[OSM-legal-talk] [OSM-talk] Breaking up is hard to do (was New Logo in the Wiki)

[Frederik Ramm]

Russ,

On 05/06/11 07:25, Russ Nelson wrote:
>   >  Would you really say that personally, as far as your contributions are
>   >  concerned, you consider your "I agree" click to be legally void because
>   >  it happened "under duress"?
>
> No, I'm saying that *everyone's* agreement is invalid because it was
> made under duress.

If your agreement to the CT is invalid was made under duress - which I 
doubt -, then you could use that reasoning to nullify the contract that 
you have signed.

Which would mean that you do not allow OSMF to distribute your data.

Which they would then comply with, by removing all your data.

And then you would say - what?

That they are forced to distribute your data under the terms *you* want, 
and choosing to not distribute them would constitute an "act of 
violence, threat, or pressure against your person" (quote from "Duress" 
wikipedia article)? That sounds rather unbelievable to me.

At no point has OSM/OSMF ever given you a promise to distribute your 
data in any form. They could, at any time, have said: "Oh well, we'll 
scale back and do Europe only in the future" or "we're dropping all POIs 
from our data base and focus on roads", or whatever.

>   >    From time to time I get emails from various service providers (eg
>   >  PayPal) telling me: "We're changing our terms and conditions... please
>   >  click here to agree" or so. With the implication that they will not
>   >  continue to provide services to me unless I agree to their (unilateral)
>   >  change of terms. Would you say that such an agreement happens "under
>   >  duress" as well?
>
> No, because the initial T&C says how they will be changed in the
> future.

And if the initial T&C wouldn's say that Paypal can change them, then 
they would forever be bound to what I signed up to? And when they say 
"agree to our new terms or we'll have to terminate your service" then 
that is putting me under duress? - Now I know very little about the US 
legal system. Maybe it is like that there. But I can assure you it isn't 
like that in Germany.

>   >  Is it not rather like this: You have created data that OSMF offers to
>   >  distribute for free via their infrastructure; now they're changing their
>   >  terms and they only continue to offer this service if you agree to the
>   >  changed terms?
>
> That's a great theory; where was that offer documented? It wasn't of
> course; this is just a rhetorical question intended to point out that
> you're making shit up.

Excuse me?

> I just want to map; and I don't want to worry that my contributions
> are going to be deleted just because somebody touched something before
> or after I touched it.

A friend of mine recently did a lot of mapping which was then removed by 
someone else in preparation for an import. Shit happens.

> The fact that I have zero confidence in this
> not happening says that the solution simply isn't working.

I think it would not be prudent to use your personal perception of 
something as an indicator of whether it is or isn't working; the 
discussion above seems to show that your perception of reality is liable 
to warping.

> Relicensing
> is a bad, bad, bad idea. It has imposed large costs (in terms of
> people spending time fighting against the relicensing or trying to
> figure out how to make relicensing work). Nobody knows if the OdBL
> will actually solve the problem that is causing the relicensing.

Yes, I think that the big step forward is the CT, and consider ODbL the 
less important of the pair. The CT will for the first time make the 
agreement between mappers and OSMF explicit, so that discussions like 
the one above will not be necessary in the future. Even if we were to 
remain with CC-BY-SA, we must at least push through with the CT.

> We're
> running beta software in production.

Whereas in all other areas of OSM, we're running, what, the daily SVN 
snapshot?

> It's just a bad, bad, bad idea, and the fact that the OSMF *continues*
> to press on in the face of objections gives me reason to not trust
> their wisdom.

The alternative would be to continue using CC-BY-SA in the face of 
objections, and continue to misleading users about the effectiveness of 
the license.

Bye
Frederik