[OSM-legal-talk] PD vs SA: The eternal battle

[Joseph Gentle]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 12:06 PM, 80n <80n80n at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I like so view OSM as a cool DIY project, not a political trick we're
>> pulling.
>
> The problem with PD is that it permits companies to take OSM data, add their
> own data and benefit from result without giving anything back.  Joseph's bus
> company could take OSM's PD data, add its own bus stops and publish the
> mobile app that Joseph wants.  There is no incentive for them to make their
> bus stop data available.  They gain and everyone else loses.
>
> Do you really feel comfortable about that happening?

Absolutely.

You seem to want to give them these choices:
1.  They could draw their own proprietry map (or get a teleatlas
license or something)
2.  They could abandon the project completely
3.  They could release all their transport data

>From talking to them, I have learned that they would rather abandon
the project completely than release the data. (They don't see much
value in the project, but they think they can sell their bus data)

Which option would you prefer? They abandon the iphone bus project,
they duplicate mapping effort and create another map or they could
give funding to teleatlas?

I would prefer they used our free maps. Especially since the 'local
bus company' in question is my local state government.

You say 'everyone else is worse off' if they use a PD map. It seems
like the bus company wins - they have more passengers. The passengers
win - they can learn about the busses more easily. The environment
wins (less cars on the road). And the map wins. It gets more
visibillity. Less time and effort goes to proprietry maps. More people
have a vested interest in making the mapping data accurate. In time,
the bus company will probably contribute some data to the map to
correct mistakes and whatnot. It seems to me like everyone wins.

Apple was in a similar situation. They chose to use freebsd (a
PD-style OS). They use it in the underlying layers of Macosx. They are
one of the most vicious, control-freak companies you'll find these
days. Even though they don't have to, they contribute heaps of code
back to freebsd.

Given that apple was never going to open-source all of macosx, what
would you rather they do?

Is freebsd worse off because apple uses their product? No. Its much
much better off.

-J

> 80n
>