[OSM-talk] Post tastsic questions of my own

[Frederik Ramm]

Steve,

(Has someone told you that you're overly concerned about your Fake self? 
He seems to make an appearance in every second post you write.)

SteveC wrote:
> Over IM and email I've had some really positive replies. There are a  
> lot of you out there who personally responded that you liked my posts.

"Lurkers support me in E-Mail!"

I know how it feels only I seem to get the E-Mails of those who are 
unhappy ;-) the tone of these E-Mails is usually: "I think the whole 
process stinks but I am not with the project long enough to feel 
entitled to say so publicly." - My answer is usually along the lines 
"anyone is entitled to speak their mind so feel free to do so; yes the 
process stinks but I think that it is worth trying to fix things instead 
of rejecting the relicensing effort outright. Sometimes good things are 
delivered in ugly wrapping".

> You don't like the crappy negative tone of a lot of people. You think  
> the license is a good step. You want to see my satanic portal. I have  
> to ask you why do you do this personally? I know the answer. You have  
> a secret and you want to keep it safe and warm and snuggly in your  
> duvet, away from these posts. It's called sanity. I know. It's hard.  
> But if you post here, and show the End Of The World crew that there  
> are opinions beyond.... we will all be better. Really.

These mailing lists are for communication, for talking to each other and 
finding solutions. I am not interested in "me too" postings from people 
  who don't care enough to engage in discussion - from either side of 
the argument. (Is there "either side"? Personally I feel that I'm on all 
sides at the same time. Or on none of them, depending on your point of 
view.) Someone who is unwilling to defend and argue for his opinion is 
not a worthy addition to any kind of debate. This is not a "whose fanboy 
are you" poll.

And before you say that there is more mud-slinging than debate: We had a 
lot of very sensible debate over on legal-talk; that would have taken us 
even further had you or someone else from the "licensing working group" 
participated in it rather than ignoring it.

> My second question goes to those who live in the various countries  
> that aren't bankrupt... oh I mean those that aren't in the UK. How is  
> the community there? Is it bad? Is it good? How can we help. What are  
> *you* doing to help? Are you stirring dissent? Are you trying to build  
> a consensus?

My view of the community in Germany is that dissent stirs itself, with 
the major themes being:

(1) fear for loss of data because people will not agree to the change - 
it seems to me that even more so than on the English-language lists, 
Germans are so protective of the OSM they have helped create that they'd 
rather keep a crappy and non-working license than to have to delete data.

(2) unhappiness about lack of protection for Produced Works, 
envious/greedy arguments about possible commercial exploitation of same, 
and unwillingness to accept interim database share-alike as a replacement

(3) general unease about the process (feeling left out/rushed; having 
been told in the past that the OSMF does not want to influence the fate 
of the project, just operate servers and collect money; generally not 
having had any say in the new license and a feeling that is unlikely 
they will ever have a say because the license is being designed by 
lawyers from another country in another language etc.

I'm generally defending the benefits of the new license, subject to the 
caveats being discussed here; however it is my opinion that the process 
how we got to where we are now has been wrong and if someone seeks 
reassurance from me ("please tell me that they will listen to our 
concerns and not try to rush everyone into accepting a new license while 
important issues are unsolved, please tell me that they won't do funny 
things behind closed doors, please tell me that we will get a profound 
legal opinion before they go ahead, please tell me that I won't wake up 
one morning to find an E-Mail in my inbox saying agree to this license 
or go away") - then, from past experience in this process, the only 
thing I can honestly say is: I *hope* so too.

If they ask me "what has changed between the last license draft and the 
current one and why", then what can I say; I spent considerable time to 
provide an (English and German) comparison of the two, but since no 
information about the rationale has been forthcoming, should I invent 
something just to hide the inadequacies of the process? They ask why we 
need a new license at all; I try to explain, I translate RichardF's old 
opengeodata.org posting; I translate the license itself...

I'm keeping the ugliest bits to myself; many things that have surfaced 
on these lists and that are fuel for conspiracy theorists (process 
behind closed doors, people on legal-talk being left out/ignored/not 
answered to, no minutes of discussions with lawyers, OSMF board being 
sidelined in the process, information actively withheld from public so 
as not to stir debate, no explanation when/why which lawyers were 
selected to work with us, WSGR/TWiki affair etc etc) have not been 
discussed on the German lists and I have no intention of raising them.

The "use<->convey" blunder has been spotted and I have reassured people 
that it is going to be fixed... but that is about as far as I can go in 
glossing over the cracks without fearing for my place in heaven.

(Wait a minute... place already assigned to Fake SteveC? Well then...)

I'm sort of betting my own credibility vis-a-vis the German community on 
the assumption that from now on we'll get the license process back on 
the right tracks, properly talk to each other and work with each other 
in a civilised way to arrive at something that works for most of us.

If an attempt should be made to once again disregard the community and 
just forge ahead with the current draft, deciding stuff behind closed 
doors and ignoring legitimate concerns just to meet some arbitrary 
timeline, then I would probably have to say sorry to the German 
community - sorry for being optimistic where skepticism would have been 
in order; sorry for making you believe this was a community effort and 
we were all in this together.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

Bye
Frederik