User talk:Amai

Why reject ODbL

Any reason behind the decision to reject the ODbL license? -- Firefishy 20:16, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

ODbL is the most *dangerous threat* to OSM up to now! It causes much damage to the project, just by wasting energy so far, by creating a fork of this project ("ODbL-fork") and then creating a reduced database with another waste of efforts by copyright-preserving (hopefully!) filter scripts. In my opinion the idea could have come from anybody who seriously dislikes OSM. --amai 18:35, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes any license change is a high risk. Projects like Wikipedia, WINE and WikiTravel all had painful rides changing their licenses. WINE particularly had a difficult time losing a few developers and some code I believe.

I believe the benefits of ODbL out way the temporary negative effects that a license change will cause:

1. Clearer attribution. OSM is not strictly abiding by CC-BY-SA. Attributing everyone is required. Attribution concerns have driven some people away from using our great data.
2. CC-BY-SA is not designed to cover a collection of facts.
3. CC-BY-SA only protects the end product (eg: JPEG), not the much more valuable improved source data. ODbL ensures the improved source data is made available.

-- Firefishy 19:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

What to do?

As discussions e.g. on the legal-talk list show the license mafia is driving the change and doesn't care. There will be a fake poll, the result will be interpreted as they wish and then they bring their ODbL-fork. So what can the normal users outside the license mafia do? IMHO nothing. They control the machines, servers, etc. so a clever setup. They don't care about any argument, missed lesson in democracy in school (You need a majority for a change, a simple rule from old ancient times but not understood by ppl who claim a 49% voting in favour is a permission to change the fundamentals of this project). Unfortunately many of the active users have some "I don't care about the license" attitude, but mostly due to lack of knowledge (proof in irc channels). They've read some stories about eventual problems with license in some countries, but never got hurt of those. OTOH they are shocked to learn that some of their contributions will be lost/deleted/wiped (in the new fork) cause they were using data of CC-BY-SA users. The only chance would be to wake up those people, make them fight for this project. And not to forget the legal and technical issues when creating the fork itself. People have to be very cautious not mix up any data, because otherwise real disaster could happen and that time with a loss of reputation _outside_ OSM. So far the damage is still limited to the split user base...

To return to the initial question... I don't really know. How can you prevent people from doing something on their server with their project - where I and others have put in very much time&data - but didn't imagine things like this??? --amai 07:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You are correct in one thing for certain - nothing can ever be done unless people decide to put enough effort (and/or money) into it. If people who provide bandwidth, servers and their work for free decide to go ODbL way, you can either tag along, give up on the idea of free map completely, or put (a LOT of) effort in making a fork. "They" are under no obligation to even fake the "democracy" game. They could get fed up tomorrow, and erase all the data and turn off and sell the servers. They are under no (legal nor moral) obligation to continue providing their effort, time and money into the project. You should realize that before judging.

So it is not (as you say up there) that "we" cannot do anything against the move to ODbL, it is just that we are (this is a wild guess, somewhat pessimistic -- I'd love to proven wrong) probably just too lazy to put enough effort to make a change. Sure, we'll write a few posts and cry "somebody should do something", but when the question comes how many hours of honest work are *you* and *I* willing to put into it each day for at least the one full year to make a change, we'd probably fall short of cumulative effort needed. I know I probably would.

But if YOU ARE ready to put enough work into it and if you don't agree with the direction they are taking you can fork: that is all CC-BY-SA guarantees to you (make sure you have all the data and programs downloaded beforehand though, as there are under no obligation for OSMF to provide it on their servers using their bandwidth). And forking means finding or providing new servers an their storage, electricity, bandwidth, money, and most of all, much of your time - for gaining support for your cause as much as for setting it all up, compiling, admining, supporting etc. Massive support for cause is critical (good luck gaining people for the cause, it is going to be the hardest part by any standard), because without (LOT) of it, there is probably no way few persons can keep the enthusiasm (even if they had a lot of time and money to waste). As for myself, I'm (as shown many times before) against the ODbL move if it lose anything more than a tiny amount of data (and to me it looks like it probably would, at least with the current plans). If the big enough loss of data happens, I'll look for a CC-BY-SA (or maybe PD if it looks enough data can be retained there) fork for a while and try to convince people to move there if it exists and looks viable; and offer some of my admining expertise and time to that fork. But if such a fork doesn't exist, I'd probably just give up on the whole mapping idea instead of putting all the effort, time and money myself to set it up. OSM is fun and useful, but not nearly enough to dedicate half of my life trying to setup and maintain whole thing myself for benefit of disgruntled minority. I've not got the RMS willpower, not at this age anymore.

And I apologize for the using "them" vs. "us" terms, but it was in the interest of clarity. In reality, it is (as always) just a lot of "I". Some of "I" prefer some ideas, and some other, and some ideas are shared. Ironically, it seems like I myself might fit in both "them" (as the OSMF member) and "we" (hate the ODbL move if it loses data) groups --mnalis 12:16, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Dummschwatz der ODbL-Jünger

Einer der Sprüche die aktuell rumgeistern, ist der Vorwurf der ODbL-Fraktion, also derjenigen, die dem Projekt unbedingt zu unklarem Nutzen Daten&Anwender&Mitarbeiter entziehen wollen, an andere sie wären projektschädigend ;-)

Nun ist z.B. so, daß ein gewisser Teil die Daten nicht umlizenzieren kann, und andere es nicht tun werden. Meine Daten landen nicht in ODbL... Der Schaden für das ehemalige OSM-Projekt, tritt also totsicher ein. (ja, der Verlust meiner Daten wäre kaum meßbar, aber ich bin nicht alleine...) Jeder der diese Zeilen liest, möge sich einmal überlegen, was für rechtliche Probleme er/sie mit OSM aktuell hat, und ob er diese gerne gegen eine Zersplitterung des OSM-Projektes tauschen möchte (oder der Alternative eine unperfekte Lizenz gegen eine völlig ungetestete einzutauschen).

Man beachte außerdem die Interessenslagen, derjenigen welche laut schreien - oder im Hintergrund still die ODbL antreiben um jeden Preis. Meine Motivation ist nur ein freies Kartenprojekt gewesen. Die Motivation von anderen mag anders sein...

Vermeintliche Vorteile der ODbL

Eine angeblicher Vorteil der ODbL ist die Rechtssicherheit, die man damit hätte. Das ist in weiten Teilen Unfug.

1. Es gibt noch keine Erfahrung mit der Lizenz in Punkto Rechtssprechung
2. Wenn man sich die Haarspaltereien durchliest, die im wiki und den Mailinglisten zum Thema "Übernahme der Daten von der ODbL-Nichtzustimmern" abgegeben werden, muß davon ausgehen, daß sich viele Juristen der ODbL-Version austoben werden. Damit wäre dann lustigerweise der obige Punkt fast obsolet, aber um einen extremen Preis.
3. Der Effekt der *Rechtsunsicherheit durch ODbL* wird dann erneut zum Boomerang, wenn die Anwender ("Kunden") der ODbL-Version von Abmahnungen wg. Copyrightverstößen/etc. getroffen werden.
4. Rechtssicherheit für wen eigentlich? Etliche Lautschreier unter den ODbL-Befürwortern denken an ihr Einkommen, während gefühlte >95% der Anwender und Beitragenden das aus nichtkommerziellen Motiven als *Hobby* betreiben, mich eingeschlossen.

Sidewalk voting

Hello, could you please give a comment on why you're opposing the proposal? Thanks. --Hanska 17:40, 13 April 2011 (BST)

I did on the proposal's page. --amai 21:48, 17 April 2011 (BST)