[OSM-talk] Wikipedia POI import?

[Adam Schreiber]

On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 2:47 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> Thomas Wood wrote:
>> Unverified and somewhat copyrightable sources.
>
> While I'm not the greatest fan of Wikipedia myself, I think that we
> should stop perpetuating such unjustified and unfair criticism.
>
> Like us, Wikipedia relies on a large user base, and they do a lot to
> educate these users about copyright. Their sources are no less
> "verified" than ours. They take a different stance on deriving data from
>  Google et al., but this is just a different interpretation of existing
> law than the one we apply. Wikipedia is not encouraging copyright
> violation, they have just mapped out a different course through what is
> a grey and murky area.
>
> Our approach is more cautious than Wikipedia's, but that does not make
> us "better" or "cleaner", and it would do us all good to respect
> Wikipedians' decisions in their realm instead of telling everyone how
> they are basically pirates.
>
>> Where's ShakespeareFan00 when you need him? :)
>
> That poor guy has been told by some self-important OSMers that Wikimapia
> was an unacceptable source, and they somehow forgot to say that this is
> just the OSM interpretation. SFan00 dutifully started removing Wikimapia
> references from Wikipedia ("they're unacceptable, you know"), and ended
> up on the receiving end of a lot of justified Wikipedians' anger.
>
> Please: Wikimapia, or even Wikipedia or OpenAerialMap may be on the
> other side of *our* definition of acceptable, but that does not make
> them any less free, or make them second-rate projects. It is time to
> bury that childish "but we are cleaner than you" rivalry.

I wouldn't say what they've done is unacceptable and works for them.
I just think there's a difference between 1,000,000 wikipedia editors
each deriving one point from a copyrighted source and us whole sale
importing those 1,000,000 points.

Cheers,

Adam