[OSM-legal-talk] Updated geocoding community guideline proposal
Hello A few days ago I commented But what discussion on legal-talk does not provide is a mechanism for ascertaining a representative community opinion on the spirit of the license; nor a legally qualified opinion on interpretation options; nor a governance mechanism for resolving the proposal ultimately one way or another. I'm not aware if any process is defined for making a decision on this use case. (If one does exist, apologies that I missed it, and I'd appreciate anything that could bring clarity.) I have subsequently read this comment from Simon Poole, which seems to address my comment in some loose form, but not directly. And I must admit, it has only confused me further. From a LWG pov I believe the process we are trying to go through is: looking at some real life use cases, determine how to model best the workings of the ODbL in these and whatthe consequences and effects on third party data are. Staying within the spirit of the licence and hearing arguments from the stakeholders in doing so. That is very different from asking us, or a lawyer: this is the desired outcome, please figure out a way to make some arguments that support it. The former, if you so will, is similar to proceedings of a court, and the result is case law, the later is more a lawyer arguing the case in front of the bench. If it is the understanding of the OSM Foundation, that the Legal Working Group in some ways functions like a Court, then there are several issues to raise about the separation of concerns, checks and balances if you will, in this process as we've witnessed it. * How is the composition of the Legal Working Group formed? * Is anyone on the LWG able to sit in judgement? * Does the LWG itself consult with legal counsel when trying cases? Are there any lawyers on the LWG? * How is the spirit of the license determined? Is this the consensus opinion of the LWG? Voted opinion of the Board? Polled opinion of OSMF members? * How are the broad range of opinions regarding intention of the ODbL balanced within the spirit of the license? * The OSMF itself has repeated asked lawyers to help us reach a desired outcome over the years, the result of which was the ODbL. Why did the OSMF have a desired outcome previously, but no longer has one regarding Geocoding? * Do the OSMF officers in this discussion have a desired outcome regarding Geocoding, and does that prejudice their judgement when trying this use case? * How can we manage conflict of interest in the process of deciding on ODbL use cases? Again, I think the OSMF would best serve the OSM community by considering the governance questions above, and bringing clarity and fairness to the process. Sincerely Mikel ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Updated geocoding community guideline proposal
Am 03.08.2014 16:16, schrieb Mikel Maron: ... If it is the understanding of the OSM Foundation, that the Legal Working Group in some ways functions like a Court, then there are several issues to raise about the separation of concerns, checks and balances if you will, in this process as we've witnessed it. Nobody (outside of yourself) even remotely implied that the LWG is a court. The analogy holds in so far as the LWG doesn't make up new licence terms as it goes along, just as a court doesn't on the fly make new laws. Both simply operate in the legal context as is. * How is the composition of the Legal Working Group formed? * Is anyone on the LWG able to sit in judgement? * Does the LWG itself consult with legal counsel when trying cases? Are there any lawyers on the LWG? * How is the spirit of the license determined? Is this the consensus opinion of the LWG? Voted opinion of the Board? Polled opinion of OSMF members? Mikel given that you know the answers better than anybody else reading this, could you stop asking rhetorical questions just for the effect. * How are the broad range of opinions regarding intention of the ODbL balanced within the spirit of the license? Is there a broad range of opinions on the spirit of the licence? I doubt it, there is a a broad range of opinions on if the specific licence was the right choice, but that is not the same. That said, I don't think there can be any doubt that the ODbL was designed as a replacement for CC by-SA, a licence with very strong share alike provisions, that actually worked for data. Implying that everybody involved at the time (aka you) knew that this meant that share alike would actually work with the ODbL. * The OSMF itself has repeated asked lawyers to help us reach a desired outcome over the years, the result of which was the ODbL. Why did the OSMF have a desired outcome previously, but no longer has one regarding Geocoding? The OSMF is contractually bound to only change the licence on certain terms. You seem be saying (repeatedly) screw the contract and just lets do what will currently get us the best press. But every single contributor clearly has the right to demand that we follow the licence change process and that we don't circumvent it by changing the nature of the licence (see above) outside of clarifying the effects of certain use and edge cases. And just to make it clear: that implies that even if 99.9% of all contributors voted yes in a poll to add a guideline that SA does not apply to extracts of OSM data, it would still not fly. Changes to the licence -have- to be either go through the licence change process or via a revision of the licence itself. * Do the OSMF officers in this discussion have a desired outcome regarding Geocoding, and does that prejudice their judgement when trying this use case? Again you are trying to play rhetoric games. If you are asking me, the answer would be: the desired outcome is a guideline that clarifies what is affected by share alike in typical geocoding use cases and what is not without creating loopholes around our current licence. * How can we manage conflict of interest in the process of deciding on ODbL use cases? Again, a you are beating your wife rhetoric pseudo trick. I don't believe anybody on the board or on the LWG is in a conflict of interest situation. Again, I think the OSMF would best serve the OSM community by considering the governance questions above, and bringing clarity and fairness to the process. And yet another you are beating your wife. it is difficult to imagine a process that is more open and fair than what we going through now. Simon 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] Updated geocoding community guideline proposal
Admin note: nominally I'm administrator of the legal-talk@ list. In practice the only international OSM list to ever have been announced as moderated is talk@, and I think locally talk-us@ may be moderated as well. Merely administered is a much more light-touch approach and generally works well enough. However, Mikel's posting raises an important meta issue which as administrator I'd like to clarify: Mikel Maron wrote: * How is the composition of the Legal Working Group formed? * Is anyone on the LWG able to sit in judgement? * Does the LWG itself consult with legal counsel when trying cases? Are there any lawyers on the LWG? * How is the spirit of the license determined? Is this the consensus opinion of the LWG? Voted opinion of the Board? Polled opinion of OSMF members? * How are the broad range of opinions regarding intention of the ODbL balanced within the spirit of the license? * The OSMF itself has repeated asked lawyers to help us reach a desired outcome over the years, the result of which was the ODbL. Why did the OSMF have a desired outcome previously, but no longer has one regarding Geocoding? * Do the OSMF officers in this discussion have a desired outcome regarding Geocoding, and does that prejudice their judgement when trying this use case? * How can we manage conflict of interest in the process of deciding on ODbL use cases? There are 12 questions here, and they appear to be principally addressed to the volunteers who give their time to LWG in particular and the wider OSMF. Mailing lists are open forums. By definition, list messages (unlike private mail) are addressed to all the members of the list, not to a small subset of that. Demanding answers from a small number of people to 12 rather involved questions is not the purpose of a public mailing list. As list admin, I am not very comfortable with the notion of using this public list as a direct communication channel to OSMF rather than a general forum for discussion of legal/licensing issues. If such a list exists then it's osmf-talk; I will leave the discussion of that to whoever might be osmf-talk admin. It is not, however, the purpose of legal-talk, and as admin I certainly didn't volunteer to run a talk to OSMF communication channel (not least because I'm not even an OSMF member these days ;) ). With my list admin hat off, but taking the opportunity to make a wider etiquette point, I would gently remind people that OSM and OSMF are created and run by volunteers; volunteers' time and motivation are finite resources; and it is kinder to be proportionate in your demands on these volunteers. Do question, probe, discuss, but 12 questions at once is a bit Sybil Fawlty: Anything else, dear? I mean, would you like the hotel moved a bit to the left? cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/OSM-legal-talk-Updated-geocoding-community-guideline-proposal-tp5813533p5813560.html Sent from the Legal Talk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
