[OSM-talk] OSM composer not open source?

[Ulf Lamping]

Am 01.05.2010 09:42, schrieb David Murn:
> 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.

This is a free map data project, not an OSS has to rule the world 
project. With your logic, we would have to ban any Windows based 
software from OSM, any Garmin based binary maps and so on.

Remember: You can use proprietary software on top of Linux. Is Linux a 
pseudo-free OS project then?

> 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?

You're mixing things up. Richard writes OSS software (e.g. the online 
editor Potlatch that starts when you press the "Edit" button), I'm 
writing OSS (e.g. small parts of JOSM).

Most at OSM *love* to see OSS for manipulating/rendering/using our map 
data and most of the OSM developers are writing only free software. But 
if there's a proprietary solution available we don't hide it from our 
map data users.

Regards, ULFL