[OSM-dev] A bit of developer philosophy...

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> which - for the same reason - I think ought to be blacklisted, or 
> disclaimered, or DDOSed, or taken outside and shot. 

Incidentally, countries where people are taken outside and shot are 
often also those who care least about intellectual property ;-)

> But Frederik disagrees strongly 
> and believes the "users' responsibility" is the most important thing, 

One of my reasons is that once you start bossing around your users then 
you take responsibility for *everything* they do. (US coffee cups having 
a "caution! content may be hot" warning; US Batman costumes carrying the 
note "caution! costume does not enable wearer to fly!")

Suddenly you are in a position where everything you (technically) allow 
is automatically somehow morally ok. For example, I absolutely detest 
the way in which the OpenAerialMap layer has been removed from Potlatch 
just because someone said that it might be possible that OAM data is 
georeferenced using Google. Even if we assume for a second that it were 
not legal to use such data in OSM - which is far from clear, and a 
decision which I would like the individual to make -, this kills a 
number of perfectly legit uses. The fact that the project tries to make 
moral decisions for its users is actually detrimental to the project.

> and he can explain his side of the argument much more cogently than I 
> could for him

Duh. I'm right. He's wrong. I win.

Bye
Frederik