[OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?

80n 80n80n at gmail.com
Mon Jul 19 14:17:02 BST 2010


On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 6:29 PM, SteveC <steve at asklater.com> wrote:

>
> On Jul 17, 2010, at 12:06 PM, 80n wrote:
> > In other words, we were wrong, we chose the wrong license out of
> ignorance. Shit happens.
> >
> > Yeah, shit happens, OSM becomes outrageously successful and nobody abuses
> the spirit of the license.  What kind of shit is that?
>
> People abuse it all the time, cf Nike and many others.
>
> I'm not surprised it's low level anyway right now, the amount of abuse will
> be a function of the completeness of the data. We're not really a routable
> dataset just yet and most of the planet is missing address data. As we
> approach these points fast, the amount of abuse will go up with it.
>
> And how will ODbL stop that?  Nike hasn't taken any notice of CC-BY-SA and
presumably wouldn't have taken any notice of ODbL either.  I suppose you
could argue that what they did would be permitted under ODbL, but that's a
slightly different argument.  Your point was that the ODbL would somehow
stop license abuse.



> Anyway. Let me make two points:
>
> My take on the idea of having a vote on whether we'd theoretically move to
> the ODbL so long as everyone else does... is that it's basically just a vote
> on whether to have a vote. It's also without any consequences.
>
> The consequences part: Because nothing will really happen either way if the
> majority of this proposed step vote yes or no, that means that the
> incentives to vote yes or no are vastly different than saying yes or no to
> the actual license change. That means that people will vote differently and
> perhaps to the extent that it will be uncorrelated with an actual license
> change decision. In other words, your reasons for voting yes or no
> 'theoretically' are very different to voting yes or no in actuality. If
> anyone here has a degree in economics or psychology they'd be able to wave
> around all kinds of textbooks showing how hard it is to measure things like
> this when you have no real incentives - for example asking people if they'd
> pay for and go to a gym to get fit - we all know people say they'd like to
> do those things and never do.
>

Indeed.  That is the whole point of having such a vote.  It allows people to
express an unbiased view rather than being presented with an ultimatum.
It's long been a criticism that the license change proposal is a gun to
head.  The LWG has chosen not to take any notice of that.  No wonder there's
an outcry at each step in the process.  Please, put the gun away.


>
> Based on the theoretical vote being wildly inaccurate and also not really
> affecting anything, I say the LWG should just push ahead with the plan.


You're the one with the gun.  What you say goes.



> If everyone catastrophically says 'no' to the ODbL (which I doubt, but hey)
> then they can go back to the drawing board with a concrete result. If we all
> agree, then we can just get on with mapping. But going back to the drawing
> board with a proxy to a vote - a vote on whether to have a vote - is
> incredibly flimsy and will just pull out everyone on the other side of the
> argument who'll charge that it was an invalid vote.
>
> In sum, having a vote on whether to have a vote just slows us all down for
> no particular reason.
>
> Therefore, just put the voluntary license change thing out there (so people
> can change if they want to) and continue with the rest of the plan. If it
> turns out to be awful and we lost lots of people (which I doubt) then you
> can consider things at that stage.
>
> Oh and by the way, as a thought experiment - if 50% of people drop out due
> to the license change then you only have to wait a few months for the data
> to be put back in by other new people - go and look at the user growth and
> data growth graphs. It's really not as bad as it looks, even under a bad
> scenario like 50%.
>
>
>
> My second point - have a think on what affect you're all having on the
> people in the LWG. They've now been working on this for _years_ meeting
> every week. That's a huge amount of effort and investment. These are good
> people doing their best to find a way forward. But, every time they do
> something, the mailing lists fill up ...


This is clearly a symptom of the problem.  Perhaps they aren't doing the
right thing or not doing it in the right way.  Are we supposed to go along
with what they say just because they've been working very hard on it.  They
should at least be trying to work on the right thing.


> with new things they should do which leads to a steady state - they
> complete one task and then are given a new one to do without actually
> approaching the goal. They have to balance this with a fair number of people
> complaining that it's taking them forever to get anywhere. That's not a fun
> situation to be in. For years.
>

> Very few of us here with all these opinions and time on the mailing list -
> whether they are good, bad or ugly opinions - have the time, whatever our
> position for or against the license etc, to sit through this stuff week
> after week in the working group and push this stuff forward.
>

Are you saying that contributors don't have the right to express their
opinions, and that they should shut up?  That's what it sounds like.


>
> I'm worried that we're going to burn the guys on the LWG out. They must
> feel like they're in some kafka-esque dialogue with no upside for them.


> They chose to be on the working group and do all this work of course, but
> the worst thing that could happen is that they conclude that it will take
> another couple of years to get anywhere and decide to go and do something
> more useful with their time. I know for a fact that some of them don't even
> read some of these mailing lists anymore because of it. So why don't we just
> cool off a bit and give them a nod of thanks before diving on with this
> stuff - whatever direction it goes in.


> Steve
>
> stevecoast.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20100719/37e14d36/attachment.html>


More information about the talk mailing list