[OSM-talk] About my stubbornness

[Wollschaf]

On Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:12:47 +0200, Immanuel Scholz wrote:

> There are some basics that I don't want to have to discuss about: 

I'm sorry for the discussion. 

>- the data should be free accessible for all time

Correct. Users upload their gpx-tracks, but still have the possibility to
mark them as private. The account details and passwords should not be
published, either. Those are not things that fall under GPL.

Everything that is GPL'd should be accessible at all times, i.e public GPX
tracks and the OSM data. Which it is. It is simply not necessary to
publish the complete database. It should be possible to fork a project on
the base of OSM, which it is, IMHO.

Everything else is just not relevant.

> - controlling power should be distributed. 

Correct. There have to be some people who make the actual decisions,
though. Voting for every little thing will take far too much time.

Essential decisions (Licensing etc.) have to be made by the community.

> - anonymity is good

Correct. I dont' see why you need an anonymous account for that. People
wishing to stay anonymous will not use their real email address for
signing up, nor any relevant password.

Having accounts is good, as a user can be identified (as a particular
user, nothing more) and perhaps contacted. Having an account creates some
kind of responsibility for the actions you take.

Iit would be a complete hassle to find out what one account that made
thousands of changes to the datasatet actually did (with malicious
intent), and revert those changes without losing other valuable data.

It would be an anonymity breach to give out all login details.

> So my real fear is, where this all will lead into and whether I am
> currently spending wasted time into this all..

I don't think so. Free data is free data, no matter what.

Your editor is a great tool, a really useful thing which
is an essential part of OSM to me. I would not have started editing there
without JOSM.

Ciao,
Wollschaf