OpenStreetMap
Getting accept / decline licence screen on logon today
Posted by netman55 on 18 April 2011 in English.I got a accept / decline licence screen today although I have been registered just over 4 years ago. I declined but still seem to be able to edit at the moment.
There seems to be no easy visible communication whatsoever that this was going to happen, seems to be a ploy to get people to accept when they don't need to, at least at the moment.
Why has this been done, when in a recent community update there was a very brief mention to delay the process as a result of possible CC by SA version update?
Absolutely a disgraceful way to treat long term contributors to OSM.
Discussion
Comment from galbum on 18 April 2011 at 10:16
Declining means that you don not accept to migrate Your tracks to the Open Database License. This also means that in the near future these tracks might disappear from OSM and somebody else will have to reinsert them.
Comment from Vincent de Phily on 18 April 2011 at 10:30
The license implementation plan is here : http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Implementation_Plan
You might also be interested in
http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/We_Are_Changing_The_License
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License
http://odbl.de/
All those links can be found easily on the wiki. That may not be visible enough, but then again the plans to change the license are nothing particularly new, and you could expect most contributors to either
1) be interested in licensing question and have noticed that there was some license discussions ongoing (Since you clicked "I decline" instead of just following the trend and ensuring your contributions will be kept, I assume the license is important to you).
2) be totaly oblivious of licence issues, or spend all his OSM time in the editor only so that no news of the license change could have reached him.
The mandatory accept/decline dialog is necessary to reach people in category 2. Whatever your thoughts about the license (and the decision to go ahead and implement the change), I think the actual process of changing the licence is done reasonably well and not too pushy. This mandatory accept/decline dialog is a necessary step and is gradual enough, IMHO.
Comment from Richard on 18 April 2011 at 11:49
The supposed 'Community Update' has absolutely no official status and was just plain wrong on the delay.
The licence change has been discussed very, very extensively over the last few years. If you've missed it all then I envy you, but within the confines of a volunteer organisation I think they've done a good job. If you feel it could be done better, you are of course at liberty to put yourself forward to election for OSMF and help.
Comment from sdoerr on 18 April 2011 at 12:28
There was a 'pre-announcement' on OSM-Talk on 12 April, and the date was announced there on 14 April ("OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 begins Sunday").
My main beef is that I didn't want to accept or decline straight away (I realized I wouldn't be able to edit until I did), but I was locked out of everything at openstreemap.org until I did: I couldn't even look at the slippy map on the home page. I couldn't write a diary entry, comment on someone else's diary entry, reply to a personal message someone sent me at the weekend, etc. I couldn't even log out!!!
So I've reluctantly clicked Decline (I didn't really want to be counted as a 'vote' against the change at this stage) so that I can do all those things while I make up my mind.
Comment from chriscf on 18 April 2011 at 17:56
How dare they sneak this up on us. I mean, it's absolutely disgraceful that we've only had around four years' notice of a potential change, and that most of the discussion was limited to open forums that any contributor can be a part of. It's not even like it's been put to a vote, apart from that one carried out by the Foundation (which only anyone can be a part of), and this one being offered right now.
The sheer cheek of it ...
Comment from JohnSmith on 24 April 2011 at 14:41
netman55 welcome to the club of concerned mappers that dislike the current debacle, however those pushing it seem to be intent to get it through at any cost, even if that means their DB ends up tainted by people unwittingly agreeing to something they can't agree to.
Comment from sdoerr on 3 May 2011 at 12:56
I've since accepted the CTs.
-- Steve