[Talk-de] Hello from England

SteveC steve at asklater.com
Mi Jul 1 12:33:57 UTC 2009


On 1 Jul 2009, at 12:44, pirrifornus at web.de wrote:

> I never participate in any mailing list discussion, but seeing the  
> communication campaign for the new license and this project
>
> being so important for me i'll break my rule.
>
> Let me first thank  you for the brilliant idea of OSM which for me  
> and surely for many others has made a dream come through.

cool thanks

>
> Having said this I would like to comment on three issues which were  
> mentioned in this thread:
>
> a) SOTM
>
> Is is not ok to slap students with very little money by pretending  
> that the conference is not expensive.

I had no idea he was a student. I don't think I 'slapped' him. And,  
I'm not pretending it's not expensive - it really is not that  
expensive compared to other conferences and the maths just work out  
paying for the venue and food minus the sponsorship that we need to  
charge people.

That said it is my personal opinion as a student not long ago that we  
should have a student discount. I will bring this up at the meeting of  
the SOTM working group today and see what and why this was decided.

Please don't think this is all on purpose or something because we hate  
german students, it just hasn't come up to the best of my knowledge.

> You yourself admit that it
>
> is expensive internally by giving discounts for founding members  
> i.e. the interest group (I don't like the term foundation in this

This is totally new to me I don't know of any such discount. I don't  
know whay you're talking about. The only thing we have is that the  
people who are running it might get in without paying, because we  
worked so hard to make it happen.

> context). Also I remember much bigger Linux events which were free.
>
> The very topic is that the interest group is financing the  
> management of the project by the mappers who already do the work! How
>
> come that one of the biggest crowdsourcing ventures in the internet  
> world can't be financed by IBM, Bertelsman foundation, Royal
>
> geographic society or by Wikipedia. (No, I won't organize  
> conferences or look for sponsors. I' am sitting here in Senegal  
> nearly at
>
> the end of the world)

Well, there are many ways to help and of course letting me know this  
stuff helps.

> b) License
>
> All problems with the license can be backtracked to the value of the  
> information collected and the wish to extend the commercial
>
> use. That is ok with with me. What is not ok is that the license  
> permits keeping the information in my bank safe and only
>
> distribute it for a "reasonable production fee". Again: Such a big  
> project has to prescribe the use of the internet for each and
>
> every bit of information, so that that the information stays freely  
> accessible and usable.

You've confused me here. The new license I don't think extends  
commercial use, it just makes it clearer. I don't understand the  
second half about you bank.

> The license excludes any patent and branding aspects (2.3). Maybe  
> that is necessary. I will however be assured that i always can
>
> have free access and and use of the information without getting to  
> know that the information is free but the data interface is
>
> patented and the data model is branded. Yes I know, nobody has ever  
> thought of, but Michael Jackson never thought of selling his
>
> furniture and Bjön Borg never meant to sell his trophy's.

Again I'm confused, you seem concerned about the license interacting  
with potential patents?

> c) communication
>
> I went to the website of the interest group and read that the last  
> minutes of meeting date form april. If that is not in
>
> contradiction to the things said in this thread than at least there  
> is lot of room for improvement to insert the discussion process
>
> in the interest group into the news and blogs of OSM.

I'm sorry confused again, which interest group? What minutes? If you  
could give me links and quotes that would help.

Best

Steve





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