[Talk-us] Resigning in protest

SteveC steve at asklater.com
Wed May 12 15:19:54 BST 2010


It's pretty bonkers. Anyone is welcome to join the LWG call each week or read the minutes, and be as involved as you like.

License changes will always throw up people who don't like it, and the LWG has been going through peoples legitimate and illegitimate concerns for two years I think it's been now. We've had lawyers checking everything at every step of the way. So it's very frustrating for those involved after so much effort to finally be able to make one step towards completion, and have people throw stones like this.

Because, after all if you do your homework CCBYSA is a total mess for OSM and all the LWG is trying to do is fix that mess.

Yours &c.

Steve


On May 11, 2010, at 11:46 PM, Peter Batty wrote:

> Chris,
> 
> I have to say I am confused about your reasoning. In this long list you don't give a single reason why you think that ODbL is worse than CC by SA.
> 
> All your objections are about the process of change. One of your main objections is that there was too much communication and discussion about the reasons for the change, which seems a very strange concern to me.
> 
> You say there was not enough due diligence but the process has been going on well over a year with a massive amount of review and discussion.
> 
> You talk about changing the "fundamental nature of the organization" but I have no idea what you mean by this. ODbL embodies exactly the same principles as CC by SA was intended to, but is much more enforceable. As I said previously, the nature of the organization is all about creating a great free and open map of the world, that certainly has not changed either.
> 
> So again, I'm sorry that you feel this way but I have to say I really don't understand your reasoning.
> 
> Cheers,
>     Peter. 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> On May 11, 2010, at 7:21 PM, Chris Hunter <chunter952 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I'm basing my decision on the ODbL roadmap (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Implementation_Plan), Why you should vote Yes (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Why_You_Should_Vote_No) and Why you should vote No (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Why_You_Should_Vote_No) pages in the WIKI.  
>> 
>> Here are my objections:
>> 
>> 	• The OSMF did not do enough due-diligance before voting to adopt the ODBL.  Discussion was done on an extremely noisy list (talk@) and AFAIK none of the board ever cross-posted progress reports to the sub-lists.  This is a classic case of security-by-obscurity. - See Chapter 1 of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
>> 
>> 	• The change is being done on the say-so of only 132 out of 254 paid members.  I'm not an expert on Robert's Rules, but don't you need to have to have a super-majority to change the fundamental nature of an organization?
>> 
>> 	• The roadmap as it stood yesterday made it sound like the ODbL is already passed, and that the OSMF was just dragging its heals about when it plans on implementing it or notifying anyone.  If this is not correct, I apologize.
>> 
>> 	• Last weekend I did some fairly minor WIKI updates and noticed several slippymaps were rendering with a reference to something called the "Openstreetmap License."  Between the updated slippymaps and Firefishy's original edit, it sounded like the OSMF had finally gotten around to making the contributor license mandatory.
>> 
>> 4.a My current job is time consuming and has a draconian Internet access policy.  I may well have become a victim of FUD, but I can only read my email on my phone, and I simply don't have time to read the talk@ group's 5+ daily digests.  See points 1 and 3.
>> 
>> 	• The OSMF's actions have made me feel disenfranchised on several occasions.  My biggest sources of frustration are the original Local Chapter agreement, and the ODBL adoption vote that was taken on 27-Dec-2009 (http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2009-December/000753.html).
>> 
>> 	• To answer Serge's PMs, yes, this is a low blow, but my experiences on points 3 and 4 made me feel like there was no other choice.  If I can stretch your metaphor a bit, it was looking like the jack-boots were on the doorstep, so a kick to the groin seemed like the best defense.
>> What did you find objectionable?  Maybe I'll be turned off by it too.
>> 
>> I'm not speaking for Chris, but I'm of the opinion that the OSM Foundation did not perform due diligence in getting the approval (or at least the opinion) of the overall contributors to the database. I think I understand that the OSMF's opinion is that the license change is needed in order to have a legal framework to operate internationally, but I don't think it's appropriate to only ask the ~300 members of OSMF for approval.
>> 
>> Please take this with a grain of salt though, as I think the current change only applies to new user accounts.
>> 
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