[OSM-legal-talk] OSM Database Re-Build

[Michael Collinson]

The LWG has been quiet for a while we watch the numbers (links below).  
We have now reached the point where most older contributors who are 
going to respond, have responded and we think it is time to look at 
formally encouraging folks to examine their local areas and go out and 
do some re-mapping if needed.  This is a pre-announcement of that before 
we commit, we welcome any feed back and comments first.

The numbers look good, all new contributors since May 2010 operate under 
the new terms, close to 50,000 older contributors have said yes and 
declines have stabilised at around 350-360 (it goes up and down a bit), 
new agreements still come in at 250 or so per week. But we still have 
thousands of mostly small contributors who have not yet responded. We 
are just finalising a second mass mailing emphasising that even small 
contributions are very important and that consent is required to keep 
them in even they no longer want to map. We don't know exactly what the 
preferred language of each contributor is, but this time we are having a 
go at sending out versions in German and some other major languages.

In the UK, issues due to the use of national mapping agency data have 
been resolved and in Australia we have had explicit permission to use 
the bulk of government-derived imports. That mostly completes our list 
of known specific import dataset-related issues from the Import 
Catalogue where we can actively help. If there are any more, New 
Zealand?, please let us know.  There are also some cases where 
contributors can say yes to defined parts of their contributions but not 
all. This has turned out to be small in number, so I believe that the 
Data Working Group will be able to work on these on a case-by-case basis.

The OSMF board has asked us to target 1st April 2012 as the date to cut 
completely over. This is not a fiat and needs community assent and help, 
but we think it is quite doable and shall be working towards it.

We suggest that re-mapping by individuals is more important initially 
than automated revert scripts as it puts back often more and better 
content than was taken out.  We'd like therefore promote that and to 
concentrate on tools to help folks easily see what needs doing in their 
areas. Of course, it does not prevent the most obvious tasks like 
rolling back top-most edits where the editor has declined.  Any 
different opinions on this? I have a couple of other questions to ask 
over the next week or so, but that is the main one to get things moving.

Mike
LWG

The numbers:

http://matt.dev.openstreetmap.org/treemap.png - each square represents 
one user, weighted by size of contribution. Green=accepted, Red=Declined 
or has not responded.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats#Database_Statistics_-_Graphical 
(Registered users)

http://odbl.de/

http://ni.kwsn.net/~toby/OSM/license_count.html

http://fred.dev.openstreetmap.org/license/