[OSM-talk] Anonymous login, yet again- was privacy policy

[Emil]

On 7/28/06, David Groom <reviews at pacific-rim.net> wrote:
> I think we are going to have to accept there is no absolute answer to the
> question of anonymous login.  But here are my thoughts for what its worth.
>
> 1)  I can see no real downside to anonymous access to "read" OSM data.
>
> 2) OSM data is not like words written on Wikipedia, so don't cite that as an
> example of how to proceed.  To explain:
>
> a) as Martyn Welch (and others) have said its far easier to spot an error on
> Wikipedia than it will be on OSM data;
>
> b) I'm not a believer in conspiracy theories, but I have to accept the
> possibility.  Something written in Wikipedia is in general not likely to
> cause commercial harm to anyone, and therefore:
>
> i) wikipedia "data" is unlikely to be corrupted simply to cause a commercial
> disadvantage to someone;
> ii) if something on wikipedia does come from a copyrighted source it is
> unlikely to cause financial loss to someone;
>
> However, at least in the United Kingdom, the data being produced by the OSM
> project directly effects the revenue earning potential of a number of large
> powerful organisations which therefore have a distinct reason to note any
> breaches of copyright, and take appropriate action.
>
> For these reasons OSM has to be more careful than Wikipedia in identifying
> the identity of contributors, and separating one contributor from another
> ( i.e. no anonymous write access) so that problem data can more easily be
> removed.
>
> c) OSM data is more "viral". Suppose someone writes something on wikipedia
> that is wrong, it can be removed and this doesn't really effect the rest of
> the article.  However suppose someone (logged in as anonymous) puts in a few
> nodes that are derived from a copyright source, then someone goes and uses
> those  nodes to form a segment, and then someone else uses that segment to
> form a way.  In deleting those nodes we then have to delete someone else's
> work who created the segments and the way.  Not only that, but we then have
> to back out all data created by that anonymous source, even if it doesn't
> belong to the corrupt nodes.
>
> d) having said all the above, I can see the argument for the fact that if
> someone is looking at OSM maps and sees a name of a street is missing, or
> spelt wrong, that they should be able to easily correct this.  Such a
> correction would not be "viral" in the case of (c) above as it only affects
> the key/value of an existing entry.
>
> To summarise:
>
> A) Read access could be anonymous
> B) Uploading of gpx tracks, creation of ways, & segments MUST require an OSM
> user account
> C) I personally don't like the idea, but, adding key / values to EXISTING
> ways might be allowed by anonymous login.
>
> David

I agree with David.

I am sympathetic to allowing anonymous adding of key/values - but as
many people on the list believe that copying names of an OS map is
copyright infringement (I don't!) then consider the possibilty that
some enterprising person at the OS might like to add a load of streets
plus deliberate "easter egg" misspellings to OSM......

Emil