Re: [talk-au] Plea to Australian decliners
John Smith
> Australian Decliners,
>
> As a mapper, contributor and member of the project's sysadmin team I
> kindly ask you to please reconsider your declined status. Time is
> about to run out.
You and others didn't care about us, told us to go away as we were
insignificant and our issue were unimportant and now you come begging
for us to reconsider.
Perhaps the whole license issue should be reconsidered, after all you
are the one throwing out the baby with the bath water, you are
choosing to do this, not us, perhaps you should choose to call the
whole thing off.
Richard Colless
Throughout this whole sorry story, I have only ever received ONE
communication form OSM. It was a begging letter asking me to reconsider.
If not for the discussion of the forum, I would not have even known
about the licence change. AI think that shows how much OSM cares about
keeping contributors informed about changes.
Richard
Ian Sergeant
Like or loathe the licence change, and the manner it has been pursued, sure. But I really don't think anyone in OSM has tried to keep the knowledge of the licence change quiet. I think a fair few people have been trying to get in touch with as many people as possible.
I've personally tried contacting Australian contributors individually who haven't accepted or declined, and who haven't edited for a while. These are the people who may not be engaged with the community any longer, and who actually may not know about the licence change. Did you decline the licence change? Because if you did, I'd have assumed that you knew about it and were aware of the discussion, and therefore didn't need to be contacted.
Thanks,
Ian.
Thank you, John. I couldn't have expressed it better.
Throughout this whole sorry story, I have only ever received ONE communication form OSM. It was a begging letter asking me to reconsider. If not for the discussion of the forum, I would not have even known about the licence change. AI think that shows how much OSM cares about keeping contributors informed about changes.
Richard
On 31/03/2012 7:43 AM, John Smith wrote:
On 31 March 2012 01:54, Grant Slater<openstreetmap@firefishy.com> wrote:
Australian Decliners,You and others didn't care about us, told us to go away as we were
As a mapper, contributor and member of the project's sysadmin team I
kindly ask you to please reconsider your declined status. Time is
about to run out.
insignificant and our issue were unimportant and now you come begging
for us to reconsider.
Perhaps the whole license issue should be reconsidered, after all you
are the one throwing out the baby with the bath water, you are
choosing to do this, not us, perhaps you should choose to call the
whole thing off.
_______________________________________________
Talk-au mailing list
Tal...@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
Richard Colless
I also take issue with this statement:
Declining hurts fellow Australian mappers who have in good faith build data on-top of your contributions and will leave animosity between our projects.Don't try blaming decliners for the hurt to other mappers. If anyone built up on my edits, and their work gets deleted as a result, blame OSM, not the members who declined.
Richard
On 31/03/2012 12:36 PM, Ian Sergeant wrote:
Hi Richard,
Like or loathe the licence change, and the manner it has been pursued, sure. But I really don't think anyone in OSM has tried to keep the knowledge of the licence change quiet. I think a fair few people have been trying to get in touch with as many people as possible.
I've personally tried contacting Australian contributors individually who haven't accepted or declined, and who haven't edited for a while. These are the people who may not be engaged with the community any longer, and who actually may not know about the licence change. Did you decline the licence change? Because if you did, I'd have assumed that you knew about it and were aware of the discussion, and therefore didn't need to be contacted.
Thanks,
Ian.
On 31 March 2012 09:14, Richard Colless <fir...@ar.com.au> wrote:
Thank you, John. I couldn't have expressed it better.
Throughout this whole sorry story, I have only ever received ONE communication form OSM. It was a begging letter asking me to reconsider. If not for the discussion of the forum, I would not have even known about the licence change. AI think that shows how much OSM cares about keeping contributors informed about changes.
Richard
On 31/03/2012 7:43 AM, John Smith wrote:
Sam Vekemans
... accept or
... decline and be shunned and blamed for making a choice.
It would have been far more appropriate to just announce that OSMF
'owns' all of the contributions as part of the collective map.
Contents cant be 'removed' only changed.
If OSMF made it clear that the Map is 1 'thing' and an 'entity' then
you can takes parts away.
Like a flying purple elephant. ... if you take it's wings away and
change it's colour... is it still a flying purple elephant? .... no,
its just a big elephant in the room.
Fortunatly, there are other rooms ... and the instruction manual on
how to build an elephant is available....
It would have been better for OSMF to be working on a new map, a
flying blue elephant... built with only good stuff....
>> <mailto:fir...@ar.com.au>> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you, John. I couldn't have expressed it better.
>>
>> Throughout this whole sorry story, I have only ever received ONE
>> communication form OSM. It was a begging letter asking me to
>> reconsider. If not for the discussion of the forum, I would not
>> have even known about the licence change. AI think that shows how
>> much OSM cares about keeping contributors informed about changes.
>>
>> Richard
>>
>> On 31/03/2012 7:43 AM, John Smith wrote:
>>
>> On 31 March 2012 01:54, Grant
>> Slater<openst...@firefishy.com
>> <mailto:openst...@firefishy.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Australian Decliners,
>>
>> As a mapper, contributor and member of the project's
>> sysadmin team I
>> kindly ask you to please reconsider your declined status.
>> Time is
>> about to run out.
>>
>> You and others didn't care about us, told us to go away as we were
>> insignificant and our issue were unimportant and now you come
>> begging
>> for us to reconsider.
>>
>> Perhaps the whole license issue should be reconsidered, after
>> all you
>> are the one throwing out the baby with the bath water, you are
>> choosing to do this, not us, perhaps you should choose to call the
>> whole thing off.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Talk-au mailing list
>> Tal...@openstreetmap.org <mailto:Tal...@openstreetmap.org>
>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-au
>>
>>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "SharedMapAU" group.
> To post to this group, send email to share...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> sharedmapau...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/sharedmapau?hl=en.
>
>
--
---
Victoria, BC Canada
[image: Share] <http://twitter.com/samvekemans>[image:
Facebook]<http://www.facebook.com/sam.vekemans>[image:
Linked In] <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/sam-vekemans/a/b8/aa2>[image:
Youtube] <http://youtube.com/user/canadarideforclimate>[image:
Flickr]<http://www.flickr.com/people/canadarideforclimate/>
Blog: http://samvekemans.posterous.com/
Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/117921658240148036148/posts
Skype: 'Sam Vekemans'
Sam Couter
> OSM(F) is not some nefarious organisation...
Incompetence is often difficult to distinguish from malice.
> I'm like everyone else in
> the project it doing it for fun, interesting and for the making
> something great... I have a "real" day job that is not related to osm.
So am I, so do I, and that's exactly why you're way out of line for
blaming me for OSM rejecting the data I created in good faith. I created
it thinking it'd be useful for me and others. If you don't want it,
that's annoying but it's your right. If you want to blame me for your
rejection, you can shove it up your arse. I owe you nothing.
> Mr John Anonymous Smith... the community will be better without you.
Nice attitude. You wonder why we continue to be disappointed at your
behaviour and that of OSMF?
> Glad the license change is nearly over and we can get back to what we
> enjoy... Mapping and building the bloody best map (data) of the world.
It won't be as good as it can be if you continue to reject contributions,
drive people away from the project and fracture the community.
--
Sam Couter | mailto:s...@couter.id.au
OpenPGP fingerprint: A46B 9BB5 3148 7BEA 1F05 5BD5 8530 03AE DE89 C75C
Ian Sergeant
There are a couple of hundred thousand registered members of OSM, and much effort has gone into contacting those who are genuinely out of touch. There are around 25 Australian contributors who have declined, and all of them are fairly significant contributors. They went to the same site to decline which had links to the information that the people who accepted had. I genuinely would have believed that those 25 people had access to all the information that was available, and therefore thought extra direct communication on this subject wasn't wanted by them. I apologise if that wasn't the case with you.
I'd be last to say that OSMF board and LWG has done everything right as part of this licence change. Even with making decisions over the past couple of weeks to do with the changeover, I wouldn't say they have learned too many lessons. But these guys are volunteer mappers, hackers, etc, not necessarily PR experts or communications specialists. They have day jobs, and maybe even real lives. Dealing with remote communities and disparate opinions is hard. Even full time PR departments for large corporations stuff this up on a regular basis. There is no doubt in my mind that ultimately their main motivation is having a cool map that people can use in cool ways. Just like me.
I accept a person of principle can decline. I can see the reasons for doing it.
However, it is also an option for them to now say that the point is now made.
Thanks,
Ian.
John Smith
> Bull. Michael Collinson spent months trying to get approval from
> data.gov.au for approval... finally did. Pity the importer refuses to
> relicence even if the data is OK.
And data.gov.au never owned any of the data, they were merely a
clearance house and their only employee got the sack a couple of weeks
ago, so I hardly see that as a good endorsement.
> LWG spent months negotiation with NearMap and got approval, but not
> exactly how we hoped.
Perhaps you should have taken off the rose coloured glasses for a bit
to see if the glass was half full already before stomping on
everything, especially the community.
> OSM(F) is not some nefarious organisation... I'm like everyone else in
OSM-F has a lot of egos to stroke, and a lot of incompetence and
neglect of the community to go with it. I'd be surprised if they could
get over their own egos long enough to organise a piss up in a
brewery....
> Mr John Anonymous Smith... the community will be better without you.
Wow you still don't get it, even now, every personal attack on me just
makes 10 more people think worst of you and OSM-F. I bring up valid
issues and you can only retort with personal attacks even while
begging me to agree to your crummy terms and conditions...
> Glad the license change is nearly over and we can get back to what we
> enjoy... Mapping and building the bloody best map (data) of the world.
Hardly, you've basically told everyone to go support google maps, they
have better tools and map data and just get on with it.
John Smith
> Hardly, you've basically told everyone to go support google maps, they
> have better tools and map data and just get on with it.
Grant, you are too busy trying to manipulate people into signing off
on something they feel uncomfortable doing, or out right disagree
with, to see the masses departing for other projects, people have a
finite amount of time and they no longer wish to donate it to OSM-F.
I have no doubt in my mind that in the near future there will be white
papers written about what OSM-F has done, as an exercise for others to
learn from, especially what not to do in governing a volunteer
organisation.
Richard Colless
I've never actually declined at all. I have just never accepted the new CT's. I didn't decline because I wasn't asked. From my point of view, there wasn't any communication directly with the mappers. I knew about the changes only because I am on the Talk-Au list. OSM never contacted me, and until quite late in the story, I didn't even get any advice about the change when I logged on to make edits.
I followed the discussion with much interest, and only decided not to accept the new CT's when I observed the rudeness with which the objections were handled. The recent spate of correspondence has done nothing to make me reconsider.
Richard
On 31/03/2012 7:03 PM, Simon Poole wrote:
Richard
while IMHO communications in OSM and out of OSM leave much to desire, in the case of the licence change there has been a substantial amount of communication to the mappers. The only reason I can see for you -not- getting a mail from the OSMF early on, is that you must have practically immediately declined when that became possible. And I assume the reasoning at that point in time was that as a decliner you were already informed about the issues and didn't need the OSMF pointing out something you already knew about.
Simon
Steve Bennett
> I followed the discussion with much interest, and only decided not to accept
> the new CT's when I observed the rudeness with which the objections were
> handled. The recent spate of correspondence has done nothing to make me
> reconsider.
Hi Richard,
I think we can all agree that the communications skills of the OSMF,
and senior OSM people, leave much to be desired. Pretty much
everything about the licence changeover was crappy. But I think
declining the CTs is taking out your resentment on the wrong people.
By not allowing your contributions to be part of OSM, you mostly hurt
the people for whom we're all doing this: the wider open content
community, and all the individuals who will benefit in many different
ways from high quality, open maps.
I signed up to the CTs, not because I agree with the licence change,
or because I like the way the change was handled, but because I care
much more the open content we're creating than I care about these
administrative matters.
Steve
John Smith
> everything about the licence changeover was crappy. But I think
> declining the CTs is taking out your resentment on the wrong people.
We still stuck in this loop, you're killing my buzz dude, I'm trying
to come up with new words to "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
something about OSM-F trying to burn it all down, any suggestions?
John Smith
And no one's getting a pint of blood to put through a gas chromatograph :P
John Smith
http://www.bajeca.com/volume/thenighttheydroveolddixiedown.mid
John Smith is the name, and I served on the OSM train,
Til Coast's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the winter of '12, We were trying to map.
By April the first, the map had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well,
[Chorus]
The Night They Drove The Map Down, and the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove The Map Down, and the people were singin'. They went
La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La,
FO...@challis.id.au
> On 1 April 2012 10:30, John Smith <deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 1 April 2012 10:08, Steve Bennett <stevag...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> everything about the licence changeover was crappy. But I think
> >> declining the CTs is taking out your resentment on the wrong people.
>
> > We still stuck in this loop, you're killing my buzz dude, I'm trying
> > to come up with new words to "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
> > something about OSM-F trying to burn it all down, any suggestions?
>
> And no one's getting a pint of blood to put through a gas chromatograph :P
have said 1976, but bow to the authority of [https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Metrication_in_Australia].
In any case, TNTDODD is far too passive; I'm thinking more South
Park's "Burn Down Hot Topic." Far more proactive response.
John Smith
>> And no one's getting a pint of blood to put through a gas chromatograph :P
>
> Who needs a pint? Really, man, Au's been Metric since, well I would
> have said 1976, but bow to the authority of [https://en.wikipedia.org/
> wiki/Metrication_in_Australia].
Well if you are going to get technical you'd probably need to do a
spinal tap, since most of those sorts of chemicals can't pass the
blood brain barrier :P
FO...@challis.id.au
> > I followed the discussion with much interest, and only decided not to accept
> > the new CT's when I observed the rudeness with which the objections were
> > handled. The recent spate of correspondence has done nothing to make me
> > reconsider.
>
> and senior OSM people, leave much to be desired. Pretty much
> everything about the licence changeover was crappy. But I think
> declining the CTs is taking out your resentment on the wrong people.
> By not allowing your contributions to be part of OSM, you mostly hurt
> the people for whom we're all doing this: the wider open content
> community, and all the individuals who will benefit in many different
> ways from high quality, open maps.
>
> I signed up to the CTs, not because I agree with the licence change,
> or because I like the way the change was handled, but because I care
> much more the open content we're creating than I care about these
> administrative matters.
or take) due to the entirely unnecessary and unproductive FUD.
Frankly, OSM is welcome to my contributions - such as they are - even
though I have declined the CTs. In the meantime, this area has had two
major highway bypasses open; around 17 streets have formally changed
name, and 4-5 new roads have been created. (I am slightly making up
numbers, but you should get the point...)
An I now have a good two years more experience, none of which will
ever be consciously directed to the benefit of OSM. Bet nobody ever
took that into consideration?
You only need to betray trust once. People have this inconvenient
ability to remember the slights of the past. Attempts not to tick them
off again will be appreciated.
Ian Sergeant
In the meantime, this area has had two
major highway bypasses open; around 17 streets have formally changed
name, and 4-5 new roads have been created. (I am slightly making up
numbers, but you should get the point...)
An I now have a good two years more experience, none of which will
ever be consciously directed to the benefit of OSM.
And in the same time I've mapped traffic lights that have replaced roundabouts, divided carriageways, cycleways and cutthrus that the forked projects may never see the benefit of. An objective observer looking at what is going on here would be amazed. We all hate the Romans, but not as much as the PFJ.
I suggested much earlier that that an agreement could perhaps be reached where as many as possible of those continuing to contribute OSM in Australia independently agree to state that their contributions are also licensable under CC-BY-SA, and as many as possible of those leaving would in return accept the CTs. I thought this was in line with 80n's first stated mission of two projects/one community, and would serve to maximise the amount of data available actually available under CC-BY-SA. I think anyone who has followed the conversation would see why these kind of ideas derailed.
Anyway, it is kinda nice to say that OSM can keep your data, but unless you login and accept the CTs your data, however old, will likely be lost to OSM. A response on this mailing list is probably going to be insufficient.
Ian.
What do you mean, we are the PFJ?!
Richard Colless
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 9:24 PM, Richard Colless<fir...@ar.com.au> wrote:
>> I followed the discussion with much interest, and only decided not to accept
>> the new CT's when I observed the rudeness with which the objections were
>> handled. The recent spate of correspondence has done nothing to make me
>> reconsider.
> Hi Richard,
> I think we can all agree that the communications skills of the OSMF,
> and senior OSM people, leave much to be desired. Pretty much
> everything about the licence changeover was crappy. But I think
> declining the CTs is taking out your resentment on the wrong people.
> By not allowing your contributions to be part of OSM, you mostly hurt
> the people for whom we're all doing this: the wider open content
> community, and all the individuals who will benefit in many different
> ways from high quality, open maps.
participate. So don't say that I'm hurting anybody.. I'm quite happy for
any of my data to remain. If someone else chooses to delete it, blame
them for any hurt, not me.
Richard
John Smith
> I suggested much earlier that that an agreement could perhaps be reached
> where as many as possible of those continuing to contribute OSM in Australia
> independently agree to state that their contributions are also licensable
> under CC-BY-SA, and as many as possible of those leaving would in return
> accept the CTs. I thought this was in line with 80n's first stated mission
> of two projects/one community, and would serve to maximise the amount of
> data available actually available under CC-BY-SA. I think anyone who has
> followed the conversation would see why these kind of ideas derailed.
Nice in theory, but OSM-F and their senior members didn't want to hear
about our concerns let alone address them, I'm still not satisfied
that they ever can by this point so not likely I will agree to the CTs
either.
Liz
Looks to me as if the chance of "acceptance" is inversely proportional
to the number of ways and nodes inserted into the OSM database or is
inversely proportional to the perceived effort made by the individual
on making those ways and nodes.
Richard Colless
On 1/04/2012 2:16 PM, Richard Weait wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 11:36 PM, Richard Colless<fir...@ar.com.au> wrote:
>
>> I'm not taking out any resentment on anybody. I'm simply choosing not to
>> participate. So don't say that I'm hurting anybody.. I'm quite happy for any
>> of my data to remain. If someone else chooses to delete it, blame them for
>> any hurt, not me.
> I haven't heard from you regarding your API screen name or
> registration email, so I can't provide any details about when LWG
> attempted to contact you. LWG attempted to contact every data
> contributor. Individual mappers have reached out to other local
> mappers as well.
>
> I can't guess why you didn't see an email but I'll look into it if
> you'd like to find out. Other mappers have run into the following:
>
> - they don't check that email any more.
> - their email changed but they didn't update the contact email at osm.org
> - email was received and diverted by a spam filter
> - perhaps others that I don't recall at the moment
I'm really not that concerned as to why I didn't receive any e-mails. My
reason for declining the new CT's is the disgraceful way that OSM has
treated mappers. I'll put my mapping efforts into somewhere more worthwhile.
As to your suggestions:
My e-mail address has remained the same for the last 15 years or so
I run several junk filters, and check their contents for incorrect
diversions before I delete them
Any other guesses?
Richard
FO...@challis.id.au
> what is going on here would be amazed. We all hate the Romans, but not as
> much as the PFJ.
are referring to?
The point I meant by listing various updates to the region was not to
enter into a "I've made more changes than you have." (in fact I have
almost certainly not!) competition; rather to point out that a static
map is a dead map. And by alienating contributors, OSM has guaranteed
that it will forever be stuck in 2007, whilst the world moves on, and
in fact is no longer any better than the UBD I bought in 1992.
So in these terms, OSM *is* welcome to my old contributions, such as
they (were.) I, and the rest of reality, have moved on.
John Smith
> On Apr 1, 1:11 pm, Ian Sergeant <inas66+...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> what is going on here would be amazed. We all hate the Romans, but not as
>> much as the PFJ.
>>...
>> What do you mean, we are the PFJ?!
>
> Genuinely confused. What does PFJ stand for; I have no idea what you
> are referring to?
It's a reference to the Monty Python movie Life of Brian...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Brian
For those that missed seeing, shame on you all and go see it now :)
Ian Sergeant
The point I meant by listing various updates to the region was not to
enter into a "I've made more changes than you have." (in fact I have
almost certainly not!) competition; rather to point out that a static
map is a dead map. And by alienating contributors, OSM has guaranteed
that it will forever be stuck in 2007, whilst the world moves on, and
in fact is no longer any better than the UBD I bought in 1992.
So in these terms, OSM *is* welcome to my old contributions, such as
they (were.) I, and the rest of reality, have moved on.
Hi again Tim,
Possibly, but I don't think so. Overall contributions and contributors to OSM are at an all time high. I've no doubt that the holes will be remapped for those who chose to decline the CTs, although there is no doubt the immediate damage will be significant. if OSM is losing new contributors it isn't showing in the data. There are new apps appearing daily, and new and significant data consumers also.
Ultimately, it may even be the case that some of the data is better for the "refresh", but it certainly would have been better to do that methodically, rather than losing 20% of the map in a big bang. There is some data from some key surveyors that will be very hard to replace.
Keeping the maps updated as things change is clearly an issue all mapping projects will face. Contributors and contributions is part of the solution, but not the only part.
I personally hope the forks succeed, and my data is also available for anyone to use. But as I said, I don't think a new contributor could tell much difference between the licences that we are disputing here. The forks have a much lower profile, and IMO in two years time are going to be struggling to divert contributors only based on a dispute that is ancient history in Internet time.
We'll see I guess.
Ian.
Mike Dupont
I personally hope the forks succeed, and my data is also available for anyone to use. But as I said, I don't think a new contributor could tell much difference between the licences that we are disputing here. The forks have a much lower profile, and IMO in two years time are going to be struggling to divert contributors only based on a dispute that is ancient history in Internet time.