[Openstreetmap] Re: [geo-coord] minifesto, round N

[Jo Walsh]

On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 11:49:02PM +0200, Petter Reinholdtsen wrote:
> > "I will sign the manifesto for Open Access to State-Collected
> > Geospatial Data when complete and give £10 toward helping projects
> > creating open geospatial data but only if 50 other people will too."
> 
> Why does the manifesto limit the access to non-commercial use?  

I have tried, i hope, not to state or mandate that, but only to
suggest and mention: 

[[
Online mapping projects creating freely reusable geodata should offer
a compatible open license.

The OpenStreetmap project offers its growing body of data under an
Attribution-Sharealike license, which allows any kind of re-use of the
data providing that derived works are also released into the public
domain. 
]]

> I believe it would be good for the society if the map data was available
> for free for everyone to use freely, and not only non-commercial use.
> A lot of interesting services might never see the light of day if the
> data isn't available for commercial use too.

Well, there is nothing in Attribution-Sharealike that precludes
commercial use. Alternative licensing schemes could be harsher. I
understand that not everyone is prepared to *potentially* give up the
right to commercialise distribution. People in the current climate are
in an IP standoff as regards data they 'own' or have collected, and have 
to treat it as restricted in valuable because everyone else would.

I don't know what to suggest, other than that the ongoing license
conversation seems to be healthy and that i only want to be able to
offer models to recommend, rather than prescriptions, in the
minifesto...

i notice that our pledgebank pledge, http://www.pledgebank.com/geodata
, is not really setting the world alight in the way that, say
http://www.pledgebank.com/rights seems to be. Publicity means a lot i
suppose, blog-mileage, but i'd be reluctant to try to do that until
people stop asking questions like this and we reach a plausible
resolution. cheers, Petter

 
-jo
http://space.frot.org/talks/osgeo/ground_up/osm_license.png