<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Mar 4, 2009, at 5:59 PM, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>El Miércoles, 4 de Marzo de 2009, <a href="mailto:nicholas.g.lawrence@mainroads.qld.gov.au">nicholas.g.lawrence@mainroads.qld.gov.au</a> <br>escribió:<br><blockquote type="cite">How about the option of contributors transferring their<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">copyright to OSM (the legal entity) which can then choose<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">to release the data under an appropriate license?<br></blockquote><br>This is not a good idea because the OSMF can be "bought out" quite easily by a <br>big company.<br></div></blockquote><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>--<br>Russ Nelson - <a href="http://community.cloudmade.com/blog">http://community.cloudmade.com/blog</a> - <a href="http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson">http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson</a><br><a href="mailto:russ@cloudmade.com">russ@cloudmade.com</a> - <a href="http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson">http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson</a></div></div></span> </div><br></body></html>