[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] license change map

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

    it occurred to me that it might not be clear to everyone why I 
objected to NE2's comment on talk. The discussion started with the 
license change map http://osm.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/map/, and 
someone said that "the bits that are red on the license change map will 
be deleted". That person was asked to use "would", not "will". NE2 then 
replied:

>>> If we go by what the JOSM introduction page says ("OpenStreetMap is changing
>>> its license"), "will" is correct.

This is of course wrong, because even if the license change is a given, 
"will" would only be correct if between now and then not a single person 
would agree to the CT/ODbL which is certainly not the case. Seeing that 
we were yet again descending into some kind of license change FUD on 
talk, I wrote

>> Please stop this immediately.

promting Florian Lohoff to say

> The above shows me there is no place for dissent in this project.

which, again, is not the correct conclusion; it's just that the license 
change topic is quite serious and people discussing it should apply 
minimum intellectual prudence instead of throwing around soundbites that 
might upset others (a.k.a. "FUD").

There's a place for dissent, but there's not place for bullshit. The 
notion that everything currently painted red on that map is going to be 
deleted certainly deserves the latter label.

I assume it was NE2's aim to question the JOSM startup notice which 
basically portrays the license change as a done deal, but so does the 
Wiki banner we're showing and personally I believe the only way to pull 
this through is indeed to make it very clear that we're committed to 
making the license change, rather than dithering around (a point on 
which, astonishingly, 80n seems to be on our side).

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"