I feel a better outcome could have been reached by alternative solutions short of full ownership transfer, e.g. a foundation sponsord by FB and possibly others with a clear mandate to manage the infrastructure and grant access for both commercial and non-commercial use. FB would still have had access to the data, but we as contributors wouldn’t be made to feel silly volunteering for Facebook Inc., one of the richest tech companies on this planet and perhaps the one with the worst reputation (bad reputation that is quite unrelated to its engagement with OSM, publication of nicely licensed geo datasets, etc.)
Even in this alternative scenario (it’s not too late, lovely folks at Mapillary and now FB, think it through!), the contents contributed by volunteers would still be available to FB and to all others, but we would be in the position to say “oh, we’re mapping the planet for the benefit of all”.
I know that in theory this is true even under the FB deal as briefly described in that post, but it doesn’t feel the same… and feelings do matter, if you want people to volunteer their time and resources. This is exceptionally problematic due to the (deservedly) bad reputation that FB has, in particular among those who feel unconfortable with concentration of power in the hands of few big tech companies… which I suppose must be part of the reason why many of us contribute to Mapillary, otherwise we’d probably be taking pics for Google Street View, if at all.
Openly licensed street-level imagery is important. Mapillary and FB can still get this right. But more transparency in this phase, clear legally binding long-term commitments, and keeping as much distance as possible from FB even while remaining under that umbrella (and ideally, under a separate umbrella), should be part of it.
From that blog post it doesn’t seem that Mapillary’s management understands just how difficult it feels for Mapillary contributors to say: “We’re volunteering our free time and resources taking geolocated pics for Facebook Inc.”. The new licensing seems right, and indeed better than the previous, so this characterisation wouldn’t be quite correct, but that’s still how it feels.
I hope they get this right and won’t let go to waste the incredible amount of goodwill that has been demonstrated by Mapillary contributors in recent years.