[OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass

[Simon Ward]

On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 08:27:39PM +1000, Liz wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Rob Myers wrote:
> > Given this, the facts are still that a majority voted and a clear 
> > majority of the votes were in favour.
> False
> A majority of *contributors* have not voted, not even a majority of 
> contributors who edited anything in the last year.
> Offering a vote to those who paid a fee in pounds or euros to belong to a 
> particular organisation (OSMF) and ignoring the far larger group who were not 
> offered a vote but actually are the legal copyright holders does not make a 
> valid poll.

I’ve not read every post in this thread, but I’ve seen at least one
other where the general gist was “voting has been limited to OSMF
members, and OSM contributors as a whole have not had a say.”

I don’t understand.  Everyone will get a say.  I don’t see how OSMF is
ignoring contributors.

OSMF members voted on going forward with the process for migrating OSM
data to the ODbL. They didn’t vote on just taking all of the data and
slapping the ODbL on it.  If copyright holders (assuming the potential
of copyright on the data) don’t agree to the license, the license will
not be applied to their data.

OSMF supports the OSM project, has helped raise funds, and supplied
resources, and will hopefully continue to do so.  Although OSMF’s stated
remit is not controlling the OSM project, I don’t see the problem with
it supporting the license migration with its resources.  OSMF members
voted on what to do with OSMF resources.  It could always just take its
resources away to instead support a fork of the OSM project where
contributors are happy with the ODbL.  Where would that leave OSM?
(We’ll have to see how contributors respond, just like OSMF is doing.)

And the data isn’t just stuck with the OSM project.  The data is open so
that people can take the data and do fantastic things with it, including
host another project like OSM.  If there are a number of people who
disagree with the new license, or the process for migrating to it, they
could club together to support a project with a license they do agree
with.

I don’t think anybody really wants to see the project fork in this way,
but all of the options are there:

  * OSMF members had a say in whether OSMF would proceed with the license
    migration for OSM data.

  * Everyone has a say on whether their contributions can be licensed
    under the new license.

  * Everyone has a say in that they can take the planet data and do
    anything (current license and law permitting) they want with it,
    including start a new OSM‐like project.

I probably haven’t said anything that already hasn’t been said, but I
think it needed spelling out.

As a side note:  Others have talked about forking as if it is purely a
bad thing.  I believe this to be incorrect.  There are several good
reasons for forking including but not limited to taking projects in
different directions, breathing life into a stagnant project, or
separating a project into component parts so efforts can be concentrated
and managed more easily.  Being able to fork is one of the core tenets
of free / open data (and software).

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall
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