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

[graham]

Richard Fairhurst wrote:

> I know it's not always easy but we're none of us great at communication,
> we're none of us actually paid to think that carefully about what we write,
> so it's all too easy to get wound up in a http://xkcd.com/386/ kind of way.
> At which point Steve does something between amused and sarcastic, Frederik
> does deadpan, I do flying off the handle, Etienne does inscrutable, someone
> on talk-de will do BAN POTLATCH!!1!1?lol, etc. etc.

Yes, but unfortunately the result is that various threads which were at 
least discussing/explaining (however confusedly) substantive issues seem 
to have been hijacked into an attack/defend SteveC thread, which I 
suspect doesn't interest many people.

I really want a better understanding of the licenses and their 
consequences in terms which a non-lawyer can understand and convey to 
other people. It doesn't help telling me 'this is magic stuff only a 
lawyer could understand'. For example, the Italian list is discussing 
the license in a way which I think shows it's really not understood, but 
I'm not sure enough of my own understanding to try to explain - maybe 
they are right and I'm wrong (this centres on the nature of the 
relationship between the database and factual licenses). The best way I 
can see to get the explanation at the moment is by listening to 
substantive discussions on this list. Longer term, I think it would be 
extremely helpful if the licenses themselves included an explanation for 
non-lawyers, in the way the gpl always did.

Graham