[OSM-talk] Why the BSD vs GPL debate is irrelevant to OSM

[andrzej zaborowski]

2009/12/11 Shalabh <shalabh.w at gmail.com>:
> Ok, heres a question I have been meaning to ask for long. What is the big
> deal if the big, bad G takes a chunk of data from OSM and uses it? Do I
> care? No. If anything, I would be happy that we created something worthy to
> be used by a corporation. As long as they dont restrict me from using data
> on OSM, which they in no way cant, I dont have a problem. If they dont 'give
> back' to the community, big deal!!

It is a big deal to me, it's some kind of dream of a better world
where practically all geospatial data (also software if you're a FOSS
programmer) has to be free if you want to tap into the huge knowledge
base all humanity has built till now.  You can already see big closed
software companies stay behind because they can't use my favourite
GPL-licensed library, they have to reimplement everything from scratch
while everyone else uses the free version and adds their own creations
to this ever-growing base.  It's a virus.

Google has a lot of data and are good at getting more, be it official
or crowdsourced.  It would be a huge loss for the collective knowledge
of everyone if this data escapes the virus.  I can't afford that loss,
maybe you can.

Cheers