[OSM-talk] geonames considered harmful

[SteveC]

* @ 22/08/06 09:55:49 AM g.hamwall at gmail.com wrote:
> Isn't the main problem that someone could use it to find a placename
> in the viewer, then switch to the editor and add a node at that
> location?

Yes

> On 22/08/06, Tom Carden <tom at tom-carden.co.uk> wrote:
> >On 21/08/06, Mikel Maron <mikel_maron at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Is that really necessary? I'm well aware that we want to remove any 
> >appearance of using licensed data. But in this case, the geonames data is 
> >not directly used in creating any OSM data, only as an aid to find cities.
> >>
> >
> >I'm with Mikel on this.  You're cutting off your geonose to spite your
> >OpenFaceMap.
> >
> >Just because geonames places might have been entered with Google Maps,
> >and therefore the license of the data is questionable, doesn't mean
> >that we can't use it on openstreetmap.org.  It just means we shouldn't
> >distribute it under CC or display data from it on a map we want to
> >distribute under CC.

No, it means we (and geonames) don't have a right to the data at all.

have fun,

SteveC steve at asklater.com http://www.asklater.com/steve/