[Osmf-talk] CC BY SA 2.0 and backup plan

[80n]

On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 3:59 AM, SteveC <steve at asklater.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Dec 5, 2009, at 20:03, 80n <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 10:55 PM, SteveC < <steve at asklater.com>
> steve at asklater.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Dec 5, 2009, at 3:52 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>> > In fact, I'm pretty sure that if the LWG had made an effort to reach out
>> to the critics and get their feedback
>>
>> On planet Frederik where water runs uphill and cats chase dogs, there
>> weren't three rounds of input on the license, the LWG minutes weren't open,
>> 80n wasn't on the board and didn't see all this stuff, Matt didn't
>> diligently respond to every concern...
>>
>> Steve
> You will no doubt remember that the LWG didn't even record any minutes
> until I pushed for them do so.
>
> You will no doubt also remember that after the LWG's proposals were
> presented to the board on 9th July 2009, I provided extensive feedback.
> There are 21 points alone noted in this document:
> <http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_0hnnw6tc9>
> http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_0hnnw6tc9
>
> I don't think you realised that OSM is much more than just a few people who
> hang out on the OSM talk mailing lists.  There are many thousands of
> contributors who need to be involved in the process.  It takes real hard
> work to reach out to them.  The license change is not a simple message and
> so requires extraordinary effort and outreach to communicate it to the
> community.
>
>
> Let's say you're right and the LWG is wrong, against the odds. What would
> you like to happen now?
>
>
Nearly 200,000 people have signed up to OSM.  In doing so, they all agreed
to the CC BY-SA license.  Whether or not the current license is good
everyone, including you, signed up to it.

For better or worse, every single contributor today is happy to continue to
contribute under this license.  If they didn't then they would just stop
contributing.

Hindsight is wonderful and I know you wouldn't have started the project
under CC BY-SA if you could do it all again.  But the project has been
outrageously successful despite the license choice.

It's been three or four years since concerns were raised that the CC license
wasn't really appropriate.  People argued that the project was in mortal
danger and that they sky could fall in at any moment.  Well that still
hasn't happened and it's clear that reputable organisations will and do
respect the spirit of the CC license.

While in theory CC BY-SA might be unsuitable, in practice it is working
marvellously well.  OSM is working marvellously well.  It's a wild success.
You should be proud of that.

Traditionally with open source projects, if there is discord about policy or
a proposal for disruptive change, then the normal course of action is to
fork the project.  The LWG should fork the project.  If the ODbL is as good
as they claim then contributors will quickly migrate.  As they say: let the
market decide.



> To think that because the LWG had feedback from one person and that this is
> sufficient is perhaps a little bit fanciful.
>
>
> I don't know what this means.
>
>
>
>> But on planet Earth, these things did indeed happen.
>>
>> Yours &c.
>>
>> Steve
>
>
>
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