[OSM-legal-talk] CT clarification: third-party sources

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 12/10/10 03:09, Simon Ward wrote:
> We are expected to give OSMF broad rights and trust them to do what’s
> good, yet if a contributor should attempt to assert their rights it is
> deemed unjust, unfair to the community, or whatever other daemonising
> you can think of.  The balance is wrong, and it needs to be more towards
> the people than any central body, including OSMF.

This is not how I see it. I think the balance needs to be towards the 
project as a whole, not towards the individual and his whims. The OSMF 
doesn't need to come into this at all - if you want to formulate a CT 
that lets 2/3 of the project force OSMF's hand in any possible license 
change, I'd have no problem with that.

You speak of "asserting rights" and make it sound as if this was the 
natural thing to do. Instead, what we are discussing here is the 
opposite; we are discussing the granting of rights, without which the 
project would not be possible. We are currently using one way for the 
individual to grant rights to the community (the CC-BY-SA license), and 
we are transitioning to another way for the individual to grant rights 
to the community (the CT with license change option).

I think it is obvious that the more you "assert" and the less you 
"grant", the less you trust the community. I've been called a communist 
for this but I believe that in our project, it is necessary to drop the 
selfish thought of your contribution being your personal property that 
you need to "assert rights over" because you cannot trust the community 
to do the right thing with it.

If you are not prepared to *give* your data to OSM - if you'd rather 
only *lend* your data so you can sit and watch how the project develops 
and withdraw your contribution should they take what you view to be a 
wrong step in the future - then maybe you aren't ready for a large, 
interconnected, collaborative project like this. You can close your 
account on flickr at any time and take down your photos with it without 
hurting anyone in that community - but except for the most exotic cases 
you cannot remove your contribution from OSM without causing damage that 
is larger than your contribution. Maybe, then, the community should view 
your contribution with the same suspicion that you seem to view the 
community: "Let's rather not take his data, who knows what he's up to."

Bye
Frederik