[OSM-talk] Osmarender 5

[Dave Stubbs]

On 02/09/07, 80n <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 9/2/07, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > >      I hereby specify that you must attribute my work in the following
> > >      manner: "Do not embed my user name in maps produced; either omit
> > it, or
> > >      list in in a textual appendix to the map."
> > >
> > >    You chose to make your user name public.  Do you want to rescind
> > that
> > >    now?  Those who have not made their user name public will not have
> > their
> > >    names on the map.
> >
> > I have no problem whatsover to have my name made public as a
> > contributor. I am just unhappy about the way you have chosen to
> > display my name because it is not my style; you write in another post
> > that your aim is to put people's names "in the light" as much as
> > possible, while my personal style would rather be low-key,
> > unobtrusive.
> >
> > >    (FWIW I think this public setting should be reversible.  Obviously
> > it
> > >    cannot be rescinded for names that are already in a planet file
> > somewhere,
> > >    but it would mean that all future edits were no longer public which
> > must
> > >    have some value.)
> >
> > Even if you would let me reverse the "public" setting I would not do
> > that because I think it has a very high value for the mapping
> > community; anyone who *wants* to find out who mapped a certain way
> > should be able to do so, to contact him in case of questions etc.; I
> > believe this is important, and faced with the dilemma of either not
> > being identifiable at all or having my name shouted out to anyone no
> > matter whether or not they're interested, I'd probably still choose
> > the second option.
> >
> > If you could add a simple text file to Osmarender with a list of user
> > names to suppress when creating maps, and put that in SVN, and I could
> > just add my name to that, I'd be happy - I could still be found by
> > anyone who looks for me but my name wouldn't be shouted in the face of
> > the general public as if I were bragging about the little footway I
> > recently placed in someone else's neighbourhood.
> >
> > (Unnecessary for me, but if you wanted to you could actually even
> > create a file with mapping table, so everybody could map his user name
> > to whatever he wants as attribution, or the empty string if he doesn't
> > want his name on the map. That could get you quite close to the letter
> > of the license.)
>
>
> This would be quite feasible and probably worth doing.  Ideally when a
> user registers they should be asked "How would you like your work
> attributed?" and perhaps give them a list of options:  Not at all, My user
> name, My real name, OpenStreetMap, this other text.
>


I'm a little worried that the precendent is being set here where by an
"acceptable" form of attribution requirement is that a username is printed
on the map. This would make it binding for all renderers and users of the
data. It would also severely limit the uses of OSM data.

Personally, when I signed up, I interpreted the license to mean CC-BY-SA and
I want attribution to OSM... I know loads of people probably didn't read it
like that. The idea of asking a user what attribution they want is a good
one, but there should only be certain specific options, and they should be
carefully chosen not to limit the ways OSM data can be displayed/used.
Obviously legally speaking this is barn door closing when the horse has been
gone for three years territory, but for new users it could be made to work.

>From a purely "that's cool" perspective, the usernames being printed on a
map makes for interesting map browsing... a "blame" layer would be a pretty
cool addition in its own right.
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