----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Fairhurst" <rich...@systemed.net>
To: "David Murn" <da...@incanberra.com.au>
Cc: <talk-au@openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: [talk-au] Going separate ways
David Murn wrote:
I think the biggest problem people in .au had was that there were some
issues which were specific to the Australian usage of OSM (imports of
gov data, etc). Those who sought to change the licence claimed to be
listening to people, but when Australian mappers raised issues, we were
simply told 'bad luck youre only a tiny percentage of the data'.
Part of the problem that has arisen is that our data would be affected
more than most by the removal of CCBYSA imported data. Some people
looked at this as simply a data loss in a remote part of the world, the
same way most of us wouldnt care if a big import from Africa was due to
be removed for the same reason.
The OSMF has always accepted that some users wont accept the licence
(whether on principle or because of the sources they wish use) and this
loss of mappers will be acceptable for the future progression of OSM.
From the OSMF perspective, they feel this is a required step to move
on. From the Aussie perspective, it feels like its acceptable to lose
our contributions, or at least easier to remove them than to work to
resolve any minor attribution issues that we ('we' meaning a few
users knowledgable about the licence) have raised.
Those last two paragraphs are a fair summary, certainly.
I think OSMF (and I'm not part of OSMF, of course) would disagree with
your "bad luck" characterisation, and would say that other parts of the
world have engaged with the process (so we now have an agreement with
Ordnance Survey, for example) whereas Australia hasn't.
But that's water under the bridge. The current discussion has shown that
the rift between the two is now too strong. I think the priority now is to
make sure that each project can continue without adversely affecting the
other.
[...]
You are covering one point of the equation, the contributors. What
about the map users? Sure, its great to have a massive network of
contributors, but if the data being contributed isnt being used or isnt
complete enough to be used, then you'll lose the masses. The masses
dont want to add nodes and new roads, they want to replace garmin maps
with OSM maps, so they can drive for their job or their holiday. They
dont care about what licence is on the maps, they just want the most
complete maps they can get. If that means a choice of OSM or OSM - 52%
who in their right mind would choose the smaller dataset?
Absolutely - so if OSM doesn't attract enough new contributors
post-changeover, FOSM becomes the dominant map for Australia (or
CommonMap, or...). I don't have a problem with that at all.
But also: Australia has a great advantage. You're both a whole continent
and an island. There is therefore no reason why data users can't use FOSM
for Australia and OSM for the rest of the world - and even combine the two
into one dataset.
Because you can just "cut out" Australia and place it in a new database
with no linkage, it can be a Collective Database, not a Derivative
Database - so they don't have to be the same licence. That unambiguously
works with ODbL (4.5a):
Are you sure? ODbL defines '"Collective Database" Means this Database in
unmodified form as part of a collection of independent databases ......'.
Therefore if you "cut out" Australia it cant be part of a collective
database, because it is not the whole database in an unmodified form.
In fact, given the wording of the ODbL is difficult to see that there will
ever be anything which is a collective database.
Regards
David
whether it works with CC is a moot point because CC is unclear for data
licensing, but it's likely that it does (after all, there are CC-licensed
Wikipedia pages which contain non-CC-licensed photographs, as Collective
Works).
So a data user could work from planet-combined.osm, which contains OSM
rest-of-the-world and FOSM Australia. Such a file could legally be
distributed by a mirror site as a Collective Database/Work. Best of both
worlds for data users.
Richard
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