The whole code/comments analogy seems the wrong one. Most people are after the user manual -- I don't want a step by step description of how the license works, I want a nice manual telling me how to use it. And like most open source projects there currently isn't one (at least not an up-to-date one). And for pretty much the same reasons (lack of people who are not one of: busy coding, rubbish at writing manuals, don't understand the program). And I should have added don't understand the user to that list. But then I'm rubbish at writing manuals :-) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
as you said: comments should explain things that *aren't* in the code, not repeat the code (incorrectly) in english. your example of a bad comment doesn't answer my question: if you are reading code and you do not understand why it is written the way it is, don't you read the comments to find out? Comments allow also to see what is the code about - without needing to fully understand what is in. Comments like this function does fast fourier transform usually are enough to understand what the function does (if you know what FFT is) without need to look at the code and all the bloody mathematical stuff inside (if you don't know about FFT you won't have much idea about what the code does after reading it anyway). Same can be done for GPL for instance - if you distribute GPL'd program, you must give people complete source code and give them the same rights to program you have. Maybe too simple (full details of how can source be distributed, what exactly is source, etc ... are in the license), but good enough for most people to have idea what they can and cannot do with GPL'd stuff. We need the same for ODBL. did you come out of steve's evil basement portal of dooom? :-P I don't understand why people think steve has an evil portal of doom in his basement. It's in his attic. if thats in his attic, what were all those ghastly and inhuman screams coming from his basement? Eh ... interdimensinal portal to the attic? Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 6:36 PM, Russ Nelson r...@cloudmade.com wrote: I think it would be extremely helpful if the licenses themselves included an explanation for non-lawyers, in the way the gpl always did. Not always a good idea. If your license has any ambiguities, then a judge will go outside your license to see if you've said anything else about the meaning of the license. Potentially, anything you say about the license could become part of the license. So your non-legal explanation actually may have legal import. On the other hand, it's a good thing. In AU you have the Acts Interpretation Act which explicitly states that any accompanying rationale documents/discussions/etc to an act/bill must be taken into account when considering it. The reason is that people aren't gods and occasionally screw up and it's useful if the judge has the rationale document saying what the *intended* ramifications were. Yes, the rationale document is binding but it's often much more readable than the act itself. If there's a contradiction, well that's what a judge is for. Given this licence is breaking new ground I think it's doubly important to have an official FAQ/rationale/etc so that any future judge has some proper source explaining the intended end results (as opposed to the licence itself which only describes the means). You don't want a judge who knows nothing about computing trying to *guess* what you're trying to achieve, surely? Have a nice day, -- Martijn van Oosterhout klep...@gmail.com http://svana.org/kleptog/ ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! Ok, first of all, when I use the term you I don't mean you personally, I mean the OSMF as a group. I have no idea who's in charge of what there, I just know that none of you has taken care of an information process and you are currently listening. SteveC schrieb: But you have actually succeeded in making quite a number of people suspect malice - and warn others about that. I do not agree, but I think it is a natural reaction, especially in a community concerned about freedom: - You keep me in the dark and suprise me - You try to force my consent while I have had no chance to inform myself Yeah I'm still baffled by this one... where have I or the license working group tried to force any consent? I think we've been clear again and again that the whole process is up for discussion. = What are you hiding? What are you up to? I was trying to explain the way how many people have reacted to the proposed time table in absence of comprehensive and comprehensible information. And there's quite some posts on this list that express exactly that reaction. You (the OSMF) have not been clear on anything - a clear, official announcement is exactly what is sorely missing. It is your initiative. It is your job. And if you don't do a better job of including the community and breaking the news in an acceptable way to everybody really quick, I fear desaster. You are inviting hundreds of No decisions just because of bad information policy. You can keep blaming me personally for everything. I think when Eve ate that apple it was also my fault at least I think so. (* Again - you as the OSMF). Or you could help build the process now. I am sorry, but I cannot write the official information bulletin with your* ideas and your* intentions for you*. I also cannot take the initative for you*. And I cannot restore your credibility. You* will need to do that yourself. You* need to be source of the information. What I can do is translate it into German and continue from there. Actually, I bet you* would be surprised about how many volunteers you* get to help you* in spreading the news - if you* ever had started any organized information process. But I don't remember ever seeing a request: Here we have the rationale we want everybody to understand - who can translate it? So maybe you* want to start a proper information campaign now? I am waiting to help. And personally, I would prefer doing some constructive work for a good plan over opposing a disastrous plan any time. This is the first time an ordinary OSM member had a chance to get notice of the licence change and I bet you that there are 8 account holders who still have no idea that anything is going on - so the process is just starting now. And we still have failed to give notice and understandable (translated) information to the majority of participants. I want to correct something here, there is this view of 100,000 users needing consent. The number is in fact far smaller for people who ever made an edit (about 30% of the users). It's vastly smaller still for anyone who has edited anything significant. It's an easier problem than you might think, is what I'm saying. Far easier than convincing you I don't have a satanic portal in my basement. You know what you're saying? You don't care about 10 people who are interested or want to contribute, you just care about the data of the 8000 (?) who have substantially contributed? No that's your mad interpretation of what I said. Mad. This is a community. This is about people. At least it should be. Look I invented that, and I concentrated on the people and not the technology from the very beginning which is why this project succeeded where others didn't. Can't you understand why people do not trust you and suspect you are just out to grab their work when you argue like this? If you want the community to adopt the new licence (as opposed to fork off in protest), you need to convince the people in the community. If I think this way, I count 10 people who should at least be able to make an informed decision. If you want to narrow it down to only the people who did significant edits, that is a suspiciously data-oriented view. The community also needs the people who are developing tools or who edit wiki pages or who are still working up to become big mappers. It would be great if they all consented rather than to split off. Shouldn't the more important question be: How many *people* do I loose? instead of How much *data* do I loose? If we can agree on that then I guess I really misunderstood you there. bye Nop PS: And I really don't care how many demons you keep in your basement. That's between you and your landlord. :-) ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
El Miércoles, 4 de Marzo de 2009, Ulf Lamping escribió: Hopefully you know and trust the lawyers, foundation, whoever, ... involved. WE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THEM SO WHY SHOULD WE MAGICALLY TRUST THEM?!? Because they are more knowledgeable in their field than we are. I do think this is another ad-hominem attack against the ODbL. By using your same way of thinking, I shouldn't use my car because I don't know and trust the designers and assemblers that built it. Counter-examples could go on and on. Now, I'm becoming increasingly annoyed by the noise-to-signal ratio in the hundreds of e-mails in the lists bitching about how bad the people involved in the licensing process did. *Again*, share-alike versus PD. *Again*, having to explain how the EU DB directive works. *Again*, new license took too long at the same time as we need more time for peer review. *Again*, project forks and OSMF board evilness. If you think a PD fork is neccesary, fork the project, ALREADY. If you think SteveC is evil, step up in the next elections for the OSMF board, ALREADY. If you think the ODbL is flawed, get your own lawyer to review it, ALREDAY*. Let's try to be objective and productive here, m'kay? * Cheers to Peter Miller on this one. On the other hand, I'm absolutely sure that the ODbL will fail and be exploited. The same way that the GPL2 was exploited by TiVo. I'm absolutely sure the ODbL will not address problems in different jurisdictions just the same way the first version of the CC licenses didn't. We now have GPL3 and CC 3.0, and at some point we'll have ODbL2 and ODbL3 and whatnot. So, what's the big deal about the ODbL not addressing every single issue on its first incarnation? (Geez, I needed to blow off some steam) Cheers all, -- -- Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@sanchezortega.es The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal. -- Mark Twain signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mar 4, 2009, at 2:33 AM, Ulf Lamping wrote: Simply saying we're the OSMF board and we know what's good for you is a very, very bad idea to build trust! But that's not what Steve said. Steve is trying to teach you how lawyers work. I've watched lawyers work, as a fly on the wall. They work very much like hackers, throwing ideas off each other, but they're doing it in an incompatible space. Unless you've got expertise in that space (as Gerv and I have, and maybe others), then you need to be careful about what you ask for. Hopefully you know and trust the lawyers, foundation, whoever, ... involved. WE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THEM SO WHY SHOULD WE MAGICALLY TRUST THEM?!? You can't. There is no magic wand to create trust. Only through time and repeated interaction can you learn to trust somebody. And if you've been around for more than a year, you've had that time and those interactions -- if you've chosen to pay attention. If you expect to participate in the process afterwards, then I think your expectations are off. There were NO!!! introduction of the players involved, no ideas how to build trust in the community ... (e.g. what's the relation to the OSI initiative?). Well, the Open Source Initiative is only starting to dip its toe into Open Data. Clearly it's a complicated topic, especially when it comes to source code and derived works, and reciprocal licenses (I prefer reciprocal to virus. Reciprocating is good; having a virus is not). -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! Iván Sánchez Ortega schrieb: El Miércoles, 4 de Marzo de 2009, Ulf Lamping escribió: Hopefully you know and trust the lawyers, foundation, whoever, ... involved. WE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THEM SO WHY SHOULD WE MAGICALLY TRUST THEM?!? Because they are more knowledgeable in their field than we are. I do think this is another ad-hominem attack against the ODbL. By using your same way of thinking, I shouldn't use my car because I don't know and trust the designers and assemblers that built it. Counter-examples could go on and on. The mappers don't know them and have no reason to trust them. They will have to prove that they are more knowledgable, but with the prior non-information policy they have not even shown that they *care* about the mappers opinions at all. So they are not to be compared to the designers of your car, but rather to the used car salesman approaching you and trying to sell you a new one. I am arguing in favor of the new licence, but with the way this was conducted I can understand everybody who feels overrun, forced and badly informed. bye Nop ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! Russ Nelson schrieb: Hopefully you know and trust the lawyers, foundation, whoever, ... involved. WE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THEM SO WHY SHOULD WE MAGICALLY TRUST THEM?!? You can't. There is no magic wand to create trust. Only through time and repeated interaction can you learn to trust somebody. And if you've been around for more than a year, you've had that time and those interactions -- if you've chosen to pay attention. If you expect to participate in the process afterwards, then I think your expectations are off. Pay attention to what? There was no attempt to inform a wider number of people. That is exactly the point. I have been around for 6 months, I am subscribed to talk and talk-de and until two weeks ago I was completely unaware that there was a planned change of licence at all. And then it was not some official information but mentioned in a private discussion. I recon there was no way to find out about this short of subscribing to legal talk - and why on earth would any mapper do that if he has no idea that anything concerning him is going on? This is the first time an ordinary OSM member had a chance to get notice of the licence change and I bet you that there are 8 account holders who still have no idea that anything is going on - so the process is just starting now. And we still have failed to give notice and understandable (translated) information to the majority of participants. If you want to convince people to consent to your scheme, you have to go to them. bye Nop ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mar 4, 2009, at 3:28 PM, Nop wrote: Pay attention to what? There was no attempt to inform a wider number of people. I'm a small fish in the OSM pond, but I managed to notice Steve's opengeodata.org posting of last January talking about relicensing: http://www.opengeodata.org/?p=262 -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mar 4, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Nop wrote: And I never heard of it until now. And wasn't in OSM when it was posted. Fair enough, but any time you join a group there will be efforts underway which you haven't contributed to, not know about, nor had any effect on. I guess that given the growth in OSM users perhaps we should convince the OSMF to write a weekly Welcome to OSM; here's what's going on message. But I guess it's their own fault if 5 people fail to scan blogs at a different site for half-year old entries. Not worth a notification or a prominent hint in the wiki. Click BLOG on http://openstreetmap.org/ -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Mar 4, 2009, at 5:59 PM, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote: El Miércoles, 4 de Marzo de 2009, nicholas.g.lawre...@mainroads.qld.gov.au escribió: How about the option of contributors transferring their copyright to OSM (the legal entity) which can then choose to release the data under an appropriate license? This is not a good idea because the OSMF can be bought out quite easily by a big company. We've had this discussion about membership at the Open Source Initiative. Basically, if you have an organization where all it takes to join is the cost of a six-pack of beer plus a warm body, then when you get threatened by enough corporate flunkies paid to join and vote their master's wishes, and you issue a SAVE US call to your organization and they won't join and out-vote the flunkies ... then your organization sucks anyway and deserves to die. It's not a real threat to a functioning organization. I think the OSM and its foundation are a functioning organization, so I counsel you to not worry about the OSMF being taken over. But it also might be the better part of wisdom for the OSMF to say that you have to be a member for a month before you can vote. -- Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson r...@cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
How about the option of contributors transferring their copyright to OSM (the legal entity) which can then choose to release the data under an appropriate license? This is not a good idea because the OSMF can be bought out quite easily by a big company. I don't understand. Bought out how? nick *** WARNING: This e-mail (including any attachments) may contain legally privileged, confidential or private information and may be protected by copyright. You may only use it if you are the person(s) it was intended to be sent to and if you use it in an authorised way. No one is allowed to use, review, alter, transmit, disclose, distribute, print or copy this e-mail without appropriate authority. If this e-mail was not intended for you and was sent to you by mistake, please telephone or e-mail me immediately, destroy any hardcopies of this e-mail and delete it and any copies of it from your computer system. Any right which the sender may have under copyright law, and any legal privilege and confidentiality attached to this e-mail is not waived or destroyed by that mistake. It is your responsibility to ensure that this e-mail does not contain and is not affected by computer viruses, defects or interference by third parties or replication problems (including incompatibility with your computer system). Opinions contained in this e-mail do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Queensland Department of Main Roads, Queensland Transport or Maritime Safety Queensland, or endorsed organisations utilising the same infrastructure. *** ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! Russ Nelson schrieb: On Mar 4, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Nop wrote: And I never heard of it until now. And wasn't in OSM when it was posted. Fair enough, but any time you join a group there will be efforts underway which you haven't contributed to, not know about, nor had any effect on. I guess that given the growth in OSM users perhaps we should convince the OSMF to write a weekly Welcome to OSM; here's what's going on message. Yes. At least when you expect 10 people to go along and the issue has the potential to break OSM apart, it would not be a bad idea to send monthly information about the state of things. But my point is that you would have needed to actively inform people. It is plain silly to blame them for not getting involved when you simply did not give them any real chance to do so. Originally you would only have had to convince the hardliners holding fast to the old licence. Now you will have to fight the rumours and half-informed opinions circling around the community and win back those who feel overrun and pressed by the time frame, those who feel angry about the blundering or brazen way this has been handled, those who feel disoriented and afraid their work might be taken away or destroyed and eventually those who suspect you to serve some obscure self-interest. And now that you hopefully get an idea of how many people actually want to get involved, you need to give them the time to do so. How many people do you think are involved by now on the mailing lists? 0.1% of the community? 0.2%? But I guess it's their own fault if 5 people fail to scan blogs at a different site for half-year old entries. Not worth a notification or a prominent hint in the wiki. Click BLOG on http://openstreetmap.org/ Hardware Upgrade Appeal: Thank you So what? I guess nobody digs back 9-14 months there. bye Nop ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
El Jueves, 5 de Marzo de 2009, nicholas.g.lawre...@mainroads.qld.gov.au escribió: How about the option of contributors transferring their copyright to OSM (the legal entity) which can then choose to release the data under an appropriate license? This is not a good idea because the OSMF can be bought out quite easily by a big company. I don't understand. Bought out how? Don't know, with money? Basically, you get enough people (and pay for their memberships) in order to buy their votes, in order to eject the current chairman, yadda yadda yadda. -- -- Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@sanchezortega.es You have no real enemies. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote: Basically, you get enough people (and pay for their memberships) in order to buy their votes, in order to eject the current chairman, yadda yadda yadda. If you're unhappy with the current chairman you don't even have to eject him. Quote from the Articles of Association governing the running of OSMF: A member of the Board may [...] at any time, summon a meeting of the Board by notice served upon the several members of the Board. A member of the Board who is absent from the United Kingdom shall not be entitled to notice of a meeting. And: The Board may meet together for the dispatch of business, adjourn and otherwise regulate their meetings as they think fit, and determine the quorum necessary for the transaction of business. Unless otherwise determined, two shall be a quorum. So if the timing is right, you'll probably just have to buy one or two board members to get what you want ;-) Bye Frederik (This is meant as a funny way to say that, when other important business has been resolved, we should perhaps one day clean up the AoA; it is not meant to suggest that there was something wrong with those serving on the OSMF board.) -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! Martijn van Oosterhout schrieb: Out of curiosity, what would have been better? The licence has been recognised to be a problem for years, it was known well before I joined. It's been discussed at almost every OSM meeting I've been at. But you're right, we didn't plaster a huge banner on the front page advertising it because frankly that would be pointless. How many people knew wikipedia had a licence problem before they changed? No idea, never been into wikipedia. But I can assure you that you can be with OSM for 6 months, consider yourself rather active, be subscribed to talk, talk-de and the forum and visit the local OSM meetings without ever getting any hint to that licence business. I thought there was a message added while creating an account along the line of the data is under CC-BY-SA but may be changed at some later date. hmm, looks like that never happened, oh well. I'm just wondering what kind of notification would have been appropriate for you. Actually, I think the attempt to convince 10 people to cooperate is an awe-inspiring task to me. At work, I usually don't have to convince more than 50 people of something not all will agree with and that is something I already consider difficult. So it merits some work. I guess a good strategy would have been: 1. Provide some background information and keep it current - the problems with the current licence - the intention of the new licence - the current state of the process - and later the wording of the licence 2. Provide translations of this in the major languages. Most people speak English to some degree, but some don't and something of this importance and with so much legalese involved does need to be in your native language to be sure you understood it. Keep translations current, also. 3. Define a way for feedback from the community. Maybe some unoffical votes would have given an impression on how well a particular idea would have worked. 4. Mail an announcement to every member of OSM when you start and when there is significant progress, linking the information pages. One every few months would have been enough. This would have given those people who are interested a chance to get informed and either get involved or be satisfied with what they read. Most people would ignore those mails but feel informed rather than surprised. 5. Give people plenty of time to react. Actually I am worried. You may have noticed that there are many complaints, and also hostile reactions and suspicions voiced. And I bet you that still most OSM members have no idea that anything is going on, because they do mapping and not mailing lists. You have only seen the peak of the iceberg. But that still gives the foundation the chance to get something right. I am in favor of the new licence. But I don't believe it can be done by April. The only thing that can be achieved by April is splitting or breaking OSM apart. bye Nop ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Yes. At least when you expect 10 people to go along and the issue has the potential to break OSM apart, it would not be a bad idea to send monthly information about the state of things. Hmm ... perhaps sometimes it would be good to mass-email all members when it is about changes with possibly devastating (mass deletion) effect. Not everybody reads various blogs or parts of wiki around OSM, but almost everybody reads their email. But I guess it's their own fault if 5 people fail to scan blogs at a different site for half-year old entries. Not worth a notification or a prominent hint in the wiki. Click BLOG on http://openstreetmap.org/ Hardware Upgrade Appeal: Thank you So the information about the license was at the blog, accesible by clicking on that hideous link at the right time to notice that... Reminds me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy - the post informing that your house is scheduled for demolition was posted on a posterboard in local townhall. OK, the posterboard was at far end of cellar. Ok, it was hidden under door with sign do not open, tiger inside. And the door was blocked by old library full of books. But it was there... I personally had no idea about the license change before it got posted on this list few days ago and I am contributing to OSM for more than year and half... Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
3. Define a way for feedback from the community. Maybe some unoffical votes would have given an impression on how well a particular idea would have worked. Maybe put up a poll like: Do you think OSM should change license for all data from cc-by-sa to odbl? ( ) Yes, I agree ( ) Yes, but the license needs to be improved a bit first ( ) I am not sure ( ) I don't care, my contributions are PD. ( ) I need more information ( ) No, it is bad idea ... along with link to license text + explkanation why the change would be necessary, what about possible data deletion, etc Mail everybody with link to the poll - this will both inform people that something is happeing and also you will get feedback about how many people are willing to accept the new license. Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 16:08, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote: Basically, you get enough people (and pay for their memberships) in order to buy their votes, in order to eject the current chairman, yadda yadda yadda. If you're unhappy with the current chairman you don't even have to eject him. Quote from the Articles of Association governing the running of OSMF: A member of the Board may [...] at any time, summon a meeting of the Board by notice served upon the several members of the Board. A member of the Board who is absent from the United Kingdom shall not be entitled to notice of a meeting. And: The Board may meet together for the dispatch of business, adjourn and otherwise regulate their meetings as they think fit, and determine the quorum necessary for the transaction of business. Unless otherwise determined, two shall be a quorum. So if the timing is right, you'll probably just have to buy one or two board members to get what you want ;-) And you wonder why I don't respond to you Frederik? Just imagine if you spent your time working toward a common good, all you could achieve. You're super smart and driven but right now you're driving off a cliff. We need your help, not your observations on the 1,001 ways to destabilise the project. (This is meant as a funny way to say that, when other important business has been resolved, we should perhaps one day clean up the AoA; it is not meant to suggest that there was something wrong with those serving on the OSMF board.) Well I don't really get the joke, but I see your point. And lets be very clear for the audience Frederik that recently you asked for a list of OSMF members and in response I offered and encouraged you to join the board phone call itself to experience what happens and to lay any concerns you have out with people. You refused. So lets be clear again that communications are a two way street and you have a set of ways of communicating and ways you dont want to communicate just like everyone else in the world. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 12:49 AM, MP singular...@gmail.com wrote: 3. Define a way for feedback from the community. Maybe some unoffical votes would have given an impression on how well a particular idea would have worked. Maybe put up a poll like: Do you think OSM should change license for all data from cc-by-sa to odbl? ( ) Yes, I agree ( ) Yes, but the license needs to be improved a bit first ( ) I am not sure ( ) I don't care, my contributions are PD. ( ) I need more information ( ) No, it is bad idea ... along with link to license text + explkanation why the change would be necessary, what about possible data deletion, etc richard has very helpfully started this process and posted a link to a similar poll to the list. for reference http://weait.com/content/when-should-derived-database-share-alike-be-required cheers, matt ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
I think others have responded well to most of your rant, if not the please point it out and I'll respond. On 3 Mar 2009, at 23:33, Ulf Lamping wrote: Hi! I'm not sure you're aware, but you're currently on the best way to make the license to kill phrase come true! First of all: If you're not aware, it's all about trust. When I first uploaded data to OSM, I made sure about the license - so my effort wasn't only commercially consumed. This level of trust was not build on any person known or the (at that time) not existing OSMF, but in the text of the CC-by-SA license. So let's get some facts straight! You want a license change for the OSM data. Fine, because there are some real troubles with the license. However, the OSM mappers have done their part of the job to make the vision of OSM all come true. THEY have provided the real life in it - the data. Not only you or me itself, and not the lawyers involved. So if YOU want to change something it's YOUR duty to convince the mappers! Simply saying we're the OSMF board and we know what's good for you is a very, very bad idea to build trust! Remember: We're not talking about a bot run to fix some tags, we're talking about the legal property of the people involved! Hopefully obvious, it's a much better idea to convince people than to force them to a yes / no decision. Hopefully you know and trust the lawyers, foundation, whoever, ... involved. WE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THEM SO WHY SHOULD WE MAGICALLY TRUST THEM?!? There were NO!!! introduction of the players involved, no ideas how to build trust in the community ... (e.g. what's the relation to the OSI initiative?). All in all, I must say that the current way of handling these things in this VERY SENSITIVE AREA is nothing but ridiculous! Regards, ULFL P.S: Steve's recent mail were not providing any new information except that laywers are expensive (BTW: I'm not in a hurry about a new license) ... ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 06:49, LeedsTracker wrote: 2009/3/4 Iván Sánchez Ortega i...@sanchezortega.es: On the other hand, I'm absolutely sure that the ODbL will fail and be exploited. The same way that the GPL2 was exploited by TiVo. I'm absolutely sure the ODbL will not address problems in different jurisdictions just the same way the first version of the CC licenses didn't. We now have GPL3 and CC 3.0, and at some point we'll have ODbL2 and ODbL3 and whatnot. So, what's the big deal about the ODbL not addressing every single issue on its first incarnation? I think this is spot on. Some posters seem to want the new license to be exactly right, impervious and unassailable, at the first version. I'm not saying anything goes, and I understand the impulse toward perfectionism and thinking round every last logical chink in the armour. But other licenses are revised and improved over the years - they'll never settle at a definitive, final version, not least because law and case law evolves too. It feels like applying for a job - you keep tweaking the wording of your application, or rewriting whole paragraphs, but the time must come when you decide it's good enough, and put it in the post. The next application can be different, improved, but v1 often really is good enough. Yes to both you and Ivan. This is a so-called 'good, better, best' approach where we take a step in the right direction not a giant leap to Utopia. It's clear CCBYSA doesn't work, it's clear ODbL is a step. It's not perfect, but it's a fantastic first step. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 12:02, Nop wrote: Hi! Iván Sánchez Ortega schrieb: El Miércoles, 4 de Marzo de 2009, Ulf Lamping escribió: Hopefully you know and trust the lawyers, foundation, whoever, ... involved. WE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THEM SO WHY SHOULD WE MAGICALLY TRUST THEM?!? Because they are more knowledgeable in their field than we are. I do think this is another ad-hominem attack against the ODbL. By using your same way of thinking, I shouldn't use my car because I don't know and trust the designers and assemblers that built it. Counter- examples could go on and on. The mappers don't know them and have no reason to trust them. They will have to prove that they are more knowledgable, They have by passing the bar. but with the prior non-information policy they have not even shown that they *care* about the mappers opinions at all. That's not necessarily a constraint. My mechanic doesn't *care* about my car and love it like I do. But happily it turns out that both Jordan and Clark are deeply passionate about these issues or they would not be working for free on them. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 12:28, Nop wrote: Hi! Russ Nelson schrieb: Hopefully you know and trust the lawyers, foundation, whoever, ... involved. WE PROBABLY DON'T KNOW THEM SO WHY SHOULD WE MAGICALLY TRUST THEM?!? You can't. There is no magic wand to create trust. Only through time and repeated interaction can you learn to trust somebody. And if you've been around for more than a year, you've had that time and those interactions -- if you've chosen to pay attention. If you expect to participate in the process afterwards, then I think your expectations are off. Pay attention to what? There was no attempt to inform a wider number of people. That is exactly the point. I have been around for 6 months, I am subscribed to talk and talk-de and until two weeks ago I was completely unaware that there was a planned change of licence at all. And then it was not some official information but mentioned in a private discussion. We've not always done a great job of communicating for a variety of reasons but it was never with malice. I recon there was no way to find out about this short of subscribing to legal talk - and why on earth would any mapper do that if he has no idea that anything concerning him is going on? This is the first time an ordinary OSM member had a chance to get notice of the licence change and I bet you that there are 8 account holders who still have no idea that anything is going on - so the process is just starting now. And we still have failed to give notice and understandable (translated) information to the majority of participants. I want to correct something here, there is this view of 100,000 users needing consent. The number is in fact far smaller for people who ever made an edit (about 30% of the users). It's vastly smaller still for anyone who has edited anything significant. It's an easier problem than you might think, is what I'm saying. Far easier than convincing you I don't have a satanic portal in my basement. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 14:53, Russ Nelson wrote: On Mar 4, 2009, at 5:14 PM, Nop wrote: And I never heard of it until now. And wasn't in OSM when it was posted. Fair enough, but any time you join a group there will be efforts underway which you haven't contributed to, not know about, nor had any effect on. I guess that given the growth in OSM users perhaps we should convince the OSMF to write a weekly Welcome to OSM; here's what's going on message. To me this is similar to ignorance of the law is no defence. The data, people and facts are out there and it's not our job to serve them up to you in the specific best way you want. We will help all we can when you ask though. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 16:57, Matt Amos wrote: On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 12:49 AM, MP singular...@gmail.com wrote: 3. Define a way for feedback from the community. Maybe some unoffical votes would have given an impression on how well a particular idea would have worked. Maybe put up a poll like: Do you think OSM should change license for all data from cc-by-sa to odbl? ( ) Yes, I agree ( ) Yes, but the license needs to be improved a bit first ( ) I am not sure ( ) I don't care, my contributions are PD. ( ) I need more information ( ) No, it is bad idea ... along with link to license text + explkanation why the change would be necessary, what about possible data deletion, etc richard has very helpfully started this process and posted a link to a similar poll to the list. for reference http://weait.com/content/when-should-derived-database-share-alike-be-required There is nothing worse than legal opinion by lay consensus. Maybe an attack by aliens or CERN turning the world in to a black hole after a particle collider experiment goes wrong. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 16:20, Nop wrote: Hi! Martijn van Oosterhout schrieb: Out of curiosity, what would have been better? The licence has been recognised to be a problem for years, it was known well before I joined. It's been discussed at almost every OSM meeting I've been at. But you're right, we didn't plaster a huge banner on the front page advertising it because frankly that would be pointless. How many people knew wikipedia had a licence problem before they changed? No idea, never been into wikipedia. But I can assure you that you can be with OSM for 6 months, consider yourself rather active, be subscribed to talk, talk-de and the forum and visit the local OSM meetings without ever getting any hint to that licence business. I thought there was a message added while creating an account along the line of the data is under CC-BY-SA but may be changed at some later date. hmm, looks like that never happened, oh well. I'm just wondering what kind of notification would have been appropriate for you. Actually, I think the attempt to convince 10 people to cooperate is an awe-inspiring task to me. At work, I usually don't have to convince more than 50 people of something not all will agree with and that is something I already consider difficult. So it merits some work. I guess a good strategy would have been: 1. Provide some background information and keep it current - the problems with the current licence - the intention of the new licence - the current state of the process - and later the wording of the licence Perhaps you could put that together? 2. Provide translations of this in the major languages. Most people speak English to some degree, but some don't and something of this importance and with so much legalese involved does need to be in your native language to be sure you understood it. Keep translations current, also. That would be great, when will you start organising them? 3. Define a way for feedback from the community. Maybe some unoffical votes would have given an impression on how well a particular idea would have worked. Yeah I think that's usually a great idea but I get the sense the vast majority of the community are apathetic or bored by the tone of these exchanges and so the ones who vote are the ones who really take extreme views. So it's hard to do it in a way that we get a real sense of the lay of the land. Unless you have some ideas? 4. Mail an announcement to every member of OSM when you start and when there is significant progress, linking the information pages. One every few months would have been enough. This would have given those people who are interested a chance to get informed and either get involved or be satisfied with what they read. Most people would ignore those mails but feel informed rather than surprised. Something similar I thought about was having an OSM 'buddy program' so when you join you are assigned an existing community member who helps you though the process of mapping and getting to know the community and tools. 5. Give people plenty of time to react. Actually I am worried. You may have noticed that there are many complaints, and also hostile reactions and suspicions voiced. And I bet you that still most OSM members have no idea that anything is going on, because they do mapping and not mailing lists. You have only seen the peak of the iceberg. But that still gives the foundation the chance to get something right. I am in favor of the new licence. But I don't believe it can be done by April. The only thing that can be achieved by April is splitting or breaking OSM apart. Your worry is well placed, however I disagree that the vitriol here on these lists is widely held by the majority of the people who have mapped. Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
On 4 Mar 2009, at 16:40, MP wrote: I personally had no idea about the license change before it got posted on this list few days ago and I am contributing to OSM for more than year and half... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpSv3HjpEw Best Steve ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
I want to correct something here, there is this view of 100,000 users needing consent. The number is in fact far smaller for people who ever made an edit (about 30% of the users). It's vastly smaller still for anyone who has edited anything significant. It's an easier problem Considering the 'derived data', the damage may be more than just few insignificant nodes. If someone uncontactable creates a node that later gets used as crossing point of three major roads, their tiny contribution could lead to deletion of all three roads cause of derived data (no matter how many of these three roads were drawn by the man who created the node). Disagreement from (or unsuccessful attempts to contact) one person that made cosmetic changes (like changing from highway=minor to highway=residential) to many streets in london in early days of this project could lead easily to deleting (or reverting to ancient version) half of downtown London for example. Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! SteveC schrieb: To me this is similar to ignorance of the law is no defence. The data, people and facts are out there and it's not our job to serve them up to you in the specific best way you want. We will help all we can when you ask though. Thank your for bringing it down to this simple point. Actually, it *IS* your job. That simple. You want a change. You want their consent. Your job. bye Nop. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? - How to make a nightmare come true!
Hi! SteveC schrieb: I guess a good strategy would have been: 1. Provide some background information and keep it current - the problems with the current licence - the intention of the new licence - the current state of the process - and later the wording of the licence Perhaps you could put that together? Would have been the job of OSMF in a more diplomatic process. 2. Provide translations of this in the major languages. Most people speak English to some degree, but some don't and something of this importance and with so much legalese involved does need to be in your native language to be sure you understood it. Keep translations current, also. That would be great, when will you start organising them? Would have been the job of OSMF in a more diplomatic process. It seems you didn't get my point. A convincing attempt at informing the community would have had to be organized by the OSMF, not by volunteers stepping in to fix parts of a bungled job. 3. Define a way for feedback from the community. Maybe some unoffical votes would have given an impression on how well a particular idea would have worked. Yeah I think that's usually a great idea but I get the sense the vast majority of the community are apathetic or bored by the tone of these exchanges and so the ones who vote are the ones who really take extreme views. So it's hard to do it in a way that we get a real sense of the lay of the land. Unless you have some ideas? There are extreme views in any direction and everybody has one vote. They will still give you and idea. A better one than a page of use cases nobody knows about. 4. Mail an announcement to every member of OSM when you start and when there is significant progress, linking the information pages. One every few months would have been enough. This would have given those people who are interested a chance to get informed and either get involved or be satisfied with what they read. Most people would ignore those mails but feel informed rather than surprised. Something similar I thought about was having an OSM 'buddy program' so when you join you are assigned an existing community member who helps you though the process of mapping and getting to know the community and tools. I am talking about an organized information process on the licence change. 5. Give people plenty of time to react. Actually I am worried. You may have noticed that there are many complaints, and also hostile reactions and suspicions voiced. And I bet you that still most OSM members have no idea that anything is going on, because they do mapping and not mailing lists. You have only seen the peak of the iceberg. But that still gives the foundation the chance to get something right. I am in favor of the new licence. But I don't believe it can be done by April. The only thing that can be achieved by April is splitting or breaking OSM apart. Your worry is well placed, however I disagree that the vitriol here on these lists is widely held by the majority of the people who have mapped. Well, wait and see how many people will rather remove their data or switch to a fork just because they feel surprised and pressured. I can assure you that there is plenty of vitiriol in store for you on the German forum for example that just doesn't make it here yet due to the language barrier. bye Nop ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
