[OSM-legal-talk] I want my access back

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
> With other words: please get a life.

+1

I'm tired of hearing how people have been "disenfranchised" and
"cannot continue to contribute" to OSM. They're talking as if they were
in a wheelchair and we had just built a giant staircase at OSMF
headquarters. 

But the truth of the matter is: These people could very well continue
to contribute, they just don't want to.

And it is fully within their right not to continue. Just please don't
give us the poor disenfranchised mapper story - you want the project to
go this way, the project goes another way, take it or leave it and
would you please stop whining. Have you *ever* asked yourselves why so
many other mappers - unhappy as they may be with various aspects of the
license change - have made a different decision? It seems that these
mappers have different priorities from yours. For them, the top
priority seems to be that they want to continue to contribute to OSM.
For you, there seems to be a different thing that overrides this.
That's sad but we won't make an attempt to brainwash you; if you want
to go then go.

Go and leave us alone, please. It is your decision and yours alone. It
is not us who have disenfranchised and betrayed you, it is you who
decided to quit because the project wanted a different future than you
did.

It is hard for me to say this especially in the case of Florian whom I
know personally and who has done a lot of very useful work in the
German community, not only a lot of mapping but also all sorts of
software development and OSM advocacy. I'm very sad to see you him go,
and because of such a stupid detail. But at the end of the day, I
believe it doesn't do the project any good if we were catering to every
whim and baggage and conditions attacehd to (valuable) contributions.
If someone doesn't want to contribute on the normal terms that apply
to everyone else, then that's goodbye - heartless as it may sound, but
we simply cannot handle all these "yes but" cases.

Bye
Frederik