[OSM-legal-talk] Private negotiations

[TimSC]

Quoting Richard Fairhurst <richard at systemeD.net>:

> I'm led to believe that people have been issuing LWG with private 
> lists of demands that they want met before they will consent to ODbL+CT.

Yes, I attended to previous LWG teleconference and I asked for LWG, as a 
committee, to enter into direct negotiations with me, an individual 
mapper. The draft minutes are online [1]. I argued that since LWG were 
asking something of me (to accept the CTs), that it would be fair if 
they provide some things I want. (This logic was a pretext, to my mind. 
The LWG should be routinely influenced by the community, and therefore 
me, so my conditions shouldn't even be necessary.) They agreed to take a 
look at my list of conditions and that they did not have any objection 
to entering into a discussion.

I tried to outline my conditions but it a long and detailed list. They 
fall into three broad themes: increase in the involvement of mapping 
contributors in OSM decisions, the role of OSMF and licensing issues. I 
have abandoned trying to talk OSMF out of ODbL adoption. I am looking to 
the future and trying to influence the future direction of OSM. My 
future involvement in OSM depends on how OSMF evolves - but that is true 
for everyone. I will probably have at least some involvement even my 
worst case scenario - I want to be involved though.

But I can't in good conscience give my enthusiastic support to a body 
that I feel doesn't listen to me... or rather they DO listen to me but I 
am doubtful if I have any influence at all. Previously, I have put 
forward my arguments on the mailing list and this doesn't seem to be 
effective. I have tried other means. My personal negotiation to the LWG 
is a new approach for me.

BTW, OSMF and its committees are all very hard working and I believe 
have the best intentions. Thanks for the countless hours of work guys! 
But I am trying to influence them too because I disagree with some of 
their decisions and policies.

I am unsure to what extent this negotiation will be make public. I am 
hopefully talking to Henk in the next few days and I might have some 
idea then. If you were to ask anyone in the LWG for what I have 
requested, there is no prohibition with them sharing it with you. I 
would discourage it though and I would however be slow to distribute it 
myself, because the result would be loss of my time for no real gain to 
anyone. The conclusion of the negotiation will almost certainly be public.

>
> Could I ask that said people have the courtesy to post their demands 
> here, too?

As far as I am concerned, I, as an individual, am having a negotiation 
with LWG/OSMF. Although it is not secret by any means, I am not sure 
there is much of a benefit to gain by posting this on this mailing list. 
All the ideas have previously been discussed on the mailing lists - to 
no avail. It has consumed a great deal of my time and yours too, 
probably. For me, the mailing list is a forum where we, the community, 
can collectively discuss issues. Just from that, it doesn't necessarily 
follow that we should have every external interaction with OSMF 
documented on the mailing lists.

This doesn't mean I think the community should be cut out of decision 
making - in fact I believe the opposite. I am sorry if the community 
thinks I am circumventing them to control OSM. But I am not taking any 
decisions on behalf of the community and I feel like I don't have much 
influence anyway. The LWG and OSMF seem to be making the decisions. You 
should talk to them if you want to be involved in the future of OSM - 
and that is what I am trying to do. In a way, I am in agreement that it 
is disturbing that a very obscure discussion could take place and OSMF 
(in the best interests of the project) was to take a decision based on 
it without consulting the community. But this IS how OSM operates. The 
solution is not to move every discussion into a public forum, but to 
move the decision making process to the public forum.

> It would be a shame if the suspicion arose that the process is being 
> swayed by closed demands.

For me, that sounds like a potential problem with the way decisions are 
made in OSM, not a problem with the possibility of secret/closed/obscure 
communication between people inside and outside OSMF. The possibility of 
secret conversations cannot be eliminated. But we can try to make the 
final decision making process open - I think we can do better than we 
currently do.

I have a feeling I will be accused of being cryptic. I have tried to 
explain my actions as best as I can.

Regards,

TimSC

[1] https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_119fr26kqdz

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/attachments/20110609/2d6b72eb/attachment-0001.html>