[OSM-legal-talk] License Telephone Debate

[80n]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com> wrote:

>
> On Mar 16, 2009, at 4:49 AM, 80n wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:16 AM, Russ Nelson <russ at cloudmade.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > We didn't understand the negative aspects of the CC-By-SA, but we used
> > *it*.  Are you saying that OSM shouldn't have been licensed at all,
> > because at the time the licensing decision was made, people didn't
> > understand exactly how it would work?
> >
> > Are arguing that we should then make the same mistake twice?
>
> No, I'm saying that sober people looked at the license and given their
> current understanding, thought it was the best choice.


Other sober people have also looked at the proposed licenses and have
identified a lot of questions and uncertainty.  I'm suspicious of anyone who
at this point thinks the new license is good enough.  The open issues list
contains a number of significant problems.  Are you (and the other sober
people you refer to) endorsing the license despite these issues?  Or is your
endorsement qualified by the assumption that these issues will have been
addressed?

Either position seems foolish to me.




> We shouldn't
> let the fact that we'll be smarter in the future delay us from making
> the best decision now, just as they didn't let the fact that we're
> smarter now from making that decision then.
>
> There seems to be a lot of emotion here, but if cost(CC-By-SA) >
> cost(ODbL) + cost(switching), then we should switch even if we know
> that in the future we'll be evaluating cost(ODbL 1.0) against
> cost(ODbL 1.1) + cost(switching).  This should be obvious, no?  So why
> do we need to have a discussion about it?
>
> > ODbL is more complex than CC-BY-SA in many way (copyright *and*
> > database rights *and* contract law) and it is completely untested.
>
>
> EVERY open source contract is a unilateral contract ("contract of
> adhesion") which relies on copyright law for its teeth.  So, the ODbL
> introduces database rights ... but only because we've already seen
> that CC-By-SA doesn't work..  YES, there are risks, but YES there are
> risks of the status quo.  The trouble here is that people are not very
> good at evaluating the risk of an unlikely event with bad
> consequences.  Expect irrationality.
>

So you are happy with these risks.   That is your choice.  Others may not be
happy with these risks.

The way to help people evaluate the risks is to explain them.

80n
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