[OSM-talk] The long tail - lowest common denominator

[Petter Reinholdtsen]

[David Sheldon]
> And this is what I object to. Claiming that it is more free to add
> restrictions is like the government claiming that I would be more
> free if they were allowed to lock me up for three months without
> trial. It isn't an increase in freedom, it is a restriction.

Your comment seem to ignore the question of who get the freedom.  Some
peoples freedom are other peoples restrictions.  Continuing your
example, we could say that if the government have the freedom to lock
you up for three months without trial, you do no longer have the
freedom to leave.  And I believe we should focus on the freedom of the
users of the OSM map.  To do that in the long term, we need to
restrict the same users ability to not share their improvements.  So
we limit the freedom of each of the people improving the dataset to
increase the freedom of to the rest of the users, making sure everyone
can use each others improvements.

> Ok, it is a restriction with altruistic means, but it is still a
> restriction. If you are going to have that sort of restriction then
> don't call it free.

There is no way to sort actions into less and more freedom or less and
more restriction without stating who the action affects, and how.  So
I do not believe your comment make sense.

We are not free to kill each other at will.  This is restriction we
impose upon each other to give us all the freedom to move around in
society without fearing to be killed at any moment.  One can of course
claim that we lack freedom because of this, but I believe we gain
freedom because of this restriction.

I want the OSM data to have an restriction on non-sharing use, to
increase the chance of it becoming more and more useful as more and
more people put work into it.

Friendly,
-- 
Petter Reinholdtsen