[talk-au] Getting is right

[Ben Johnson]

On 12/09/2012, at 2:45 AM, Richard Weait wrote:

> Individual OSM contributors have approached dozens (or perhaps
> hundreds, now) of governments from tiny to big and found success.
> They've also found some regressive governments, but hey, we won't know
> until we try.  Good luck.
>


I've been wanting to contact my own local government about OSM-related  
matters, but what to say about the license?

Do I tell them it's CC-BY-SA, only to cause them confusion when it  
changes... or make me look like an idiot when they visit the website  
in the next X days and see that it is something different... or  
confuse them by saying "it's CC-BY-SA right now, but it's going to  
change to ODbL at some unknown point..."

Hence I've delayed a lot of such communication (for MONTHS now).

Another example - I have a friend doing tertiary studies who had to  
use content from the internet and explain in his assignment why it was  
not breaching copyright law to use it.  I initially thought OSM would  
be great for such an assignment, but then reconsidered because he may  
claim in the assignment that the data is CC-BY-SA, but if/when the  
teacher goes to check it all out -- for all we know by then it will  
have changed to ODbL... then he's marked down as a result of giving  
inaccurate information.

These are real practical uncertainties of this license limbo period.   
Hopefully we can move ahead with certainty very soon.

BJ