[OSM-legal-talk] To calm some waters - about Section 3

[Robert Kaiser]

Kevin Peat schrieb:
> On 25 August 2010 08:41, Frederik Ramm<frederik at remote.org>  wrote:
>> It is bad enough if the share-alike minority force their will on the rest
>> of the project now; we must not allow them to force their will on everybody
>> who is in OSM in 10 years' time.
>>
> I find this oft-repeated argument to be totally bogus. It's like saying that
> I shouldn't paint my house because the person who owns it in 10 years time
> might not like it.

No. It's like saying you shouldn't paint it with a non-overpaintable and 
non-removable paint because you or a future owner might want to 
overpaint it in 10 years - or just refresh the paint (i.e. to a new 
version of the ODBL "paint" we're putting up right now).

> If OSMers in 2020 don't like the license they are free to change it or to
> start a new project just as people are today.

Only if there's a good agreement now that allows that in a reasonable 
way. And that's what the CTs are for.
Contrary to what you are saying, we are _not_ free to change it right 
now, in fact, it's quite difficult to do so without a reasonable CT, as 
we're seeing with all those painful discussions.

(BTW, I'm just a normal mapper, I'm not a member of the OSMF or of any 
working group right now or have been at any time in the past.)

Robert Kaiser