[Strategic] Fwd: Subject: Forks and such

[andrzej zaborowski]

Hi,

On 30 August 2010 18:28, Jim Brown <jim at cloudmade.com> wrote:
> When I said that the amount of "USABLE data is the amount in a single
> database" I mean it literally...  At any given time, the total data you can
> use for anything is limited to a single database.  Having multiple data sets
> is a binary condition where choosing one excludes using the others.

No, often times you don't choose, the choice is already made by your
project requirements and many other factors.  If there's no generic
dataset compatible with some very specific piece of data that you have
and want to integrate it with, then you're screwed.

There is a big range of possible share-alike licenses (to use an
example) none of which is compatible with any other in this set of
licenses, one of the weaknesses of share-alike.  OSMF now switches
licenses opening new possibilities for ODbL users (of which currently
there aren't any or there are very few).  At the same time it wants to
pull the plug on all current end users, who had a need for a CC-By-SA
geo-facts database.  There's no need for that and there is clearly a
gain in having sources under many licenses.  (Yes, the task is more
difficult than making just a very narrow range of users happy)

Cheers