[OSM-talk] OSM license change: A license to kill? -> How to make a nightmare come true!

[Russ Nelson]

On Mar 4, 2009, at 5:59 PM, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote:

> El Miércoles, 4 de Marzo de 2009, nicholas.g.lawrence at mainroads.qld.gov.au
> escribió:
>> How about the option of contributors transferring their
>> copyright to OSM (the legal entity) which can then choose
>> to release the data under an appropriate license?
>
> This is not a good idea because the OSMF can be "bought out" quite  
> easily by a
> big company.

We've had this discussion about membership at the Open Source  
Initiative.  Basically, if you have an organization where all it takes  
to join is the cost of a six-pack of beer plus a warm body, then when  
you get threatened by enough corporate flunkies paid to join and vote  
their master's wishes, and you issue a "SAVE US" call to your  
organization and they won't join and out-vote the flunkies ... then  
your organization sucks anyway and deserves to die.

It's not a real threat to a functioning organization.  I think the OSM  
and its foundation are a functioning organization, so I counsel you to  
not worry about the OSMF being taken over.

But it also might be the better part of wisdom for the OSMF to say  
that you have to be a member for a month before you can vote.

--
Russ Nelson - http://community.cloudmade.com/blog - http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:RussNelson
russ at cloudmade.com - http://openstreetmap.org/user/RussNelson

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