[talk-au] Fwd: [OSM-talk] Existing data

[John Smith]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>
Date: 14 November 2010 11:58
Subject: [OSM-talk] Existing data
To: OpenStreetMap talk mailing list <talk at openstreetmap.org>


Can some one check my logic please, and note I am not advocating that
someone should do it only that we should think about the implications
before it happens.

Today OSM is licensed in a way that means in round terms you can
basically do whatever you like with it.

The new system will be licensed to say much the same but there seems
to be a proposal floating around to delete the existing data.

The end users basically are only interested in obtaining an .OSM
format file or going to a web site that displays the map.  They don't
need to connect to the original underlying database, his is very
important, a copy will do for them just as well.

So let's assume that someone takes a back up of the existing database.
Planet file?  then merges in the new database, perhaps the tags or any
roads that don't exist before to create a merged database.  I don't
see anything to prevent this from happening.

Now will end users prefer to look at the combined data or to look at a
map from the new license database which only contains a subset of the
data from the combined database?  Judging by the graphical displays of
the map under different licenses this will be a small subset in many
cases.

It will be interesting to see what Mapquest and Bing do if substantial
amounts of the map are deleted for having the wrong license.  In other
words how relevant will the new database containing only data licensed
under the new system be?

Cheerio John

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