[OSM-talk] ODbL vs CC-by-SA pros and cons

[Grant Slater]

On 29 August 2010 02:05, David Murn <davey at incanberra.com.au> wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-08-28 at 23:44 +0100, Grant Slater wrote:
>
>> PLEASE...
>> Follow ups on legal-talk list. Thread started here:
>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-August/004221.html
>
> Ahhhh, maybe this explains why it seems like Ive missed huge chunks of
> this licence discussion.  Like a lot of OSMers, Im only subscribed to
> talk@ and talk-au@ for my country specific things.  What other lists do
> we have to join to be involved in these discussions that affect our
> project?  The only way Ive even been partly kept up-to-date (since im
> not on legal-talk) is when people post to this list, shortly before
> their threads get shutdown, after everyone else who apparently isnt on
> legal-talk wonders why theyre being ignored and not being kept
> up-to-date with the process.
>
> I suspect Im not the only mapper who has put their mapping activities
> on-hold until these discussions can be figured out, and I know exactly
> how you plan on controlling my contributed information.  Surely its not
> in the interests of OSM to keep fobbing off contributors, telling them
> theyre worthless, and if they want any input into the project theyre a
> part of, they need to learn legalese and have it out with the wanna-be
> lawyers.
>

I'll gladly say it, I think Contributors are the single most important
asset to this project. Annoying everyone on talk@ with the legal back
and forth discussion that is taking place is not helpful in keeping
contributors informed. Licensing updates/progress and other general
discussion is being flooded out. If you are interested in the
nitty-gritty of licensing discussion then legal-talk@ is the right
place. If you are interested there are public archives:
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/
Alternatively if you are looking for purely hard fact announments then
the announce list is the best place:
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/announce

By far the majority of the legal back and forth at the moment is
concerning historical mass data imports' licensing and not about
individual mappers' contributions. The 1 excpetion is the Australian
aerial imagery provider taking exception to some points of the new
"Contributor Terms" and not the actual license. The Licensing Working
Group (LWG) is in discussion with them and hope to fully resolve the
issue over the next few weeks.

I'm a member of the LWG and have been going out mapping more often
recently as I'm find it a great stress release. London's new Cycle
Hire scheme is now nearly fully mapped. :-)

Regards
 Grant