On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Frederik Ramm <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org">frederik@remote.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Hi,<br>
<br>
I would like to counter another often-repeated misconception about<br>
PD (or CC0, or BSD) licenses, namely that these licenses are better for<br>
business because they allow businesses to do what they want.<br>
<br>
The matter arose in the follwoing exchange here on talk:<br>
<br>
> As I've said many times before, if you thought about it for 2<br>
> seconds it would be much better to move OSM to PD or CC0 for<br>
> ***** and all the other companies so we could do what we like<br>
> with the data.<br>
><br>
> Yeah, but it'd be a *lot* better for some of "the other companies"<br>
> (like, maybe 10^100) than it would be for *****.<br>
<br>
It doesn't matter who said this because it is an idea that many people<br>
in OSM seem to share: Do PD and big business will love you because they<br>
can rip you off; do share-alike and be protected from such rip-off.<br></blockquote><div><br>That definitely wasn't what I said.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I fact, restrictions often provide a competitive advantage for business.<br></blockquote><div><br>"Competitive advantage" is in fact exactly what I was talking about. Restrictions can serve to benefit one company (which we'll call *****), compared to another company (which we'll call 10^100).<br>
<br>Or we can just come right out and name names. Google has built a business around mixing public domain data with its own proprietary improvements. Cloudmade has build a business around "provid[ing] professional services around open mapdata". If everyone who improves map data has to share their improvements (with improvements defined a way that doesn't include the types of improvements which Cloudmade makes, namely Produced Works), Google loses, and Cloudmade, at worst, isn't affected at all.<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Less restrictions favour individuals.</blockquote><div><br>Less restrictions favor some individuals, sometimes, depending on what those restrictions are. This isn't an "individuals vs. corporations" thing. Let's not get too commie here, okay?<br>
</div></div>