Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution)
From: Luis Villa [mailto:lvi...@wikimedia.org] Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 3:17 PM To: Licensing and other legal discussions. Subject: Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution) The LWG has spent considerable time discussing the geocoding issue, so it is not as if we've ignored the subject. Didn't mean to imply that work hasn't been done! I've read all the public threads I can find :) But the wiki doesn't reflect that, and the wiki is where most outsiders are going to go to try to figure out the question, since it is most googleable, linked to from many places, etc. One of the big differences between Wikipedia and OSM communications is that we don't generally use the wiki for discussion, we use it for documentation. Ideally when something is settled the documentation will get updated accordingly, but the discussions and work themselves won't appear on the wiki. Of course, as with most projects, documentation often lags behind... So, yes, I think it might be fair to say that the LWG has punted on the geocoding issue at least for now, to spend its time on issues which are more likely to be resolved. I think it would be helpful if the wiki at least reflected that. If there were links from there to the relevant mailing list threads, it would (1) warn people that this is a tough issue and (2) they might find some useful analysis/background in them. Normally I'd try to organize some of that myself, but since I'm a lawyer for an organization that will likely consider some sort of geocoding at some point in the future I'm extremely reluctant to put words in anyone's mouth or in anyone's wiki. It's important to remember that the wiki is the community edited and not an official OSMF position. Obviously you need to be comfortable that you're okay in any edits you're doing, but from an OSM side I don't see any issues with the edits you've described, particularly since you're not stating what the share-alike implications of geocoding are, but you're linking to existing discussions of the matter. When it comes to writing guidelines, I know I'd love it if someone else were to submit well written guidelines that agree with the ODbL and what we want to say. Obviously the LWG wouldn't simply copy/paste without reviewing and probably modifying text. As an aside, my last job involved writing guidelines on interpretation of health and safety regulations for the local health and safety regulator. It takes a specialized skillset and way of thinking. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution)
On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 3:30 AM, Simon Poole si...@poole.ch wrote: Luis The LWG has spent considerable time discussing the geocoding issue, so it is not as if we've ignored the subject. Didn't mean to imply that work hasn't been done! I've read all the public threads I can find :) But the wiki doesn't reflect that, and the wiki is where most outsiders are going to go to try to figure out the question, since it is most googleable, linked to from many places, etc. So, yes, I think it might be fair to say that the LWG has punted on the geocoding issue at least for now, to spend its time on issues which are more likely to be resolved. I think it would be helpful if the wiki at least reflected that. If there were links from there to the relevant mailing list threads, it would (1) warn people that this is a tough issue and (2) they might find some useful analysis/background in them. Normally I'd try to organize some of that myself, but since I'm a lawyer for an organization that will likely consider some sort of geocoding at some point in the future I'm extremely reluctant to put words in anyone's mouth or in anyone's wiki. Luis Am 08.05.2014 01:27, schrieb Luis Villa: On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 7:54 AM, Michael Collinson m...@ayeltd.biz mailto:m...@ayeltd.biz wrote: We also have a number of issues that are very immature in terms of constructing a useful guideline. What we have been lacking, with some notable exceptions, is data users prepared to give a real use case that they can share in a reasonable level of detail. Being able to deal with concrete rather than myriad hypothetical cases makes progress much faster. If you are user or potential user of OSM data, do share real-world issues here. Or, contact us at le...@osmfoundation.org mailto:le...@osmfoundation.org. We can handle commercial-in-confidence provided that the end result is shareable publicly and applies to all equally within the parameters of our license. I would suggest that writing down and working through even basic, non-detailed use cases would likely help clarify a lot of the Guidelines. Even if all they do is result in saying it depends, explaining what it depends on can be helpful to everyone. For example, to kickstart the geocoding Guideline, it would probably be great to start with some of the basic examples/use cases from the mailing list discussion last year: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-June/007553.html and https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-June/007554.html Which isn't to say that people shouldn't describe detailed use cases :) Just that a lot of progress could be made by walking through more basic ones as well. Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: /This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal**capacity./ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.* ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution)
Luis The LWG has spent considerable time discussing the geocoding issue, so it is not as if we've ignored the subject. To illustrate just one of the issues, have a look at the first mail you reference from Olov, he defines Geocoding as The process of finding and storing the latitude and longitude coordinates for an entity. He then continues to say ... returning the latitude and longitude coordinates associated with the matching OSM object. and ... to find the latitude and longitude coordinates associated with a point or an area, Skipping the tiny weeny issue, that ways and areas are not point objects and do not have a latitude and longitude associated with them. Naturally you can calculate a centroid for 2d objects and use that in lieu of the actual geometry of the object, but does that imply that we should treat such geocoding results different than those from point objects? BTW the main OSM geocoding service returns the actual geometry of found objects, so I suppose it doesn't geocode :-). So, yes, I think it might be fair to say that the LWG has punted on the geocoding issue at least for now, to spend its time on issues which are more likely to be resolved. Simon PS: the absence of a guideline to the contrary I would suggest that it is prudent to assume that the results of geocoding (whatever it is ) a substantial number of addresses or other information with OSM is a derivative database. However I don't believe that this has any big consequences in reality, outside of that the results have to be maintained in an independent database. Am 08.05.2014 01:27, schrieb Luis Villa: On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 7:54 AM, Michael Collinson m...@ayeltd.biz mailto:m...@ayeltd.biz wrote: We also have a number of issues that are very immature in terms of constructing a useful guideline. What we have been lacking, with some notable exceptions, is data users prepared to give a real use case that they can share in a reasonable level of detail. Being able to deal with concrete rather than myriad hypothetical cases makes progress much faster. If you are user or potential user of OSM data, do share real-world issues here. Or, contact us at le...@osmfoundation.org mailto:le...@osmfoundation.org. We can handle commercial-in-confidence provided that the end result is shareable publicly and applies to all equally within the parameters of our license. I would suggest that writing down and working through even basic, non-detailed use cases would likely help clarify a lot of the Guidelines. Even if all they do is result in saying it depends, explaining what it depends on can be helpful to everyone. For example, to kickstart the geocoding Guideline, it would probably be great to start with some of the basic examples/use cases from the mailing list discussion last year: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-June/007553.html and https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-June/007554.html Which isn't to say that people shouldn't describe detailed use cases :) Just that a lot of progress could be made by walking through more basic ones as well. Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: /This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal**capacity./ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution)
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 7:54 AM, Michael Collinson m...@ayeltd.biz wrote: We also have a number of issues that are very immature in terms of constructing a useful guideline. What we have been lacking, with some notable exceptions, is data users prepared to give a real use case that they can share in a reasonable level of detail. Being able to deal with concrete rather than myriad hypothetical cases makes progress much faster. If you are user or potential user of OSM data, do share real-world issues here. Or, contact us at le...@osmfoundation.org. We can handle commercial-in-confidence provided that the end result is shareable publicly and applies to all equally within the parameters of our license. I would suggest that writing down and working through even basic, non-detailed use cases would likely help clarify a lot of the Guidelines. Even if all they do is result in saying it depends, explaining what it depends on can be helpful to everyone. For example, to kickstart the geocoding Guideline, it would probably be great to start with some of the basic examples/use cases from the mailing list discussion last year: https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-June/007553.htmland https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2013-June/007554.html Which isn't to say that people shouldn't describe detailed use cases :) Just that a lot of progress could be made by walking through more basic ones as well. Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.* ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Community Guidelines (was Re: Attribution)
On 28/04/2014 23:27, Mikel wrote: Further I note there was 0 (zero) response to the proposed updated community guidelines that go a long way in clarifying a number of the grey areas, indicating that the whole upset is not about fixing real issues. Simon, first i've heard about this. Can you point to where it's posted please, and also, explain the process by which they were created, proposed, and approved? Thanks Mikel and all, Here is one of the emails: https://www.mail-archive.com/talk@openstreetmap.org/msg49397.html And the process and main page are here: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Community_Guidelines/How_We_Create_Community_Guidelines https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Community_Guidelines We'd like to get some closure on some of the longer lived items as well as better publicise the whole process, so I am about to go to the main list. Any discussion or input however small in the rather calmer waters of this list first is greatly welcome. The more polished the guidelines are, the better. We also have a number of issues that are very immature in terms of constructing a useful guideline. What we have been lacking, with some notable exceptions, is data users prepared to give a real use case that they can share in a reasonable level of detail. Being able to deal with concrete rather than myriad hypothetical cases makes progress much faster. If you are user or potential user of OSM data, do share real-world issues here. Or, contact us at le...@osmfoundation.org. We can handle commercial-in-confidence provided that the end result is shareable publicly and applies to all equally within the parameters of our license. Mike License Working Group ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
