[OSM-talk] Allowed ? GSoC'09

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

rajan vaish wrote:
> Hi,I am working on my proposal for GSoC'09 right now and for the routing
> implementation tasks ,I intend to use Libraries/APIs of CloudMade (
> http://developers.cloudmade.com/ ) which works on OSM as well.Am I allowed
> to use the same ?

I don't see why not.

It is true that CloudMade say you may use their site "solely for your 
personal use", whereas Google say any software you produce must be 
licensed under an OSI approved license (i.e. you cannot produce software 
licensed as "only for personal use").

But you can simply pass on this restriction to the users of your 
software: The software you make is free for use/inspection/modification 
by anybody as per the OSI compliant license you choose, but if people 
then use your software to access the CloudMade site then they may only 
do so for their personal use.

As you correctly point out, the situation is similar to GSoc students 
writing software that interacts with Google Maps.

Whether or not the OSM project accepts and endorses a proposal for a 
GSoC project that will only work using the services of CloudMade (which 
are outside the control of the OSM project) is of course another matter, 
but I guess if it is something seriously cool then nobody will ask many 
questions.

I believe that CloudMade used to have a developer sponsorship programme 
of their own where they handed out grants for the development of 
OSM-related software, so that might be another avenue for you to follow 
up (but you should really ask them directly as it has been a while since 
this was last mentioned).

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"