Hello Talk listers and happy Friday, Though I do see how the licensing could introduce an issue when getting certain entities to contribute data, the argument that has been put forth many times now is that the people are important, not the data. (I can provide examples of this if needed.) I bring this up because I read Steve Coast's response and, again, this notion of the large number of registered users was brought up by suggesting that "The ODbL has got us this far, and all the graphs are up-and-to-the-right." Not to diminish the achievements of OSM, but there is one graph that contradicts this quite clearly: "% of total users contributing<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats8.png>". If I simply use the graphs presented on http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats (which Steve also pointed us to), I see a contributor retention problem that doesn't seem to be addressed at all. Here's an example of what I mean...
Let's say that there are 1,500,000 registered users<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats1_users.png>as is stated by the first graph. I will also look at the last year of % of total users contributing where the highest percentage is no more than 2%. This is a conservative guess, at best, but that means that internationally, there have only been about 30,000 active users contributing of the 1,500,000 registered users. It's confusing also that Steve would bring up the notion that people wanting to make money with OSM would be a negative side affect, when, in fact, there are already others who are succeeding in doing that despite the ODbL. The fact is, whether we like it or not, industry usually drives innovation and progress. Though it has a long way to go, OSM can thank supporting companies (Mapbox and GeoFabrik are two examples) for getting it this far. They are as much a part of the community as any other contributor would be. If this is truly an open database and open project, why is there this need to restrict or exclude part of the community? Sorry, this continues to go back to my original argument and I honestly feel it is the core of the problem here more than anything else. The ODbL certainly took a lot of time to nail down and it might make some contributors apprehensive to share data with OSM, but is that the main factor that determines if contributors share their data? Perhaps we should look at defining OSM, what its mission is, and who it wants to support. Perhaps that provides a clearer picture of which license would be appropriate for data contributions. Just my 2 cents... ------------------------------------- Carol Kraemer North River Geographic Systems, Inc http://www.northrivergeographic.com 404.431.0125 cakrae...@northrivergeographic.com On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 11:09 AM, Steve Coast <st...@asklater.com> wrote: > I disagree. This is about money; my personal belief is that CloudMade > would have made more dollars without having to ShareAlike. More business > models open up, and it wouldn't have had to deal with the community. Indeed > I imagine this was a topic of continual discussion. > > The ODbL requires only two things and my understanding is that MapBox > disagree with both of them, or at least Alex does. This shouldn't be > surprising, they hinder making money, like it did for CM. > > But in those cases, we're talking about competition in the market via data > sets. > > My personal belief, not speaking for them, is that Telenav has a different > focus, in that free-to-the-consumer turn-by-turn navigation doesn't have > these impediments. Therefore it would in theory not be an issue in our case > to attribute and ShareAlike. Like in my original slides about OSM from > years ago - it's about moving up the stack and competing at a higher level, > not competing over data itself (where attribution and ShareAlike are > relevant). Instead, going all-in on OSM and focusing on the product and > user experience. Remember, these problems only occur if you don't want to > use OSM, but want to use it with other datasetsets that you don't want to > contribute back. > > As for legal opinions on the ODbL you should understand that weaker (or, > really, any) lawyers don't like new things. New un-tested things have the > potential to blow up in your face and throw you in court. Therefore the > calculus is different when you are small and court is a scary place, > compared to if you're a big company say like Microsoft and you're in court > all the time. In my time I've met plenty of lawyers who're fine with the > ODbL and it shouldn't be characterized that all lawyers everywhere somehow > have major problems with it. The community norms (and the new ones the LWG > is apparently putting together I heard) help very much here, and of course > there are always issues with any license. > > Whether the ODbL is good or bad for OSM is a different question. The ODbL > was a very fun multi-year process that I happen to have been deeply > involved in. It would be nice if there was data to suggest that one license > is measurably better than another (for OSM). Instead, we have a large > collections of anecdotes (not data) like "nobody uses OpenBSD because of > the license" or "Linux wins because of the license". > > We've had beliefs like that in the past. For example "lots more people > would edit with nicer tools". This is a belief I shared. So, multiple > times, we've built nicer tools. And it's turned out that there is some > small grain of truth to that but it's not really comparable to the effort > involved. I was wrong. > > Alex makes a bunch of these statements like that, I'll pick three that > jump out: > > 1) "the assumption that share-alike encourages contribution is a myth" > 2) "The reality is that OpenStreetMap is only used extensively in > situations where the share-alike license does not apply, for instance, map > rendering." > 3) "OpenStreetMap's current licensing is stunting our growth" > > And respond: > > 1) Data would be useful either way > 2) I'd say that's because OSM doesn't contain a lot of address or > navigation data (which, as it happens, is where the money is), not because > of the license. > 3) My personal belief is it might stunt CloudMade or MapBox, but not > Telenav or MapQuest, and, http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Statsdoesn't > show a lot of evidence of being stunted. > > &ct. > > I'll sum by saying that when you're picking licenses you're really picking > business models. We should be very careful when considering license changes > and make sure any choice is backed by the best data we can get, not > anecdotes or nice sounding stories. The ODbL has got us this far, and all > the graphs are up-and-to-the-right. Exponential curves are powerful. > Lastly, consider the weight of effort thousands of people put in to mapping > before you to get us here, and what terms they did it under. > > Steve > > > > > > On Mar 14, 2014, at 1:18 AM, Russ Nelson <nel...@crynwr.com> wrote: > > Alex Barth writes: > >> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/lxbarth/diary/21221 > > > > Another aspect of where the ODbL hurts us: Because we are using a > > restrictive license, we cannot argue against other parties that use a > > restrictive license. Look at New York State's GIS > > Clearinghouse. Individuals not welcome. For-profit corporations not > > welcome. OpenStreetMap users .... not welcome. NY government entities? > > Welcome! Non-profits? Welcome! > > > > We can't argue against that on principle because we're just as bad. > > > > -- > > --my blog is at http://blog.russnelson.com > > Crynwr supports open source software > > 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-600-8815 > > Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | Sheepdog > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Talk-us mailing list > > Talk-us@openstreetmap.org > > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-us mailing list > Talk-us@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us >
_______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
