On Tue, Oct 17, 2006 at 04:07:58AM +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote: > Christopher Schmidt wrote: > > > On Mon, Oct 16, 2006 at 05:59:59PM +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote: > > > > European national government agencies that for centuries gathered > > > geodata, paid for by the tax payers, and now they are selling it > > > > Blaming the OGC for that is ridiculous. > > The so-called Open Geospatial Consortium is a new player, as is > OpenStreetMap.org.
I'm not sure what game we're talking about here. OGC has been around since 1994 -- while not 'old', it doesn't even begin to compare with OpenStreetMap when we're talking about age... or anything else, really. (For a more commonly known comparison, the OGC is older than the W3C by about a month.) I think perhaps you may be confusing OSGeo -- the Open Geospatial Foundation, an organization which seeks to further the development of Open Source Geospatial software -- and the OGC. I don't blame you, but there's a major distinction between the two. > So in this time of increasing interest for geographic information, > we have a similar situation with a small open-purist stance > against age-old closed monopolies. To me, 'open-purist stance' in this context brings to mind GPL-style licensors: persons who feel that their data should only be used if the resulting dataset is released. However, at this point, creating a limitation on the data so that it can *only* be used in that way is not possible. So, the open-purists must suffer as large organizations take their GPL-style licensed data and incorporate it in their commercial dataset, because there is no technical means to prevent it. > If we cannot turn the > situation around immediately, we can at least work in the right > direction. The best way to work in the right direction is to ensure that data holders can release their data to the widest public possible without fearing use which is contrary to the license the data is made available under. Once that is done, then licensors can make the decision as to what license is appropriate for their data without concern of what might happen if users violate the license. > The OGC has a name that > indicates they are on the open side. But it turns out they are > not. Now they are also trying to tell us that DRM can be good. The ability to ensure that your data is protected from violations of its license can be a good thing if it means that more data providers are willing to release data under an open license, and that the mechanism for DRM does not prevent users of the data from using it in any way that is in accordance with the license. I don't think this is universally possible. I think that it is likely that any DRM solution will probably fail to allow the user to excercise their full rights in some situation. At that point, the DRM will have failed the user. Until that happens -- and thus far, there is no concrete evidence that it has happened or will happen -- claiming that DRM 'can not be good' is, in this case, premature. DRM which enables users access to more data, without costing them some right they are afforded by agreements with the data provider, is good. case the Dr > > > Any DRM scheme is just a means for those agencies to keep a > > > lock on the data. > > > > And you'd rather have the data not be available at all? > > Correct. Do you buy music wrapped in DRM? I don't. Not a valid response to the question. In the music world, you have an option of buying non-DRMed music. The data you seem to be most interested in is not available without DRM. If it were to become available under a permissive license with built in limitations on the use of the data to match that license, would that be better than not having the data at all? > > Making the technical means available for users to establish > > protection of their data *may* lead some organizations to > > provide more data, > > Don't call them "users". Sorry. "Data providers." > They are government agencies. You misinterpreted who 'they' was in this case. 'They' could be any person that has data and wishes to make it available under some specific license. FooCorp, a company which maps the locations of every FooBucks location in the world, may want to release that information to the public with a no-redistribution clause. They are not a government agency. 'They' could be the Open Guides project, which wishes to ensure protection of its data from incorporation into commercial data sources. "They" could be Open Street Map, which wishes to ensure that the terms of the Creative Commons license under which their data is released is adequately described in a standardized framework. All of these might be covered by the discussions ongoing in the OGC GeoDRM working group. > We are the users. You are generalizing. Not everyone on this list, and certainly not everyone participating in the OGC or GeoDRM discussions, is a user. I consider myself a data provider for several different types of data. The fact that I am lucky enough to be able to choose a permissive license due to the fact that I don't have to pay my rent based on the data I have collected does not mean that I am any less devoted to or interested in finding a way for people who *do* have that requirement to continue to make ends meet. > And we release our data in the public domain or using Creative Commons > licenses. You speak as if this is a universal truth. It's not. Many individuals and organizations hold massive amounts of geographic data for fear that releasing it would lead to its misuse. Not all of these concerns can be solved by DRM. Some of them can. > We, the users, don't need DRM. This is not a symmetric game. The line between data provider and data consumer is not a black and white one. Consumers of geodata typically are interested in becoming producers of geodata: I want to download data so that I can make a map. I want to download data so that I can know where I am, and write it down in a logbook or journal. These are simple cases, but they can grow more complex as well. Drawing such a black and white line between providers and users is a mistake. If you want to spend your time creating data, and releasing it into the public domain, that's wonderful. Not everyone has that luxury. If more data becomes available in a way that helps solves problems that need to be solved, then I don't see the changes as a net loss for anyone. Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
