[Talk-ca] Ping John Whelan?

[Richard Weait]

On Mon, Jun 6, 2011 at 4:17 PM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Acting on your advice I accepted the new CT.

If I recall discussion you asked what the license was all about and
why was there so much chatter about it?  And if I recall my reply, it
was something along the lines of, you could read it all and make up
your mind, or you can accept that I think the new license is a big
improvement for OSM.  Is that about right?

> On looking more deeply into
> the subject I note that I have retrospectively allowed OSM to license
> anything I have ever added to the map in any way they wish.  Currently it is
> odbl but the CT allows anything, the license seems to be an ever changing
> document.

You appear not to have looked deeply enough.  The CTs allow additional
license changes ONLY, to another "Free and Open" license, and ONLY by
approval of a 2/3 majority of the current OSM contributors at the
time.  [well, 2/3 of those who reply to their OSM registered email
within three weeks.]  So a new license has to be Free and Open and
approved by the community.  Or perhaps you've just changed your mind.

> Looking at my data I have a couple of footpaths that were entered from a GPS
> track and one or two other items these I'm happy to have under the new CT
> but very little else.
>
> I find it is not possible to retract my acceptance.
>
> I have made three separate inquiries on how to get all my edits removed but
> all have been ignored.
>
> So I can see no other option than to remove them all manually.

Your premise is flawed.  It's not "your" data once you contribute to a
collective project like OpenStreetMap, the data belongs to all of us.
It's not your well if you help the village dig it.  You can't decide
you would rather use it as a latrine.  That's a decision the village
has to take together.

The license change is an exceptional situation, in which we are
offering each contributor the option to have their contributions
removed, granting far more control of their contributed data than
would be expected.  It is an exceptionally cautious approach by the
OpenStreetMap Foundation and generous to a fault to those with qualms
about the license.

> If someone else wishes to do an import from CANVEC most can be replaced
> quite quickly, however I do not want to take the responsibility that OSM in
> its wisdom will change the license yet again to something that is not
> acceptable to CANVEC.

Canvec and GeoBase data are already approved for CT/ODbL.  I think
those were announced here many months ago.

So, you are happy with CT/ODbL with the data you mentioned above.  So
you don't have an objection to CT/ODbL.  Canvec and GeoBase data are
already compatible with CT/ODbL, so there is no need for you (or
anybody else) to remove that data based on CT/ODbL.  Is that correct?

> I also note that according to Fredrick some mappers have already been
> deleting entries for people who have not accepted the CT so it seemed to be
> an appropriate time to start deleting.

You mean here?  In ¶4 ?
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2011-June/006044.html

Frederik's email counsels against exactly what you think that you've
done.  He says that prematurely deleting data of license decliners
would be inappropriate and cause unneeded community tension.  But you
went ahead and deleted stuff.  And Frederik's email has nothing to do
with this situation.  You've accepted CT/ODbL.

> Sorry for any inconvenience.

Question open to the room.  What now?  What should John do?  What should we do?