[Talk-ca] Importing MLI park boundaries

[Gerald A]

On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 1:45 PM, Sam Vekemans
<acrosscanadatrails at gmail.com>wrote:

> Lol, that page is no longer valid.


Well, the statement on it seems pretty unequivocal -- "[PD data release ...]
I grant anyone the right to use my contributions *for any purpose*, without
any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law." (Emphasis in
original).

... nor is accepting terms which keep in changing. ...


Sam, you don't strike me as the political type, but based on the statement
which you wrote _and_ emphasized, you've granted all rights under any
conditions. So what does it matter if the terms change on a minute by minute
basis, really?


> and the Board has the power to unplug osm at any
> moment ... as well as ban list-serv users ... on any mailing list. :)
>

Okay, I'm tired of this FUD crap. Really.

While I'm not convinced the licence change is a great idea, the "board" or
foundation or whatever doesn't "own" OSM, and can't unplug crap.

What they _do_ control are a bunch of servers, and those servers are pulling
together contributions from a number of people.

Contributions from people like you, Sam. And like me.

Could they ban people from a mailing list on a list-serv they host? Sure.
They could even stop having anything to do with mapping.

I think by now we understand you don't like the CT & OdBL switchover. But
you did have, until just over 2 months ago, a notice on your page that
anyone could do whatever with your contributions, under _any_ conditions.

OSM is the sum of it's contributors. I have yet to hear any critic of the
CT/OdBL suggest something like OSM/cc (and/or OSM/pd etc) and do anything
about it. Personally, if the tools allowed contributing to multiple forks,
I'd do so. But instead of suggesting solutions and building tools, we hear
talk of losing data and users, like that is the end of the world.

10 years ago, Governments would never give up data in any kind of "sharing"
way. If you wanted to access their datasets, you usually paid and then
abided by their licence. Now, many are releasing data under some kind of CC
licence -- but just because there is a need to keep abreast of the times.
Where will we be in 5 years? Who knows -- and I think that is the point.

I have no doubt, if the "board" was to "go rouge" and unplug "OSM", it would
only take a short period of time for the OSM community to bring things back
online. That's the power of open source -- no one person or entity
"controls" the project.

And if/when CT/OdBL becomes the law of the land here, someone might decide
they can't continue under that regimen and take a copy of the data and keep
it under the "previous terms".  No data or contributors lost -- just a new
URL to know. And, the point is that _anyone_ can do that -- no permission or
legal papers needed. So, again, what is the big deal, and why should people
not contribute still?
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