[OSM-talk] Unlicensed use of the logo in iPhone app?

[M∡rtin Koppenhoefer]

2011/5/17 Nic Roets <nroets at gmail.com>:
> I think we should also see our trademarks as an indicator of "free
> content". So any product that overlays non free content onto the map
> should be disallowed from using our trademarks. That should exclude
> most ad supported products (as ads are typically non free), but we
> should also consider explicitly disallowing ads.


While this sounds nice and logical at first sight (I mean most people
hate ads, and personally I try to get the least possible of them
intruding into my life), it leads to very complicated situations in
the judging of what is an ad in the context of maps. In every
rendering you will have to decide what to exclude and what to include,
or at which zoomlevel you will display a certain feature. Say you are
rendering a city map and displaying "service points of xy company" in
zoom 17. This is definitely something that some companies would pay
for if your map is in widespread use (I'd personally consider it an
ad). But it will lead to an infinite number of edge cases requiring
judgement which feature at which zoom level would have to be
considered advertising.

So -1 for the benefit of freedom ;-)

cheers,
Martin