Help preparing for the license change
Your help is needed in preparing for the license change! This page describes the reasons and principles of re-mapping. For a practical look at tools available and processes to follow, see the Remapping page.
Contents |
Short intro
(You may safely skip forward if you know about the background already.)
OpenStreetMap is changing its license. OSM data are currently published under CC-BY-SA, which has turned out to be unsuitable for a data project. A new license, named Open Database License (ODbL), has been created to address the problems with the old license. Furthermore, new Contributor Terms (CTs) have been set up to clarify the relationship between the individual mapper, the community, and the OSM Foundation. For details, see here.
These new terms cannot simply be imposed by a majority vote of mappers or an OSMF board decision; they need to accepted by every single mapper. Mappers who have signed up since 12 May 2010 have automatically agreed with the CTs and allowed their contributions to be published under CC-BY-SA and ODbL. Now OSM needs those who have signed up before that date to accept in order to relicense their contributions under ODbL.
Every one of those mappers is asked to make their decision, that is, either agree with the terms set up in the CTs and allow for relicensing of their contributions, or decline, and forbid the relicensing. Unfortunately, in the latter case, they can no longer contribute to OSM's database.
By now some 57,000 (as of early January 2012) out of roughly 120,000 mappers who have registered before 12 May 2010 and actually made edits to OSM have agreed.
The OSMF Licensing Working Group (LWG) is responsible for conducting the license change. In July 2011, the LWG announced the following guidelines (see here for the full minutes):
- User should check their local mapping areas and send personal messages to those who have not accepted yet.
- Feel free to replace the data of users who have explictly declined to the CT with your own contributions.
These are explained in more detail in Richard Weait's posting to the talk mailing list.
In May/June 2011, the LWG also ran a mass mailing to all mappers who had not made a decision up to that point. But, as with most mass mailings, response was rather low: The mass mailing (with some 90,000 e-mails sent) contributed only about 15,000 to the aforementioned 57,000 acceptances. Another campaing of mass mailings was run in November/December 2011, this time using the language chosen in the users's preferences on the OSM website (where set). These then resulted in some further 8,000 users agreeing. However, it appears that many recipients did not even read that apparent "OSM spam" or did not realize that they needed to act upon it. Some mails may have actually gotten stuck in spam filters.
Now it is up to us, the OSM community, to personally approach some of the mappers.
Why contacting mappers is so important
If a user does not allow his contributions to be relicensed (either by explicitly declining or by not making any decision at all), those data will ultimately have to be removed from the OSM database when the actual license changeover is performed - simply because OSM does not have permission to distribute them under its future license. It is yet unclear how this removal will be carried out, but it is obvious that since individual contributions are strongly entangled, removing contributions by one user will, in general, also damage data contributed by others. It is therefore obvious that we should get aboard as many mappers as possible.
But we will not only lose data, but also mappers - which is certainly worse. Imagine you didn't have time for OSM for a year or so. Now (after the license change, i.e. still several months in the future) you return to OSM and see your account blocked and all your contributions deleted - without any warning beforehand. (Well, there was that one LWG mail, and probably a second one at some point, but you won't remember. Or you won't care - it's not your fault, it's theirs. Do not expect people to be rational in such a case. Seriously, would you be?) That's it, you're leaving that darn project that doesn't care about your hard work. - This is the first way we are going to lose mappers.
The second way is connected to the strong entanglement between individual contributions already pointed out. Imagine a large part of your contributions getting lost because it was built upon previous work by someone who did not respond and whose data therefore had to be deleted. Some people will be frustrated enough by this to leave OSM.
It is clear that some data (and mappers) will be lost as some mappers cannot be contacted any more. Some people will no longer be using the email accounts they used to sign up to OSM, and some will even - sad but true - have died. Others may actually decline the new terms: the may be unable to agree with the CTs or the redistribution under ODbL because of restrictions on data they imported, or they may simply not agree with the terms. (Which is perfectly fine: No one shall be forced to sign terms they don't agree with.) And finally, there are a few who hold a grudge against certain people within OSM, and will do what they can to hurt the project. (This guy and his several other incarnations form a perfect example.)
However, we should try our best to reduce those losses to the minimal extent possible. We don't want to lose data from mappers (and the mappers themselves, see above) just because they mistook the LWG mail for spam or, not being quite fluent in English, did not understand the demand for action expressed therein.
What you can (or should) do
The most important thing you can do is given in the first part of the guidelines above: Help in contacting those mappers who have not rendered their decision yet. You can either find out the "largest" (previous) contributors in your local area (city, county etc.), check whether they have agreed yet and contact those who haven't. Or you can go ahead and do the same with the "largest" contributors from your whole country. (Several tools to help you identify these mappers exist, see below.)
The second part, remapping, means replacing data which cannot be relicensed, that is, in essence, deleting it and replacing it with your own work (either from your own survey or other admissible sources; for more detailed guidelines see Remapping). However, this should always be the second step, not the first: If a mapper has not agreed and will not agree or if someone really cannot be reached anymore, remap. But if there's still a chance that you keep the user's contributions in OSM (and save yourself a lot of work) by writing a simple e-mail, try that first.
Before making contact, check to see if someone else had already contacted the mapper, see the "Asking users to accept" page, and after contacting someone, add their name to that page.
Tools to help you
There are number of tools to help you in the re-mapping process, key ones being the OSMInspector view, a similar view integrated into JOSM and Potlatch. All of these are more are detailed on the Remapping page.
