[OSM-legal-talk] CTs are not full copyright assignment

[Grant Slater]

On 26 June 2011 17:22, Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer <olaf at amen-online.de> wrote:
> Hi Grant,
>
> can I still expect a contructive reply to my email answering your question
> about my concerns, or should I simply hit the „decline“ button?
>

Hi Olaf,

Sorry I have not had time to think through your suggestions fully.
Planning / Executing API+WWW+DB server move, general sysadmin, day job
and addressing TimSC's "demands" list have been taken up a fair bit of
my time over the last 2 weeks.

Briefly....

The main issue I see, is allowing per contributor opt out of a
potential future licensing change has the significant flaw that the
contributor is not just removing his/her individual edits, but also
would be destroying the works of many others who have built on the
existing work in good faith. With your proposal those that come before
will always have a veto over the work of new members, this is unfair.

The edits that I have added today (under CC-BY-SA, or whatever current
license) is available to me today and in the future under that
specific license using the planet file + diffs available at the time
of my edits. If the project gets-taken-over-by-commercial-pigs /
changes-to-a-license-I-do-not-agree-with / etc I still have all my
work.

/ Grant

> Olaf
>
> [Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer, 17.06.2011, 14:53]:
>> Hi Grant,
>>
>> > Please list the "problematic language" you are referring to... Your
>> > email on the 18th of Jan or your email in reply to Kai on the 6th Feb.
>>
>> I see several small problems in the CT and two bigger problems. The bigger
>> problems are related to the definition of "active contributor".
>>
>> The first problem is that the right to vote depends upon being allowed to
>> contribute. I have been repeatedly asked to trust the OSMF that they would
>> never prevent people from contributing (and thereby loosing their right to
>> vote), because this would destroy the community and so be against the
>> interest of the OSMF. At the same time, I am currently prevented from
>> contributing, even though I have publicly stated several times that I
>> support the planned license change and only see problems in the CT, and
>> even though I am willing to license my contributions under very broad
>> terms to the OSMF.
>>
>> The second problem is that the group entitled to vote is defined in a very
>> restricting way. For example, someone who contributes for a period of 25
>> years and does all contibuting during holidaytime (e.g. in January and in
>> July only) is never entitled to vote. The idea of giving only a part of
>> the community the right to vote sees very unfair to me.
>>
>> An easy way to fix these problems would be to simply give all past
>> contributors the right to vote, unless they fail to respond to an email
>> that asks them to confirm their wish to still have the voting right. This
>> could be combined with a minimum threshold (e.g. a minimum total amount of
>> contributions or of contribution days/months).
>>
>> I will not discuss the minor problems now, because I fear personal attacks
>> from people who have a different motivation for contributing if I point
>> these out. If the OSMF is willing to adress the major problems, then I
>> might also contribute some ideas about how to fix the minor issues, but I
>> will not do so while the threat to remove me from the community by force
>> is still active.
>>
>> Olaf
>>
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>
>