[OSM-legal-talk] The big license debate

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> The atlas you want to produce is a non-free one.  It doesn't 
> contribute to the domain of freedom that OSM wants to expand.  

I thought OSM was about creating a free map of the world, not about 
expanding a domain of freedom.

> People who would purchase it, cannot modify or redistribute it. 
> Therefore, we don't feel sorry that it wasn't produced.

That's a very ideological point of view. Personally, I am not in this 
because I have an interest in domains of freedom, or concepts of society 
and how they deal with property, or whatever. I am in this because I 
like maps and think that there are many fascinating things you can do 
with a digital world map, and because I am frustrated that such data is 
often very expensive or hard to find.

This fascination of having a free map of the planet to play with is by 
no means diminished by someone else playing differently. If someone 
makes an atlas and someone else buys it, good for them.

In fact, it seems to me that you're trying to hijack my (and others', 
probably) fascination for maps and make it into a vehicle by which you 
can force your "domain of freedom" onto others. I don't like that. I 
have never subscribed to a project aimed primarily at changing the world 
by extending the domain of freedom, and create a little bit of geodata 
on the side!

And still, decades of discussion as there may be, I can only laugh at 
the notion of expanding freedom by creating complicated rules that 
people must follow lest they get sued. That's like guns for peace.

>> This is not a choice between a copyrighted atlas and a free 
>> atlas, but a choice between a copyrighted atlas and no atlas.
> 
> Last time I looked, there was no shortage of copyrighted atlases.
> In fact, the printed ones are now very affordable.

The atlas I am talking about could easily be one that is not yet 
available. The possibilities are endless. I think that the point I was 
making is easy to understand, and independent of the number of atlases 
in your local bookstore. If this becomes a rhetorics match, I'm out.

> No, it is very rare that anybody wants to move Wikipedia articles 
> to the public domain. 

I was thinking in the more general direction of "who has the right to 
decide". It is of course the original authors who can grant anyone any 
kind of license on their work that is already in Wikipedia, but I'd be 
interested in how this "original authorship" is determined, especially 
in situations where a contribution is made but later completely changed.

> Have you been following Wikipedia's mailing lists?

No. The small number of my contributions to Wikipedia didn't warrant that.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'