[Openstreetmap] update

Richard Fairhurst richard at systemeD.net
Fri Feb 10 09:10:02 GMT 2006


Hi all,

Oliver wrote:

> If nobody has voiced an opinion on this, then I'll say that cc-nc would
> make our data much less useful than cc-by-sa

...and others contributed similarly.

I'll set out my personal stall on this first of all. I would ideally like OSM
data to be as public domain as possible. No non-commercial restriction, no
share-alike restriction, nothing. Just: Here's some great data which we've
enjoyed making. Go and do wondrous things with it.

But we have a problem.

OSM ain't free to run. Servers, bandwidth, and (inevitably, I think, at some
point) full-time staff: _we_ need to pay for all of them. We need all this to
be able to create and edit the data. But those outside the project who might
want to use the data don't need the technology at all - well, apart 
from enough
CPU power to download it once. And as the data inevitably, marvellously grows,
this is much more likely to happen.

So we have the weird position where those who make the data could end up
subsidising those who profit from it. Go figure.

CC-NC is one way around this and I can understand why it's been 
suggested. It's
also a bit of a blunt instrument, for the reasons Oliver, Lars and Christopher
have suggested. But frankly, there probably is no single licence out there
that meets our needs.

(IMO, CC licences are for literary/creative works, the GPL is for 
software, and
neither are suitable for geodata. For starters, we need some serious 
clarity on
what constitutes a "derivative work" under Share-Alike. Let's say you use some
OSM data in a small map on your website. Do you then have to release the
content of your whole site under CC-BY-SA?

Or say you do a Google Maps-type mashup of some nice civic information that
you've scrounged out of the Government - but you place the points on OSM data,
not gmaps. Is this forbidden because the civic data isn't sharealike/PD?)

Maybe we're going about this arse-about-face. Maybe it would be better to set
out what we actually want our licence to do, _then_ decide which one 
best meets
our needs - or (whisper) write our own.

cheers
Richard





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