[OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities

[Mike N]

On 4/11/2011 11:41 AM, Ian Dees wrote:
> When Google turns Google MapMaker on in the US and Europe*, it will
> become much harder to recruit new mappers to our community (that is
> already quite small). Being passive about this issue means that OSM and
> its more-open data will eventually be drowned out by Google's much
> greater marketing might.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20055063-250.html

"...Google won't take input from other community map sources, like Open 
Street Map or Waze. There are two reasons for this, one of which I got 
from Google, the other unstated. First, the user approval system was 
created for this project and isn't even used by other Google services. 
Adapting it to other user systems is just not on the project plan at the 
moment. The unstated reason: Google's data licensing is incompatible 
with other community maps. OpenStreetMap, for example, uses Creative 
Commons. Google does not: What you put on Google, Google owns...."