I don't think this has been reposted to talk-us yet. According to the latest license change rebuild plan, the database will enter read-only mode on March 27th for the license rebuild: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Rebuild_Plan
It has been stated that it is a GOAL to "pull the plug" on April 1st. The Sword of Damocles wielded by the Powers That Be in OSM are under no hard-and-fast obligation to do so, they are just trying to reach a stated goal.
If (as it is looking more and more to be true) that significant areas will disappear from the map, making routing and other important uses of these data seriously impaired, it is incumbent upon the Powers That Be to "declare failure" at reaching the stated goals. Yes, this is disappointing, but it is true. The only meaningful conclusion that can be reached is to "give the OSM community more time" and push back the April 1st (or March 27th) deadline. (One month? Three months?)
Is this an eleventh hour request to do so? Well, yes! But every word of the above is true.
The OSM community simply must have more time to complete these tasks. It is as simple as that. Don't cripple an extremely useful and becoming-more-mainstream and rather popular tool with arbitrary and capricious dates on a calendar. Plan and assess, yes, that has already happened, but now is the time to RE-assess, and reach the solemn conclusion that flipping the switch on significant data in barely a week is ill-advised at best, and will be a crippling body blow to the project at worst. Perhaps one from which the project will not fully recover.
Nobody asked me to say it, but I'm asking for three more months. We can complete needed tasks by then.
SteveA California _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
