[OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Anthony]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 8:07 AM, Nick Whitelegg
<Nick.Whitelegg at solent.ac.uk> wrote:
> I'd say Google's data quality is poorer, in the sense that
> many features are simply not there (you try finding an urban footpath or a
> rural path on Google), or footpaths are sometimes shown as roads, etc.

Yep, OSM will probably be king of the (global, vectorized) micromaps
for a long time to come.  And in my opinion it'll likely never be able
to compete with the likes of Google in terms of massive database
imports.

So that's why I don't see a marriage ever happening so long as the OSM
database is copylefted.  One possible exception to that is if Google
figures out a way to mix its proprietary data with OSM's free data
without triggering the share-alike clause.  And if that happens, it'd
probably be good for everyone - Google most likely would still
contribute back modifications it makes to the actual OSM data, they
just wouldn't release everything (much of which is not even copyright
by them) under a free license.

I'm actually not sure quite how to apply copyleft to geodata.  If I
overlay a proprietary aerial photograph with OSM data, assuming I have
permission from the copyright holder of the aerial photograph, am I
violating CC-BY-SA, because I don't (and legally cannot) release the
derivative work under CC-BY-SA?  To the extent geodata can be
copyrighted in the first place, I don't see how I'm not.  That makes
the data fairly useless for Google's purposes.