[Openstreetmap] The bigger picture

[Immanuel Scholz]

> On 2/14/06, Immanuel Scholz <immanuel.scholz at gmx.de> wrote:
>> To make my point clear:
>>
>> I don't see OSM as a platform to provide companies cheap input for their
>> commercial, proprietary applications. (And "company" is not relative to
>> me. There is no "xxx Euro" threshold possible. If OSM itself make
>> commercial use of its own data, OSM is a company.)
>
> What about not-for-profit use,

Declined.

"Not for profit" is not enough for me. I want "free as in freedom" ;-)
That's what keeps me with OSM (and what lured me to it in the first place).


> with a healthy turnover?

I won't sell freedom, sorry. "Healthy turnover" is not a lure for me. If
the contributor has a problem with the idea of "free", then we have a
problem.

(A side effect: Giving in with this means encouraging contributors that
"have a problem with the idea of free".)


> What about if it pays staff a competitive rate for their work?

If the data this staff create become free (in this case: CC-SA), it is ok
if someone get paid for it, I don't care. ;-)

But if someone try to convince me, that nothing can be done on
"viral-freedom"-effected license and that we must sell some of our souls
and allow "some more freedom (as in beer)" to be successfull, I point to
the whole GPL'd open source community and decline. ;-)


Ciao, Imi.

PS: Well, I don't want to do "just another GPL vs. BSD discussion" again.
This looks to me like we are getting into exactly this. So I will try not
to post too much on this anymore and await the community decision. I hope
it is CC-SA, but since I did not contributed any data so far (only some
nodes which were only for testing JOSM), I have no vote in this as a
"copyright holder". ;-)

PPS: Why would a contributor donate resources to OSM if his donation
become free? Maybe he don't want to maintain the data in the future? Steve
spoke about a company that delivers letters in London and contributed,
because they hope that OSM will maintain their map data and so they get to
free and accurate data.. sounds resonable to me :).