[OSM-legal-talk] License Question

[Sam Larsen]

> 
> Many thanks for your comments Sam.
> 
> Unfortunately, unless we allow the  current developers to use the data
> without restriction then they will never  support an open database. I think
> the solution is to host the database on  sourceforge with an PDDL license and
> then automatically upload the data to  OSM. My hope would be that
> contributors maintain the open database so that  everyone benefits in future.

You either put the data in OSM or not.  If you automatically upload the data, 
does that imply that you are writing over previous automatic uploads made by 
yourselves?  If so, what happens when OSM users have added extra information to 
the previous uploaded data?  That would be quite a time consuming operation to 
ensure the datasets are synced.  Once you put your data into OSM it will 
inevitably be edited by OSM users then you will have two datasets that do not 
match.  I would advise putting it in (which means you go down the route of 
attribution & derived works on data use) or keep it seperate and just use OSM as 
a background map for your dataset.  I think it's a bit naive to think that OSM 
contributors will not have value to add to your dataset & if you then remove 
that value added data there will be many angry mappers ;)  I am sure a lot of 
this data is being added as we speak by eager mappers anyway, you will then have 
to manage the upload & remove duplicates etc...

In (& invest some time to manage the process well) or out.

Sam

> 
> All the best,
> 
> Kevin  
> 
> 
>