[OSM-talk] License to kill

[Gervase Markham]

On 04/03/09 04:28, SteveC wrote:
> We blame Steve because he's evil. We blame the process because it took
> too long. We blame the working group for not being quicker. We figure
> the foundation must be culpable. We write long rants about how it's a
> dire emergency...

I don't see any of that, at least not at the moment. What I see is the 
opposite - "Slow down, you move too fast..."

> But! Hold on! We should see every draft of the license! Every time
> they add a comma, or review something! Every sentence! You're taking
> away our rights you evil volunteers!

Straw men are always easier to knock down than the real thing, aren't 
they? :-)

> Yes we should in the same way that a lawyer should comment on your C++
> or ruby code after every 20 characters.

I would suggest that's an invalid analogy. Most code has no legal 
impact. The licence has a lot of impact on every single bit of code (or 
data). So the code is no concern of the lawyers (normally), but the 
licence is the concern of all the mappers.

> So lets concentrate on that. Lets build a better process. Lets build a
> consensus.

Absolutely! As long as you allow us the time to (i.e. slow down and stop 
trying to get it done by the end of March!), then I'm all for that :-)

Incidentally, we're not all code weenies with no clue about licensing. 
I've been point of contact at the Mozilla project (which is of not 
insignificant size and complexity) for licensing issues for about five 
years now, although recently we got our own in-house lawyer (who, by the 
way, is brilliant. I can ask him and see if he can help out, if you want).

Gerv