[OSM-talk] open data

[Richard Fairhurst]

Quoting rob at robmyers.org:

> [big snippage]

I think most of this I'll agree to differ with you on. We can bat  
interpretations back and forth - you say Microsoft and TCP/IP, I say  
Apple and Konqueror<->Safari, where naming and shaming _really_ worked  
- but it won't get either of us anywhere (and will just bore everyone  
else). We're only two voices in the crowd anyway.

But I would like to follow up the two (IMO) most important points:

> [re: a putative geodata-friendly licence]
>> To the contrary, it would _encourage_ them by stating explicitly how
>> mashups are permissible.
> And as new uses are dreamt up these would have to be permitted by licence
> revisions. Whereas blanket copyleft would simply permit them without revision
> being required.

I honestly don't get you here.

What magic property does CC-SA have that means it, alone, wouldn't  
require future revisions?

Why can't we get a little bit of that fairy dust and sprinkle it over  
a licence written with open data in mind?

Why is a licence that says "share the end result, not the source"  
completely flexible, whereas "share the source, not the end result"  
isn't?

Secondly:

>> True if we (OSMF) _want_ this to be returned to OSM. But Andy cited
>> the aims of the foundation earlier, and they relate specifically and
>> solely to "geospatial data". If OSM wants to gather maps, code and
>> whatever, then that's a different debate and not one on which we (yet)
>> have a consensus.
>
> If OSM is devoted to geospatial data alone, it should rename itself OGSD to
> avoid confusion. ;-)
>
> But OSM will either be a larger project than just geodata, or be part of a
> larger world than just geodata. In either case OSM need to think more broadly
> than just geodata.

Not everyone can agree on what that larger world should be. Not  
everyone here is a Creative Commons enthusiast, not everyone is a Free  
Software enthusiast. Not everyone is a coder, not everyone is a  
surveyor, not everyone is a cartographer. Why impose one worldview on  
such a thriving community?

We're a geospatial data project. CC-SA is _suboptimal_ for geodata in  
that you have to share the end result, not the underlying data - so  
(theoretically) OSM is entitled to a print-out of my waterway map, but  
not the accurate tracings of waterways that I used to produce it. In  
what way is that good?

cheers
Richard