[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Sat Apr 16 13:57:27 BST 2011


Ian,

On 04/16/2011 02:10 PM, Ian Dees wrote:
> Wow, I still have yet to receive a straight answer from anyone and it
> doesn't look like I will.

You asked when "the community of OpenStreetMap" was asked about the 
license change.

...

> No, it's not complicated. When whoever it was decided that we need to
> change license, the *first* thing that should have happened is a
> communication of the desire with the community, information about it
> presented clearly and thoughtfully, questions responded to in a timely
> manner, and a vote held by the active mappers to confirm that yes, this
> change should be pursued.

I think, historically, the decision making process was not "1. decide 
that we need a new license, 2. let's go look for one", but rather a 
little-step-by-little-step process.

The question is, who is "the community of OpenStreetMap". Anyone 
committed enough to come to the first State of the Map conference in 
Manchester (2007) was certainly involved as this is where we held a 
panel discussion on the license. But even if a vote had been held at 
that conference, could it still be considered binding today? Anyone 
reading either the talk list, or the osm-announce list, or any of the 
Australian, German, Spanish, French, German, Czech, Dutch, or Colombian 
mailing lists or some of the forums, will have been aware of Pieren's 
poll (http://doodle.com/feqszqirqqxi4r7w) which, even though not an 
official vote, gave people the option to formally express an opinion and 
be counted.

Of course you could have sent an email to everyone, to catch those who 
do not read the lists. But then, to be honest, if someone doesn't have 
any background to the discussion and is asked, out of the blue, whether 
they support a license change - would that really help? Would they not 
have to be presented with the causes for and against - and who would 
have the authority to decide *what* they are presented with? And if they 
are isolationist enough to not even read the low-volume announce list, 
do we really have to assume they are interested?

You write "information presented clearly and thoughtfully", but if you 
read the histoy of the "why you shold vote yes" and "why you should vote 
no" pages on the Wiki, it should become clear that it certainly not an 
easy task to present information clearly and thoughtfully and without bias.

Bye
Frederik



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