[OSM-talk] Editing of content that will be deleted on April 1st

[Richard Fairhurst]

80n wrote:
> Isn't it time to block edits to non-CT content?

There is certainly an issue here, and what you describe as "non-CT content"
can take two forms.

There is content that will not be relicensed. This is the content input by
those who have declined the Contributor Terms.

I agree that it would be good to encourage people not to build edits upon
this. In the New Year I intend to switch the Potlatch 2 licence status
display from off-by-default to on-by-default, with an explanatory notice.
People are increasingly deleting such content and replacing with new
content, often using the new sources which were not available when the
content was first input (e.g. Bing imagery and OS OpenData) and that's good.

There is a second content: content that may be relicensed, but we don't know
yet. This is the content input by those who have neither declined nor
accepted the Contributor Terms.

In most cases, this is because the user simply isn't aware of the issue.
Individual contact by local mappers often proves very fruitful in resolving
this. It would be premature IMHO to delete or block edits to this content;
the user may agree next week. Indeed, I'm delighted that just in the last
few weeks, I've seen several UK cities and large towns "saved"!

But there are a small number of mappers who are very well aware of the issue
and have not signalled their intention, and you, of course, are the most
prominent.

I would encourage you to accept the terms. It is not crucial to the success
of FOSM that OSM fails, and vice versa; you yourself have said many times
that it is the _community_ which determines the future success of a project.
Indeed, I hope both thrive, which is why I took the trouble to alert the
FOSM list that I was actively remapping so that you have the choice of which
content to retain (and you very kindly said that my mapping was of a good
quality which you'd welcome in FOSM, for which thank you :) ).

No-one who has read your postings will be in any doubt that allowing your
content to continue in OSM is an endorsement of the CTs or ODbL. Though
TimSC and I disagreed on pretty much everything, I think his final decision,
to place his edits in the public domain, was an honourable one.

But if you can't see your way to accepting the terms, it would be honourable
of you to click 'Decline', so that those people mapping in the areas where
you have worked know where they stand.

cheers
Richard



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