[OSM-talk] Results from license debate - assing (c) to OSMF

[Tom Chance]

Hullo,

I've listened through the recording from this debate. So far as I
understand it, there were two concrete outcomes:

1 - Someone will collate use cases and get more diverse and professional
legal opinion;
2 - Steve will email everyone asking them to assign/grant certain rights to
OSMF to facilitate attribution, and perhaps a license switch.

They both sound great to me. One quick question if I'm right so far - will
the OSMF be developing a formal membership system with democratic
structures to ensure that we can collectively make decisions about
licensing and so on once we've individually assigned our copyright (or
whatever the correct legal move is)?

I don't support any move towards a less community-centric licensing regime
(e.g. public domain), and I don't want OSM to take away non-cartographer's
rights to satisfy certain cartographer's business models. If I am going to
lose the ability to withdraw my data I do want to make sure I can have a
proper say in any decisions that might go that way.

I am happy to help develop the democratic structures. We'll need much more
than a simple online vote to ensure that the options get thoroughly
discussed, and to ensure that everyone can genuinely participate in the
debate.

I also want to echo the cautionary notes about sinking OSM in debates as
with (allegedly) BSD, though I do think it's worth trying to get legal
advice and then to facilitate a good discussion so everyone is aware of
where the current license puts us.

Kind regards,
Tom