[Osmf-talk] New license change proposal status

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Mike Collinson wrote:
> The formal license change proposal will be sent to you very shortly, so 
> the License Working Group has been working on the exact text of the vote 
> itself and covering letter.  If interested, you can see it here:

[...]

> In order to give members with differing views on what makes the ideal 
> license, the maximum chance to make their views felt, there will also be 
> a short optional survey included with the vote.

This is the letter you are sending out to OSMF members, not the question 
that will be put to all contributors, right? Looks ok so far with me, 
and a plus for the planned survey.

However, for the question that will ultimately be put to all 
contributors, I sincerely wish that contributors will have three 
options, like

( ) I release my data under ODbL
( ) I do not release my data under ODbL
( ) I consider all my data PD anyway and don't claim database protection 
so do whatever you want

I had talked to a number of LWG members at SOTM and found them at least 
not rejecting this idea altogether; the plan being to allow those who 
don't care for viral licensing to at least be heard. That would be more 
than a "short optional survey". I would expect these responses in the 
user data we keep on the server, thus formalising the current "all my 
contributions are PD" scheme we have on the Wiki.

Richard Fairhurst alluded to such a possibility in this March 2008 
posting on legal-talk:

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2008-March/000883.html

I hope that you are still considering this.

In fact, since you are asking us members "do you approve moving to 
ODbL", should you not declare *how* this move is planned to proceed, 
including very sensitive bits like the wording of the message sent to 
all contributors, and what you intend to do about data not re-licensed? 
After all someone might say: I approve of the move to ODbL if it is done 
this way, but if they're planning to do it that way then I don't?

Asking us to say yes to a completely unspecified process seems to be 
asking a lot. You could be sending out SWAT teams to hold a gun against 
the head of anyone not relicensing their data and claim that the process 
was authorised by the OSMF membership ;-)

I checked the documents you have linked, including the implementation 
plan, and found nothing besides

"OSM contributors able to agree to switch their contributions to the new 
license."

and the slightly questionable, but possibly not current idea:

"Website to allow users to voluntarily agree to new license. Design 
allows you to click yes, or if you disagree a further page explaining 
the position and asking to reconsider as there may be a requirement to 
ultimately remove the users data. (no decision to actually remove data 
from the central database yet... ) This will help stop people 
accidentally clicking 'no'."

So I'd ask you to either specify exactly how you want to proceed and do 
that now, or else promise us that you will hear us again once you have 
devised the further implementation details and that you will not 
continue until we agree to the details (including full wording of 
communication with contributors).

Or point me to the Wiki page I have overlooked.

Bye
Frederik