[OSM-talk] Wikipedia POI import?

[Lars Aronsson]

Russ Nelson wrote:

> Or OpenStreetMap data.  How would you know?  Perhaps TA and N have  
> easter eggs.  Just to make things interesting, there are many  
> potential sources of the Wikipedia coordinates.  It's quite possible  
> that you would have both TA and N claiming that they own all of  
> Wikipedia coordinates?

Yes, in theory.  But it is still unlikely that they would take 
action against Wikipedia, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and 
doesn't compete with or replace the business of these mapping 
companies.  And even if they would take legal action and Wikipedia 
would had to remove all their coordinates, this would only be a 
limited damage to Wikipedia. It would still be an encyclopedia 
with all the text and images.

It is much more likely that commercial mapping companies (or 
national survey agencies) would see OpenStreetMap as a threat, and 
any legal process against OpenStreetMap would put the entire 
project at risk.

So even if I think the current policy is a bit paranoid, there 
certainly are good arguments for it.  (The fact that I'm paranoid 
doesn't mean there is no conspiracy.)

>    o Wikipedia editors are instructed to use Google Maps thus 
> their geodata is potentially infringing.

These instructions are mere wiki pages, written by other users.
It's not an endorsement from the Wikimedia Foundation.


-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se