on3iropolos
commented
2 years ago I'm not sure what I am voting for.
Open vnugent opened 2 years ago
on3iropolos
commented
2 years ago I'm not sure what I am voting for.
vnugent
commented
2 years ago I'm not sure what I am voting for.
I added a clarification. Thumb up/down if you agree or disagree with the 2 choices presented. Please leave a comment if you have a suggestion.
tittaenalg
commented
2 years ago I like the options, but would suggest adding a little blurb next to/beneath each option to help users understand the difference. Something like the descriptions used in the initial question would be good. Maybe add a link to further information (like the Flickr explanations) if a user wants to really dig into the details.
Mockup of proposal:
vnugent
commented
2 years ago I like the options, but would suggest adding a little blurb next to/beneath each option to help users understand the difference. Something like the descriptions used in the initial question would be good. Maybe add a link to further information (like the Flickr explanations) if a user wants to really dig into the details.
Thanks. I replaced the original mockup with yours with a link to explain more about the two.
atstp
commented
2 years ago The mockup looks nice.
I have a handful of thoughts about the licensing. Under the current proposal, I think the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.
There good reason to want All rights reserved uploads.
Much of that motivation has come up outside of GitHub, but here's a recap:
Allowing All rights reserved uploads would encourage photographers (who feel their photos have commercial or personal value) to upload their beautiful photos. The photographer wants to keep their options open down the road, and letting the photographer upload All rights reserved allows these photos stay mostly "theirs". In the meantime, OpenTacos gets to use them. Ideally, some of these photographers are also interested in capturing and contributing the more mundane and utilitarian topo-quality photos. We hope that these semi/pro photographers also upload topo-quality photos under purpose-appropriate CC0. In addition to the photographer, sometime later, those beautiful photos could catch the eye of climbers. Passers-by are encouraged to linger on OpenTacos, and the nice photos could motivate users to contribute. The user base grows and contributions increase — allowing All rights reserved photos has increased the visual appeal of OpenBeta, more people have looked, and more people have uploaded, and there is more content on OpenBeta.
There are also reasons to avoid All rights reserved photos.
The bigger ones are covered below. The first is specific to the current UI/UX proposal, a few more are about to OpenBeta's cumulative knowledge/dataset. The last ones are broader questions about the future.
From discussion outside of GitHub:
I believe we are going to upload images by default as all rights reserved assuming the user doesn't pick one of the options.
The people with UI/UX experience at OpenBeta know the broad effects of defaults, but for the rest of us organ donation systems make for a decent summary. In the best case, we can hope that OpenBeta users are almost as discerning about photo uploads as people are about donating their organs.
An All rights reserved default will mean that a chunk of topo-quality photos will be uploaded with All rights reserved.
When there's a better-than-poor topo photo, it's less likely that a user will upload another photo of the same subject. From the perspective of casual users and photographers, there would be no need because the wall/climb/boulder can already be identified.
Once someone contributes an All rights reserved photo of a particular wall, OpenBeta would have a lower chance of getting a freely-licensed alternative.
For a non-open photo, could a user contribute a helpful open caption? Suppose they know it's Lynn Hill topping out her FA of The Nose. Even if the caption author wanted to make their contribution CC0, they wouldn't effectively be able to make that knowledge open. For anyone to reuse that caption, they would need to obtain rights to the photo.
The situation complicates further when identifying climbs on photos. Photo-tagging is in the works and users will soon make contributions to identify routes on photos. I haven't seen the implementation but it can act as a join, so I'll say join.
Each time a user, joins an All rights reserved photo with a particular climb, the knowledge that "route X is shown on photo Y" isn't open/free in practice, regardless of the joiner's intent. The join can't be reused effectively without rights to the photo.
Today's design for tagging is minimal, but provides a bit of utility. This is a the beginning of something that will mature as OpenBeta matures.
Lines on photos will be the natural progression. Lines are drawn on images in every guidebook I can find, and MountainProject has the their "Show Topo Overlay" feature on photos. Going further, navigation by clicking lines on photos is already supported on plenty of platforms Boltline, theCrag, rakkup, 27 Crags, and Sloper to name a few. The climbing community has already decided that these lines are a good use of developer and contributor time.
The current tagging system will be affected, as will a richer data model in the future.
New ideas, building, and sharing are fun. The complexity that comes with navigating non-free content isn't enjoyable.
A maker who wants to share what they built with OpenBeta will have extra steps: seek out the relevant photographers, ask for permission, wait for answers, decide when they've waited long enough, cut out parts of for which they couldn't get rights, and finally share. Much of that process is unrewarding.
Who won't start building because of this? Who will build without intention of sharing? Who will build, reach out to photographers, and abandon their project disappointed with negative responses, or lack of responses? In any of those cases, the community never sees the project. Missing out on a project built from OpenBeta means that the people who could have seen that project won't hear about OpenBeta.
Friction is an obstacle to reuse. It will reduce things built with OpenBeta.
All rights reserved photos make OpenBeta more friendly to photographers. As a consequence, the friction of reuse makes OpenBeta less friendly to makers. Both the photographers and makers can benefit from OpenBeta and both can offer worthwhile contributions back to OpenBeta.
There's concern about appeal to photographers. How does this balance with the appeal to makers?
There will be similar decisions for OpenBeta down the road. Mentioned on Discord:
Descriptions, notes, trip reports, etc.. written by a person may be under another license similar to images. Those are creative expression and whoever creates them owns it.
They should be able to decide if they want it reserved for them or open under a creative license (shared to everyone for any use).
Short term: Good descriptions are creative. Should we expect All rights reserved descriptions?
Medium term: It's helpful to watch others climb, enough so that climbing videos are the original beta. If a volunteer extends platform support for climbing videos, will OpenBeta adopt non-open "beta"?
Longer term: Newer phones have LiDAR to make 3D models. If LiDAR on phones follows flashlights, microphones, and cameras then climbers will be making 3D models in the foreseeable future. Would OpenBeta support non-open 3D models? If someone contributes a closed model of an entire crag, and other users plot approaches, routes, bolts, and descents, that whole pile of knowledge wouldn't be open.
These drawbacks make each other worse. Here's an example of stacking on one another:
For non-open descriptions, the compounding would limited. If 5 years from now, OpenBeta gets non-open 3D models of crags, the compounding would be significantly exaggerated.
The issues also compound in other ways, but its probably not worth enumerating examples; compounding happens.
OpenBeta is young, so the bus factor is significant. If something shuts down OpenBeta, the community loses the non-free content and all knowledge that was built on top of it. Photographers cease to benefit from their non-open uploads.
It was wisely said:
In order to sustain as an open source project in the long term, I have to niche down, limit its scope, and then niche down even more. Even well-funded startups build niche products and serve a niche market for years.
OpenBeta has a small niche today. The nice, in practice, is open climbing knowledge. It doesn't support explosive growth, but it's free of competition and a safe place to grow.
Photo support is being added. This is a nice step for OpenBeta; topo-quality photos are perfect for identifying rocks. Artful, non-open photos are a small step beyond that. It's also a step into the not-entirely-open-knowledge ecosystem. If a bigger platform decides that OpenBeta warrants competition, minor changes would let them compete. The size of a major platform alone could mean that something simple, like referring to their factual data as "open-core", would attract or hold contributors interested in "open climbing data".
Drawing attention to the fact that "the big platform is barely open" wouldn't carry significant weight; anyone could fairly respond that "OpenBeta isn't completely open either".
Could OpenBeta, within the next year or five, handle more direct competition with a large platform?
The biggest change from the current proposal would be sticking to only open licenses. Supporting CC BY* variations instead of All Rights Reserved would be a compromise on behalf of semi/pro photographers. My impression is that at the moment this is undesirable. It's worth mentioning because it would avoid the listed drawbacks entirely.
Even with if non-open photos are integrated, There are many other options to soften the issues:
I like OpenBeta, and I look forward to the organization and its dataset thriving. Fingers crossed that the advantages pan out and the drawbacks don't manifest, but, since we can't predict the future, I hope this helps us avoid potential issues.
(I'll circle back some to trim this down)
atstp
commented
2 years ago Summarizing from a discussion outside of github:
We also discussed ideas around motivating and guiding users to assign content-appropriate licenses:
One priority that was emphasized: keeping the barriers to contribution as low as possible. This mostly rules out option 2
on3iropolos
commented
2 years ago @atstp
Personally, I think defaults are strong. I suggest it would be sufficient (to start, at least) by setting the default to open license photos, along with a reminder "OpenBeta's philosophy is open-first and we encourage you to license your submissions in this way" appearing once All Rights Reserved is selected. Perhaps this could even require an additional tick to approve you've read the reminder.
As the product matures, I think adding gamification would be great, although this could (should?) encompass a much larger scope than photos alone.
atstp
commented
2 years ago Those sound good to me. I think together, defaults and nudging would go a long way towards building open content.
There was also concern that asking/nudging a professional to make their contributions open could be off-putting. @vnugent mentioned that he was (still is?) a professional photographer, so he can weigh in on this side of things much better than I can. I think this would come down to what someone who makes their living on photos might think when they see open defaults and/or nudges towards open licensing.
vnugent
commented
2 years ago Feedback from Samantha Mitchell, a climber and photographer via an email.
Here are my thoughts:
If I were using the site I would click the All Rights Reserved option as a professional photographer (even though my photos may have been taken on a personal trip).
I would not use a CC0 because I don’t agree with anyone using anyone’s photos for commercial purposes without compensation. If you’re selling a product and making money off of it – you should compensate the photographer (or any individual) who assisted in your marketing for that product.
Editorial use gets a little muddier but that’s still a product (in my opinion) and permission should be asked of the photographer for that sort of use as well. At least with editorial use a photographer will typically be credited even if they are not being compensated. That being said, I think it’s always best to ask permission to use anyone’s content.
Also, this is a site for climbing beta – not photography. There’s no harm or loss of income to you by limiting the usage of photos by outside parties. But doing so would encourage more people to post photos on your site. You’d get better photography as well and a higher quality website. It’d also be another way to separate yourself from Mt Project as a more user friendly community.
For example, I have uploaded a handful of photos to Mt Project but they were either beta photos or photos of myself which have no creative value. I would never upload any photos I felt were creative to that site due to their policies of free use. But, if there were an option to protect the usage then I might add my higher quality images to the site.
Anyhow, those are my thoughts. If I were creating the site I’d have an All Rights Reserved option only and make it easy for the photographer to be contacted for use. If you have any questions, let me know!
atstp
commented
2 years ago She covers a decent range of stuff, so I'll stick to her comments about what she will or won't contribute, and why.
If I were using the site I would click the All Rights Reserved option as a professional photographer …
I would not use a CC0 because I don’t agree with anyone using anyone’s photos for commercial purposes without compensation.
I'd guess that she's talking specifically about artful/creative photos? That's fair, and matches what we've talked about.
Editorial use gets a little muddier but that’s still a product (in my opinion) and permission should be asked of the photographer for that sort of use as well. At least with editorial use a photographer will typically be credited even if they are not being compensated. That being said, I think it’s always best to ask permission to use anyone’s content.
I've seen photos marked "editorial use only", but don't know the consequences. I'd need to get up to speed if this becomes part of the discussion.
I have uploaded a handful of photos to Mt Project but they were either beta photos or photos of myself which have no creative value.
Cool
I would never upload any photos I felt were creative to [Mountain Project] … But, if there were an option to protect the usage then I might add my higher quality images …
Good to know.
At least anecdotally, this (re)affirms a few things we've talked about:
We're working on a photo sharing feature (https://github.com/OpenBeta/open-tacos/issues/176) and would like to hear feedback from the community regarding photo licensing.
Registered users will be able to share photos and tag climbs/areas. Photos will be displayed on the user's profile and the respective climb/area page(s).
To keep things simple we decided to let the user/copyright holder pick 2 options:
Examples:
Photo licenses on Flickr: https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404078674324-Change-Your-Photo-s-License-in-Flickr
Please vote with 👍 or 👎 if you agree/disagree with the license choices presented aboce. And leave a comment if you have other ideas or suggestions. Thank you for your feedback.
Mockup
Examples
(c) All Rights Reserved
CC0
Edits: