[OSM-talk] geonames.org

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi Marc,

    I understand your point(s) and I like the approach taken by 
geonames.org. The whole map data issue is full of people claiming 
copyright where they have none, allowing their users something and 
making them contravene their ToU at the same time (like Google's API 
having the ability to set markers but at the same time you're not 
allowed to use them) etc.

geonames.org deserves credit for standing up against "FUD"; you're doing 
the right thing(tm) and have my support.

You must understand however that OSM is not about doing the right thing; 
OSM is about creating free maps. OSM is going to be an outright rival to 
established mapping providers and sooner or later some of them will 
start looking for ways to disrupt OSM. Even if these attempts are 
without merit morally, they can still hurt the project.

So, OSM tends to take a subservient stance when dealing with people who 
claim to have a copyright or have restrictive terms of use, in order to 
minimize areas where it could be attacked - even if there are serious 
doubts about those copyrights.

Some people chose rather elitist wording when describing this situation. 
  We would love to derive data from Google the same way as you do (and 
personally, I think your arguments would stand in court - Google cannot 
offer an API that is there for deriving positions and then claim people 
must not use it); but we're not willing to risk legal action, so we 
cannot do it - and some obviously compensate this frustration by 
painting OSM as something "superior" to other efforts who take a more 
combative stance. This leads to statements like "geonames.org considered 
harmful". geonames.org is doing a great job and it is nobody's intention 
to diminish that.

As someone else has pointed out, our legal-talk list is a good place to 
have these discussions but on the other hand, everything has been said 
already ;-)

Bye
Frederik

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