[OSM-legal-talk] Share alike

[Ed Avis]

Martijn van Exel <m <at> rtijn.org> writes:

>"If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the
>resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one."

>Consider this case: someone wants to use OpenStreetMap data augmented with POIs
>from a closed source in a routing application. This routing application is then
>used within the company for which it is built, for commercial purposes.  Do the
>POIs need to be released under CC-BY-SA?

It depends on whether the company needs permission to use the OSM data in their
own routing program.  Whatever program you use with OSM, the data will
inevitably be mixed and interacted with data from other sources, even if that
other data is just the program text or routing configuration.  We normally accept
that doing this kind of processing does not require additional permission from
the copyright holder, otherwise nobody would be able to do anything by computer.

But more than that, the licence text itself refers to 'distributing' the work,
not just using it.  If they wanted to make a combined map of OSM+POIs and give
or sell it to others, then yes it must be under CC-BY-SA.  If they just use it
internally, that's their business.

IANAL but this is my understanding and I believe also the community norm.

-- 
Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com>