[OSM-talk] OSM composer not open source?

[David Murn]

On Sat, 2010-05-01 at 07:52 +0100, Richard Fairhurst wrote:
>  > Can I advertise anything I want on the wiki? I know that flossk
>  > our group in Kosovo has guidelines on non free software
> 
> Good for your group in Kosovo. Maybe the fact that "flossk" has "FLOSS" 
> in the name, and OSM doesn't, might give you a clue there. OSM is an 
> open data project, not a free software project.

This has come up at an interesting point for me, as Im considering
spending a bit of time contributing to OSM coding efforts over the next
couple of months due to being laid up after surgery.  Ive been a 'free'
software user and coder for over a decade almost exclusively dedicating
my efforts to opensource/'free' software.

I had been considering making all my contributions to OSM, thinking that
'open' in OSM means the same as 'open' in open-source, ie. you can use
my software and my changes, but if you derive anything from my work, you
cannot impose restrictions above and beyond the licence the content was
released under.

My whole reason for dedicating efforts to OSM, rather than other
projects such as google mapmaker, is due to the forced openness which
every user/member has to comply with.  If I wanted to be part of a
pseudo-free map project, Id go back to google, but I like the thought
that if I release/create data under one licence, someone cannot come
along and use that code or data in their proprietary software.

Of course, this is assuming that you really did mean your comment about
OSM being only about the data and not about the software, which I can
only assume you dont?

If all that hurts your head, it hurts my head just as much seeing
closed-source software promoted by a site whos sole purpose is the
freedom of information.

David