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<FONT FACE="MS Shell Dlg" DEFAULT="FACE"><FONT SIZE="1" POINTSIZE="8" DEFAULT="SIZE">On Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:48:17 +0100, andrzej zaborowski wrote:<BR>
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>2009/12/11 Shalabh <<FONT COLOR=0000ff><U>shalabh.w@gmail.com<FONT COLOR=000000 DEFAULT="COLOR"></U>>:<BR>
>> Ok, heres a question I have been meaning to ask for long. What is the big<BR>
>> deal if the big, bad G takes a chunk of data from OSM and uses it? Do I<BR>
>> care? No. If anything, I would be happy that we created something worthy to<BR>
>> be used by a corporation. As long as they dont restrict me from using data<BR>
>> on OSM, which they in no way cant, I dont have a problem. If they dont 'give<BR>
>> back' to the community, big deal!!<BR>
><BR>
>It is a big deal to me, it's some kind of dream of a better world<BR>
>where practically all geospatial data (also software if you're a FOSS<BR>
>programmer) has to be free if you want to tap into the huge knowledge<BR>
>base all humanity has built till now. You can already see big closed<BR>
>software companies stay behind because they can't use my favourite<BR>
>GPL-licensed library, they have to reimplement everything from scratch<BR>
>while everyone else uses the free version and adds their own creations<BR>
>to this ever-growing base. It's a virus.<BR>
<BR>
But it would appear that what is bad for "closed software companies" is also bad for government.<BR>
<BR>
(At least where there is a culture of corporations, I guess) government cannot be seen to be discriminatory to "closed software companies" or closed companies of any description really. Is government the good guys or the bad guys for you?<BR>
<BR>
>Google has a lot of data and are good at getting more, be it official<BR>
>or crowdsourced. It would be a huge loss for the collective knowledge<BR>
>of everyone if this data escapes the virus. I can't afford that loss,<BR>
>maybe you can.<BR>
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What is being lost though?<BR>
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Brendan<BR>
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