[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap License Change Phase 3 Pre-Announcement

[Lester Caine]

Dermot McNally wrote:
> So let's see which point of view ends up mainstream and which belongs
> to a dissenting minority. So far, as I look at the volume of map data,
> as I look at the vast majority of the people who have built and
> maintained the map and the infrastructure on which it runs, what I see
> is people who, sometimes with misgivings, are throwing their weight
> behind the licence change. Among such people I see unity of purpose.

While the 'public domain' tick box is a small olive branch, I still feel 
'railroaded' rather than 'convinced' that what is now being pushed is the 
correct way forward. I would have preferred the option to 'reluctant accept' 
rather than 'agree to' since this is NOT a simple yes/no question, but then what 
do you do if the majority are reluctant :(

I totally understand WHY a change needed to be made, and to my simple mind that 
is to prevent some large commercial operation hijacking the data totally legally 
in the future. But to be honest I can't see what is stopping them simply doing 
that today, apart from the fact that they will get more bad press than good? 
Does this new licence actually make any difference to anything?

The whole database should be public domain, and any third party pushing 
'commercial' data into that should understand that. Even the UK government have 
now accepted that we should have free access to this sort of data, so my own 
'need' for OSM has been somewhat diluted since I have an open alternative. I was 
looking at mirroring my own copy of OSM, but the OS data gives me the facilities 
I need with less hassle.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php