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

[Jonathan Harley]

Rob Myers wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 2:49 AM, Joseph Gentle <josephg at gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>> And the map wins. It gets more visibillity.
> 
> The promise that someone will hold you in higher esteem if you abandon
> your principles rarely works out.

I don't think this issue is anything to do with esteem, but what
principle here are you asserting we would be abandoning? The principle
that if commercial companies use OSM data, they must be forced to give
away their proprietary data as well? If so, that's not a principle I
share.

>> Less time and effort goes to proprietry maps. More people
>> have a vested interest in making the mapping data accurate.
> 
> There's a difference between people coming to expect that you will do
> work for them for free and people learning that they can contribute to
> the project.

I find it hard to believe that commercial enterprises would be
comfortable with the obvious risk of depending on an unpaid community
to work for them, *especially* if they weren't contributing to it.
Any commercial user of OSM will have a vested interest not only in
contributing to its accuracy, but in being *seen* to contribute.

[...]
> Community projects should not serve as random acts of kindness or
> distributed potlatch for corporations and local government. They
> should serve the community.

I disagree, community projects (like everyone else) *should* practice
random acts of kindness. And I believe the OSM community would be
better served by being more business-friendly. If only half of the
commercial users of OSM choose to contribute back, we'll still be
better off for their contributions. Which we won't get if we scare
them away with "if you use OSM, we can force you to give away stuff
you paid for".


Jonathan.
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