[OSM-talk] Community vs. Licensing

Nathan Edgars II neroute2 at gmail.com
Mon Aug 30 10:13:21 BST 2010


To me, the primary benefit of a free license is that the project has a 'life
of its own' beyond the host: if the host decides to stop hosting it, or
letting people edit, someone else can continue it as it had been. I don't
care about the viral effects of such a license except insofar as they ensure
that the project can't be 'locked-up' if enough people want it to continue.

But said continuation is not a good thing if it's more of a forking, with
two projects continuing where one had been. Such a forking splits the
community and produces two inferior projects in place of one better project.

And when the reasons for the license change are all about the other effects
of the viral license, and being able to control how others use the data,
rather than keeping the project going, I can't see it as a good thing given
the effects it will have.

This is why you should vote 'yes, I agree to relicense my data, but no, I
don't agree with the change'. Too bad you can't do such a thing.
-- 
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