[OSM-talk] open data

[Tom Carden]

On 22/09/06, Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:
> Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>
> > On 21 Sep 2006, at 22:48, Lars Aronsson wrote:
> > > This is where you're mistaken.  If OSM wasn't here to promote
> > > copyleft, all data would have been given to the public domain.
> >
> > As ever, Lars, I like your idealism, but I don't think that's supported
> > by history.
>
> It's not my idealism, it's Steve's.  He set up OSM to use CC-SA-BY
> (or something to that effect) long before I entered this project.
> Many others, including Etienne and myself, have been far more open
> towards using the public domain.  Some hard core copyleftists (Imi
> comes to mind) have helped Steve to hold on to the original
> licensing.  And I still don't see how this is going to change. The
> result is that OSM uses and thus promotes copyleft, online and in
> print.  You can like that or not, but it is a fact.
>

Ahem.  I think "helped Steve to hold on" sounds a bit loaded there,
Lars.  I don't think it's fair to imply that he wants to hold onto
this license or that license - far from it.  At one point Steve
proposed that forking the project and starting again under public
domain licensing would solve most/all of the issues we've raised in
this thread (getting on for 100 messages!).  Someone with a particular
copyleft bias wouldn't suggest such a thing for debate, would they?

Best,

Tom.