On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 1:55 PM, 80n <80n...@gmail.com> wrote: > If the value of OSM data ever gets very near the value of map data owned by > companies like Navteq and Teleatlas then OSMF becomes a very tempting > target. The safeguards that have been put in place (a vote of the OSMF > membership and recent contributors) would be very easy to circumvent.
they would have to first gain a majority of the OSMF members, which would take a lot of resources but i guess it's doable. but then they'd *further* need to gain a majority of active contributors, which would mean they'd need to find a majority of contributors editing in three out of the last six months. given that this number appears to be in the region of 70,000 mappers at the moment, and will presumably grow over time, i think this is too much effort even for a large mapping company. but, let's be constructive instead; what do you think would be an adequate safeguard while still allowing the license to change in response to community needs? > There's no safeguard, for example, that prevents the OSMF from changing the > Contributor Terms. They can do that at any point in the future without any > kind of vote or other formality. That's a pretty big hole in itself .... the funny thing is, OSMF can't change the contributor terms once you've signed it. it's a contract between you and OSMF which follows the usual rule - it can only be amended by a further agreement in writing signed by both parties. so, no. OSMF can't change the contributor terms for existing contributors. cheers, matt _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
