[OSM-legal-talk] Reverse-Engineering Maps and Share-Alike Licences

[Lars Aronsson]

Andy Allan wrote:

> I think without the reverse engineering clause, you may as well 
> make it PD in the first place..

The previous thread abuses the language.  The term "reverse 
engineering" (as used in discussions about GPL or patents) means 
to break up a box to see how things work on the inside, to derive 
the engineering drawing (or editable source code) from the 
physical object (or from a software binary). OpenStreetMap doesn't 
have any closed box that needs to be broken.  All is open source.  
We hide no secrets.

What you're talking about here is various ways to circumvent the 
licensing.  And if we were to allow that, we could just as well 
put everything in the public domain, as Andy said.  But that is 
not "reverse engineering".


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se