[odc-discuss] Allow more time: license is not for OSM data only

Sat Mar 7 19:36:28 UTC 2009

Thanks for the detailed comments MJ.  I just want to respond to one  
thing really quickly and I will try to respond to some other points  
tomorrow or Monday (it is Saturday afterall).

On 7 Mar 2009, at 10:35, MJ Ray wrote:

> Jordan S Hatcher <jordan at opencontentlawyer.com> wrote:
>> It's something we can discuss, but I want to cognizant that these
>> things already have a tendency to drag out and that we have to
>> recognize that more attention and more useful comments will actually
>> come back _after_ it is released than before.  So I'm of the opinion
>> that it is better to get a solid first draft out and then refine it
>> with later versions.
>
> Why would someone hold that opinion?  Just as a reaction to a
> perception of a tendency to drag out?

I can tell you exactly why I hold that opinion - because based on my  
all my experience as an academic and lawyer with participating in the  
drafting of CC licences, attending countless conferences on open  
source and open content, working for legal journals publishing on open  
content/source legal issues, peer reviewing, researching, teaching  
training sessions, and advising clients, that people care far more  
about final license texts that can actually be used than draft betas.

This means that they are far, far more likely to write papers /  
articles / produced detailed legal commentary / etc  on a final  
version than a "proposed" license.

It's my informal observational opinion and not an empirical one, so  
take it what you will.

Thanks again and I'll respond to the other points soon.

~Jordan

>
> I think the problems around each new licence and each new version of
> existing licences of even an established group like FSF shows that
> later versions will be equally traumatic.  If the first version
> contains what we think may be flaws, then some people will regard them
> as features and be very unhappy when those flaws are removed.  The
> authors would probably be accused loudly of bait-and-switch and other
> less pleasantly-named things.  That could demotivate enough people
> that version 2 never appears, which would be worse than a mere delay.
>
> There's attention and there's attention.  Let's get good attention for
> the drafting process, rather than bad attention for
> publishing a buggy licence.
>
> Who has been invited so far?  What's the process?  I'm not clear on
> either of those - the only thing I know is a comments deadline of 20
> March and a launch deadline of All Fools' Day, which seems foolish
> indeed.  I've no idea how one is going to reconcile comments in 8-10
> days, especially given that the co-ment site still isn't accessible.
> The opendatacommons.org site is powered by the usually-accessible and
> friendly WordPress but we're not harnessing it to gather comments,
> which seems odd too.
>
> So,
> 1. why is it better to publish a buggy first draft than wait?
> 2. who has been invited to pay attention here so far?
> 3. what's the 8-10 days drafting/consolidation/compromise process?
>
> Thanks,
> -- 
> MJ Ray (slef)
> Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
> worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
> (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

____
Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM

jordan [at] opencontentlawyer dot com

More details at:
<http://www.jordanhatcher.com>

Open Data at:
<http://www.opendatacommons.org>