[OSM-talk] License

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

 > I've never advocated going public domain, just letting the foundation
 > have a choice over future licensing, rather than fix ourselves to a
 > single license now, particularly as that license is incompatible with
 > npemaps postcode collection system.

I must say I find this license stuff utterly disgusting. I know that we 
have to deal with it somehow, to avoid being ripped of or at least to 
make that less likely. But while trying to play it safe, we create all 
kinds of pitfalls for others. It is exactly the same with our not being 
able to take data from GPLed sources. Those who put their stuff under 
GPL surely wouldn't object to our using their data, they just chose the 
GPL to be on the safe side and look what happens - their efforts are 
worth nothing to us just because of stupid legalities.

I'd rather have a few people earning money from work I have done and 
neither giving me money nor attribution, than keep a few people who are 
just like me, building interesting stuff on the net, from using my work.

For what it's worth, I hereby declare all my past and future 
contributions to the OpenStreetMap project to be in the public domain. I 
don't like the idea of intellectual property for geographic data anyway.

(Come to think of it, since until now I have - presumably by default - 
used the CC-BY-SA license for my contributions to OSM, is OSM allowed to 
use my data without attributing it to me? Ah, it's all a waste of time, 
whichever way you turn it, endless legal discourse ensues. Let's go 
mapping instead.)

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'