[Osmf-talk] Results of OSMF Member Vote

[Matija Nalis]

On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 12:15:19PM +0100, Morten Kjeldgaard wrote:
> On 03/01/2010, at 22.00, Matija Nalis wrote:
>
>> Yes, since joining this list and doing some more research, I am now
>> convinced that CC0 or some other PD-alike would be much better for
>> everyone..
>
> No mattter how much you argue for your cause -- and I haven't made up my 
> mind whether I agree with you are not -- it doesn't change the fact that 
> changing the license to CC0 is simply not possible without starting a new 
> project. The current data is licensed with the share-alike clause, and 

That is simply NOT correct (as both "sides" will tell you).

Changing the license from current CC-BY-SA to CC0 is no more (or less)
difficult than changing the license from CC-BY-SA to ODbL, from the law
point of view. If you want to change the license, you must get every
contributor to agree on that new license. That is all that matters.

The fact that ODbL has some similar "SA" parts as CC-BY-SA is no more
relevant to the issue then the fact that CC-BY-SA and CC0 are both made by
CreativeCommons (and ODbL is not) - it simply has no weight in law
whatsoever.

In short, one could as easily change to CC0 as to ODbL.

Only difference is which one the contributors will like more (and by
inoffical polls I found and posted, they actually seem to like CC0 more).

> The working group has no doubt evaluated all theses scenarios and come  
> up with the OdbL as the best possible compromise. I am a fan of going  

The license working group (as far as I am aware) has been specifically
tasked with finding best copyleft ("share-alike") license, and I agree with
you that they probably did the best in that direction that could possibly be
done.

They were however never tasked with finding if share-alike or public
domain would be better for the project. And that is IMHO more important
question which should've been asked first.

It is like the situation if you need to go to the shop around the corner and
very carefully think over with which of your cars you should go there; when
in fact it would be by far the easiest to just walk there. But since you put
in your mind that you must go there by car, you cannot see the much better
choice.

> with that. I am grateful they spent their time on this tedious work, so 
> the rest of us can do what we like the most: get out of the house,  
> collect tracks and create a great map.

That may be. I would be however be most unhappy if (due to such license
change issues) the years *I've* put into collecting tracks and helping
create map would be lost and my work *deleted* -- and it is quite realistic
scenario that parts of my work will be deleted *even if* I accept ODbL.

So I've put my time and energy to researching the issue and possible
problems and try to help with them, even if I'd much prefer to ignore the
boring licensing issue and go out mapping with you.

-- 
Opinions above are GNU-copylefted.