[talk-au] license change map

[Andrew Laughton]

In my opinion OSM will never recover to the same point that it is at today
if data is removed for the simple reason that most, if not all government
data will need to be removed, and there is no way that private mappers can
replace this as there are no physical markings on the ground, or water as
the case may be.

I am also kind of surprised at the attitude by some that seem to relish the
removal of data from OSM. There is no advantage to changing the license,
irrepearable damage if the license is changed.

People might remap areas for a different license, which on the face of it is
very petty, or they may simply add to data for a different mapping project,
which is inherently better due to extra data.

It is a bit like BSD and Linux.  Not many people are even aware that Apple
use BSD as their foundation, while Linux, Apple and anyone else can use any
part of BSD, BSD is by itself.  Linux started long after BSD, yet it is very
much stronger because of its license.

As soon as OSM delete the CC-by-SA data, a number of "forks" will appear,
including FOSM.  http://www.fosm.org/
There will be a shakedown period of about a year while different forks fight
for critical mass, then there will only be one.
The new project will include data from OSM, as well as a lot of CC-by-SA
data, making it the best map for public use in both the short and long
term.  OSM will only have a slight advantage in that OSM is better known,
but that advantage will quickly fade as the new project will be advertised
where ever it is used, while OSM will probably be rebranded by whoever uses
it.

The longer new uses do not have the option of a CC-by-SA license, the more
people will just not start mapping, and the ratio of public domain data to
CC-by-SA data will slightly drift towards the public domain simply due to
the lack of other new users using the CC-by-SA data license.

If OSM gave people a choice, both when adding data and when viewing maps, or
using the data in other ways, all of this in fighting would simply have no
point.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/attachments/20101121/7f738e1c/attachment.html>