[Openstreetmap] Re: OSM License and debian

Petter Reinholdtsen pere at hungry.com
Mon May 23 08:25:57 BST 2005


[Schuyler Erle]
> Realistically, we're going to have gigabytes, if not terabytes of
> data before we're satisfied. Therefore I think that the idea of
> "distributing" OSM data with any OS or OS distro is probably not
> worth considering.

I believe this is a misunderstanding.  I expect some to make reduced
data sets for use as the default data set included in GIS software, to
make sure the program is able to demonstrate its worth even without a
network connection.  If one want to distribute a program with such
data set within Debian, the license of the data set need to be
acceptable by the distribution.

> Many apps that ship with Debian do not ship the data via APT
> directly (thinking msttcorefonts, or any Java VM here) but instead
> ship an installer that allows the user to decide whether or not to
> accept the license of that software or data and obtain the binary
> data themselves, thus sidestepping the redistribution issues
> involved in "having" our data in Debian APT.

There are some free java VMs (kaffe, sablevm, etc).  SUN Java is a bad
example as its license prohibit distribution if alternative Java VMs
are distributed as well.

msttcorefonts is a good example of a "free" package depending on
non-free data.  Because of this, msttcorefonts is not in debian/main,
and it break every time Microsoft change the location of the fonts,
and might become useless in the future if Microsoft decides to change
the licensing.  It is not usable free software.  Packages in Debian
which are not in debian/main are often not automatically built on all
archs (how could they, their dependencies are not available), and as a
result get less testing.  And, as all the pieces to maintain them is
unavailable for some users, it is harder to get people to contribute.





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