[OSM-legal-talk] CTs and the 1 April deadline

Anthony osm at inbox.org
Tue Jan 4 16:26:49 GMT 2011


On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de> wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>> Let people remove their data if they don't agree to future licensing
>> terms.
>
> It's my impression that this statement reflects the fundamental
> philosophical reason why you seem to disagree with all versions of the
> Contributor Terms so far: You insist on the idea of individual data
> ownership.

Correct.  Sort of.  I insist on not using the idea of collective
ownership.  More on what I mean by that in my final paragraph.

> The Contributor Terms are clearly based on the idea that we are building
> a database together. It's not just several people's maps sitting next to
> each other, it's a collective effort, with no clear separation between
> "my data", "your data" and "their data".
> As a consequence, aspects such as the license are subject to collective,
> not individual, decisions.

That most certainly is not a natural consequence of a collective
effort, though.  When people collaborate on a film, for instance, they
are making a collective effort, but they don't then allow a majority
(or supermajority) to relicense the film under any license they deem
appropriate.

And besides, there is another alternative to individual ownership and
collective ownership, and that is no ownership.  If we don't want
individual ownership, that's fine with me, but that means the data
should be public domain.



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