[OSM-legal-talk] Attempt to clarify
Gervase Markham
gerv at gerv.net
Wed Feb 20 22:51:21 GMT 2008
Ian Sergeant wrote:
> Gerv wrote on 21/02/2008 09:09:07 AM:
>
>> I have no desire to become unpaid labour for someone else's business.
>
> There are so many business models for which you will be unpaid labour,
> under the proposed licence.
This is true. Thank you for getting me to investigate my feelings
further. Let me try again.
When I write free software, everyone gets to use it and I don't get any
money. That's fine. I love my users. I wish them all the best. What
would bug me is if people improved it, and those users don't get the
benefit of the improvements. It's a similar sentiment here.
Now, I don't have perfect knowledge, so if someone improves it but tells
no-one, there's not much I can do. But if they improve it, and then
start charging my users for their improvements which were based on
something I wrote, that would make me unhappy. I don't feel this is
fair. (I know others may disagree.)
Similarly, if people want to use OSM data to make maps, that's fine. But
if they want to use OSM data plus their data to make *better* maps, I
want to be able to make better maps too, and I want other OSM users to
be able to make better maps as well. Now, it may be that what can be
achieved with the law doesn't exactly match up with this principle. But
share-alike in some situations is better than none.
Gerv
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