Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 1:26 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Tim, OSM is not essentially anything at its core. It is different things to different people. I'm talking about the sentence that defines OSM at the top of our Wiki page, which in all likelihood has been there in this form when most of us signed up. If you sign up to a project which claims to be A but to you the project is B, Obviously a lot of people think Openstreetmap is more than just a collection of coordinates in a db. I think you try to redefine it in a way that supports your PD argument. Lets just agree to disagree, I interpret the message on the wiki to be about allowing you to use maps in anyway you want. I've yet to see an argument, against SA on the produced works, instead of just opinions such as yours, the only one that exists is PD is easier. If ODBL existed in the same variants as CC does, this would be easier. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Erik, Erik Johansson wrote: Obviously a lot of people think Openstreetmap is more than just a collection of coordinates in a db. I think you try to redefine it in a way that supports your PD argument. Firstly, I am not making a PD argument but an ODbL argument here. Secondly, I'm not redefining anything, just pointing out the existing definition. Thirdly, I'm slightly offended by your I've yet to see an argument ... instead of just opinions just as yours. I guess if all I can say is just an opinion while what you say is a proper argument then maybe I'll just recommend that you re-read the previous 2 years of legal-talk. The idea of no restrictions on produced works in ODbL doesn't come out of nowhere. If ODBL existed in the same variants as CC does, this would be easier. An equivalent to CC-BY is currently in the works over at OKFN. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Frederik Ramm wrote: / OSM is not essentially anything at its core. It is different things to // different people. / I'm talking about the sentence that defines OSM at the top of our Wiki page, which in all likelihood has been there in this form when most of us signed up. As if that that mission statement on the wiki is not open to revision? People may disagree with it, from within the project and try to change policies. We can see a parallel to political constitutions which tend to accumulate amendments. It is human nature to continue to rewrite and reinterpret values. Therefore, OSM is not essentially the mission statement or a data project. What it is changes in time, as well as being different to different people. A more useful way of conceptualizing OSM, is to identify what we want to achieve and what steps we can take to achieve it. (My non-mapping hobby is philosophy. I am borrowing here from Karl Popper.) / The fact that commercial data can't be merged with CC-BY-SA could be // said to be a limitation of commerical data, rather than a limitation of // CC-BY-SA. / You're over-simplifying when you say commercial data. Even GNU FDL data cannot be merged with CC-BY-SA. Well obviously there are other licenses that are not compatible with CC-BY-SA, but my point holds, at least for NC licenses: they are also too restrictive and that is as much a problem with that incompatible license as with CC-BY-SA. It is perhaps ironic that most or all SA type licenses don't inter-operate, which I guess shows the limitation of implementing SA. (a) all maps can be made, but sharing them is a the maker's discretion versus (b) only some maps can be made, but once they are made they will always be shared I'd certainly find (a) to be more encouraging to creativity. I tend to agree with your conclusion here, but my argument is driven as much by avoiding the legal complexity of (b), as creativity. I am actually pro-PD at this moment, despite my argument that ODbL is diverging from the intent of CC-BY-SA. / Can't the same thing apply to maps? And if SA is too restrictive for // produced works, why have SA at all? A watered down SA is the worse of // all worlds IMHO, which is the ODbL. This has high complexity with few SA // rights. / The share-alike element in data is stronger with ODbL than it was with CC-BY-SA. I assume you mean it is stronger as in enforceable? Perhaps I am missing another area of strengthening. The intent of CC-BY-SA is all derived works are also SA. Otherwise, it seems ODbL is weaker - produced works are not share alike? I agree with thread comments that it is the community that makes OSM work, not the license (although it is a small factor in attracting them). And SA confuses various potential users, like the flight simulators, from using our data (arguably ODbL is watered down SA to make this less of a problem). I guess the big question is do we want to prioritize innovation of mapping or do we want to create maps that most people will use? Only to some extent can we do both. The decisions on licensing is driven by the answer to that question, IMHO. Tim ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Albertas Agejevas a...@pov.lt wrote: On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 09:50:50AM +0200, jamesmikedup...@googlemail.com wrote: 2010/4/22 Dirk-Lüder Kreie osm-l...@deelkar.net Am 22.04.2010 02:51, schrieb andrzej zaborowski: No other data gatherer in the world has the manpower OSM has. Even if our License was to be CC0 or PD, we still would have the best map data around, simply because no one could really keep up with us. (Assuming, of course, that the majority of future OSM Mappers would find that license acceptable). I would like to say that the sharealike license is what builds trust for me. As a small contributor at least I know that I will be able to use the derived works. I really think that the sharealike clause is what builds the community, it is the glue that holds it together. It also deters unexpected well-meaning users. Consider FlightGear, the open-source flight simulator. Wouldn't it be great if they used OSM instead of, or along with, VMAP0 for their scenery display? Currently the technology is there, but they are reluctant to do that because of the licence incompatibility, or more precisely doubts about licence compatibility: http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-de...@lists.sourceforge.net/msg21490.html I dont see the problem, it sounds like they are just not very interested. It would not be a problem to convert maps for usage. You could distribute them separately. For a large player it would be possible to take the data, invest a lot of resources in making a private branch, and there would be no sharing back. Stuff like that would really destroy the community. I don't see this as a realistic scenario. The scenario is simple, someone takes the map of a city, and just branches from that and does not share back. It could be done by anyone with enough resources. Google Maps have better coverage than OSM in many areas. Not it the areas we cover, in kosovo and albanian we building the best maps. We are getting data from all types of sources, from gis companies etc. Does it stop you from using OSM and contributing to it? I dont understand. I am talking about people using my work, about my time spent on the project. Would it change your attitude if Google used OSM to make their data set better? If they make those derived works available it is find whoever uses the data. Only with a sharealike are the small contributing parties the benefactors. PD CC0 is great for huge organizations to publish data for all to use, but CCSA is great for building communities. Personally, I would feel much better about contributing to an open, unencumbered body of public knowledge, rather than a paranoid they are out to get us share-alike community. paranoid? whatever. I can only point out that the GCC compiler would not be what it is today without the sharealike clause, for that reason it has so many backends and frontends. Only after alot of fighting with apple/next in the old days did objective c get added into the gcc. http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/ObjC2_FAQ#Which_Compiler_Should_I_Use.3F The history of Objective-C in GCC is somewhat complicated. Originally, NeXT was forced to release the original Objective-C front end in order to comply with the GPL. Without such a license there would be no Objective C, there are many other examples of contributions that are a result of sharealike. I can say that I have personally invested months of time into openstreetmap and would not have done so, or have gotten the data contributions without the sharealike license. What else would allow all these different companies to donate map data, if they knew that someone could just run away with the ball? 1. Software is a different field, an analogy is just that. Analogies often have their flaws. 2. Do the projects that use non-viral BSD, MIT, MPL-like licences any worse off than GPL projects? Apache? Mozilla? X.org? Python uses a non-viral licence. It has several forks and reimplementations (IronPython, Jython, Stackless, unladen-swallow), which were funded by different companies at different times. There is a commercial package by ActiveState, but it's not making the whole community weaker, on the contrary. here are all types of projects and all types of licenses, each has their merits. But for the gcc, it is very clear that companies do not donate a compiler machine backend for free. For OSM, I chose to invest my time also because I see that the license protects my investment. It is pretty simple. Viral licences have their uses (e.g. forcing wireless router manufacturers to release the firmware contents, forcing NeXT to release ObjJ, forcing Bruno Haible to contribute CLISP to the GNU project), but my feeling in the case of OSM they just cause uncertainty and doubt about any serious use of the data, even by open-source projects. I understand that windows users are used to clicking on I agree
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:47:47 +0200, Erik Johansson erjo...@gmail.com wrote: If ODBL existed in the same variants as CC does, this would be easier. I support CC very strongly, but I don't recommend licence variants. They make things even more confusing and incompatible. OSM can be viewed as layers. There's the points, the ways/routes/paths, and the rendered maps. This moves from data to design. ODbL covers the lower, BY-SA can cover the higher. The middle I don't like to think about. ;-) Data *may* be copyrightable in the US (it depends who you ask), we have the DB right in the EU, and there are examples of contract law being used to restrict use of geodata. So users of data are in their wild and natural state not always unrestricted. The question is whether these restrictions are bad enough to require the (sledge)hammer of a copyleft or share-alike-style system. - Rob. ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 07:31, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: We *do* want to allow releasing produced works under PD. Note that we are talking produced works here, not the data istself! Maybe you do. Personally I'm pretty fond of the feature we have now where I know that any map that uses my CC-BY-SA data is freely available to me under the same license. I can see some of the negative aspects of that like integration with other datasets (which have been discussed to death in the ODbL debate). Pretty much they only thing I've ever gotten out of OSM personally (besides exercise and being able to use it on my GPS) is being able to use the various map renderings by ITO World, CloudMade etc. under the same free license as the data. All other things being equal I'd like things to stay that way, but that's just me. The discussion on the current issue of the week[1] seems to indicate that at least some people share that view, or at least feel like being pedantic in enforcing our current license. Even though they couldn't enforce that if we'd move to the ODbL. 1. http://blog.oobrien.com/2010/04/nike-grid/ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Ævar, Pretty much they only thing I've ever gotten out of OSM personally (besides exercise and being able to use it on my GPS) is being able to use the various map renderings by ITO World, CloudMade etc. under the same free license as the data. That may well be; but OSM is not, in its core, a project for drawing pretty maps and share-aliking them. (I believe there's a task force on Wikipedia that does this.) The discussion on the current issue of the week[1] seems to indicate that at least some people share that view, or at least feel like being pedantic in enforcing our current license. Even I, not being a supporter of our current license, request that people adhere to its terms; this is out of a basic demand for fair play. I wish we didn't have these restrictive terms but now that we have them, I expect everyone to play by them, and I too have written to people reminding them of their obligations under CC-BY-SA. This does not in any way allow the conclusion that I would be unhappy about losing the opportunity to write license enforcement letters about produced works once we've made the switch. Bye Frederik ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Tim, OSM is not essentially anything at its core. It is different things to different people. I'm talking about the sentence that defines OSM at the top of our Wiki page, which in all likelihood has been there in this form when most of us signed up. If you sign up to a project which claims to be A but to you the project is B, then that's all fine and dandy for you, just don't complain if the project later endorses a license that suits A better than B. The fact that commercial data can't be merged with CC-BY-SA could be said to be a limitation of commerical data, rather than a limitation of CC-BY-SA. You're over-simplifying when you say commercial data. Even GNU FDL data cannot be merged with CC-BY-SA. We have governmental data which is released for noncommercial use only - currently un-mergeable with ours. We have data released for educational use - not usable for the student who wants to plot that onto an OSM base map for his master thesis. This is a serious limitation and leads to many pretty maps *not* being made, or being made with non-OSM data. How is that bad? You tell me. Given a choice of (a) all maps can be made, but sharing them is a the maker's discretion versus (b) only some maps can be made, but once they are made they will always be shared I'd certainly find (a) to be more encouraging to creativity. Can't the same thing apply to maps? And if SA is too restrictive for produced works, why have SA at all? A watered down SA is the worse of all worlds IMHO, which is the ODbL. This has high complexity with few SA rights. The share-alike element in data is stronger with ODbL than it was with CC-BY-SA. Data is, I say it again, what OSM is about. Pretty maps are an offshoot - with OSM data being popular, anyone will be able to make pretty maps themselves, whereas *not* anyone will be able to quickly survey the planet. This does not in any way allow the conclusion that I would be unhappy about losing the opportunity to write license enforcement letters about produced works once we've made the switch. Why are you enforcing terms you don't agree with? lol. Ok, so people might not respect a license that you don't agree with, but why care about fair play when the rules are wrong? I'm German. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
On 22 April 2010 01:26, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: This is a serious limitation and leads to many pretty maps *not* being made, or being made with non-OSM data. How is that bad? You tell me. Given a choice of (a) all maps can be made, but sharing them is a the maker's discretion versus (b) only some maps can be made, but once they are made they will always be shared I'd certainly find (a) to be more encouraging to creativity. Yeah, but it's a chicken and egg problem. You choose (a), someone makes a super complete map under a license which means we can't use it as a source for adding more data, and you get Only some maps can be made because there isn't enough data, OSM isn't useful. You choose (b) and everyone is forced to share their data and you can say more (all) maps can be made, there are more sources people can use. Cheers ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
