[OSM-legal-talk] 23rd Dec board meeting

[Dair Grant]

Peter Miller wrote:

> Is there not a large potential conflict of interest between SteveC in relation
> to his driving this change within the Foundation and also being a director of
> a company that could well benefit from the OSM project not offering a full set
> of services? I don't know, but I certainly don't have the information to feel
> comfortable with this initiative until we have some more facts available to
> us.

I think this is uncalled for.

There are any number of technical things you need to think through before
switching from a system that pretty much works to something (anything) else.

While it's valid to question what those things are, and their significance,
I don't think you can jump from that to it all being an evil plot hatched in
CM's volcano lair.


You argue that anyone with a commercial interest in OSM (e.g., me) who's
listed on the {{PD-user}} page (me again) has a potential conflict of
interest.

You could argue that as a commercial interest who's been pushing very hard
for the licence issue to be resolved, perhaps you have some ulterior motive
too...

Nothing useful comes out of that kind of discussion.


The current progress on the licence is certainly frustrating for those of us
who are thinking about how our companies can best use and contribute to OSM,
but I suspect it's been a very frustrating process on the OSMF side as well.

E.g., we have no idea what the background to "all communications with Jordan
had broken down" was, or what impact that has had. It would be nice to know
what happened, but having a public discussion about that while trying to
resolve whatever the issue was probably wouldn't have been helpful.


I would definitely recommend you stand for the OSMF next year, as I think
you could make a valuable contribution to the process (e.g., I agree with
your thinking re the trademark).

I don't know if you'll find the grass is any greener though.

Although the licence project seems to be moving forward very slowly, it is
at least moving (vs what happened previously, where we had endless
GPS-vs-BSD debates on the mailing list but no real progress whatsoever).


-dair
___________________________________________________
dair at refnum.com              http://www.refnum.com/