[OSM-talk] OSM composer not open source?

[jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com]

I agree with you on many points,

1. Yes, of course the data should be free to be used however people
want. (in accordance with the restrictions on derived works). There
can be no coupling of data and software. that would be evil. There
should be no GPLED wire formats or the like.

2. The Software should be free, and I have no problems with the mix of
licenses that I see in OSM. It is fine that some people want to use
different licenses, and everyone has their own reasons. Ideally you
should be able to use the software for propriety data and creative
commons data.

But there is also another aspect, and that is the websites and the
policies of usage of them.

My idea is pretty simple, if you want to have propriety software,
please host it somewhere else. If you cannot host it on any of the
free software hosting sites because you want to have a restrictive
license, then please host it on a normal site, but you will have to
pay for bandwidth or have some type of advertising etc. There are many
webpages for hosting your propriety data and files.

It is however confusing to see propriety software being hosted on some
site with a name like *.openstreetmap.* .

thanks,
mike

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Serge Wroclawski <emacsen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 3:46 AM, jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com
> <jamesmikedupont at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Me too!
>> Maybe someday we will have to make a librestreetmap fork of project
>> with stricter licenses policies for the software and better policies
>> for the wiki.
>
> Mike,
>
> I'm a long time Free Software advocate/writing and a member of the FSF
> (in that I pay dues).
>
> And as far as writing software is concerned, I agree wholeheartedly
> with you that software should be free, and given the choice between
> Free and non-free software, I encourage people to use the Free
> Software, and discourage people from writing non-free software.
>
> That said, as far as I know, no Free software project has ever put in
> its license that there's a requirement for data accessed via an API or
> via a data format be made available under any specific license
> requirements.
>
> In other words, Apache doesn't say that you must use Firefox, and
> OpenOffice.org doesn't say you must use OpenOffice, or Abiword, etc.
>
> I think that even the most ardent Free Software person would argue
> that these terms would be a net negative against the project. Free
> Software is about giving the users freedoms[1], but it's always been
> made clear that calls made "at arms length" and data exchange formats
> are not subject to the terms of the license.
>
> As for the sentiment in general, OpenStreetMap has two general
> definitions. The first is the most strict- it's that OpenStreetMap is
> the database, and just the database. The second is that OpenStreetMap
> is the database, the web site, the tools (Postgis, Mapnik, etc.).
>
> It's easy to see where the lines can be muddled. It's my understanding
> that the OSMF only produces Free Software, it also encourages the use
> of OSM to a larger audience, and that may mean non-Free software.
> That's okay. That's part of our ecosystem of partners. So long as the
> various organizations and individuals comply with the license, this is
> okay.
>
> Arguing for yet stricter license requirements seems silly when there
> are parts of our existing population which find the license too
> restrictive[2]. And I can tell you, as a Free Software supporter, that
> if there were a project which dictated terms of use on remote APIs or
> data exchange formats, I'd be pretty turned off myself.
>
> - Serge
>
> [1] Placing minimal restrictions when necessary to ensure those
> freedoms, such as in the GPL.
>
> [2] They are in favor of something more akin to Public Domain or CC0.
>