[OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution)

[Paul Norman]

> From: Luis Villa [mailto:lvilla at wikimedia.org] 
> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 3:17 PM
> To: Licensing and other legal discussions.
> Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution)

> > The LWG has spent considerable time discussing the "geocoding issue", so
> > it is not as if we've ignored the subject.
> 
> Didn't mean to imply that work hasn't been done! I've read all the 
> public threads I can find :) But the wiki doesn't reflect that, and the 
> wiki is where most "outsiders" are going to go to try to figure out the 
> question, since it is most googleable, linked to from many places, etc. 

One of the big differences between Wikipedia and OSM communications is 
that we don't generally use the wiki for discussion, we use it for 
documentation. Ideally when something is settled the documentation will 
get updated accordingly, but the discussions and work themselves won't 
appear on the wiki. Of course, as with most projects, documentation 
often lags behind... 

> > So, yes, I think it might be fair to say that the LWG has punted on the
> > geocoding issue at least for now, to spend its time on issues which are
> > more likely to be resolved.
> > 
> I think it would be helpful if the wiki at least reflected that. If 
> there were links from there to the relevant mailing list threads, it 
> would (1) warn people that this is a tough issue and (2) they might find 
> some useful analysis/background in them. 
> 
> Normally I'd try to organize some of that myself, but since I'm a lawyer 
> for an organization that will likely consider some sort of geocoding at 
> some point in the future I'm extremely reluctant to put words in 
> anyone's mouth or in anyone's wiki. 

It's important to remember that the wiki is the community edited and not 
an official OSMF position. Obviously you need to be comfortable that 
you're okay in any edits you're doing, but from an OSM side I don't see 
any issues with the edits you've described, particularly since you're 
not stating what the share-alike implications of geocoding are, but 
you're linking to existing discussions of the matter. 

When it comes to writing guidelines, I know I'd love it if someone else 
were to submit well written guidelines that agree with the ODbL and what 
we want to say. Obviously the LWG wouldn't simply copy/paste without 
reviewing and probably modifying text. 

As an aside, my last job involved writing guidelines on interpretation 
of health and safety regulations for the local health and safety 
regulator. It takes a specialized skillset and way of thinking.