Hi, Jonathan Harley wrote: > The principle > that if commercial companies use OSM data, they must be forced to give > away their proprietary data as well? If so, that's not a principle I > share.
+1 > I disagree, community projects (like everyone else) *should* practice > random acts of kindness. +1 > And I believe the OSM community would be > better served by being more business-friendly. Well, the OSM community is actually not business-unfriendly at all. Many spare time data collection projects use explicit non-commercial licenses (e.g. CC-BY-SA-NC) which is a major pain if you want to use the data for anything else than play. Thankfully, OSM doesn't, and there aren't even people to demand that. Also, believe it or not, depending on the kind of business you have in mind, the share-alike element with its - perceived - higher degree of safety against hostile take-overs is actually regarded as useful by some business users. If you just want an "one-off" use of the data then you wouldn't care a lot, and probably prefer PD because that means you don't have to think as much. But if you intend to build a larger business model on the assumption that the OSM community will still be there three years hence, then there's a possibility that you'll like the share-alike approach more because you feel it lends the project more stability. Also, share-alike ensures that you will have more and better insight into what the competition is doing (while at the same time having to give them more insight into your work of course). This situation could help some business models, especially those which are not so much built on original work. (If you're very innovative then having to share is perhaps not so good for you, but if the others are more innovative than you then you get to participate from their work.) I still think PD wins at the end of the day, but it would be wrong to dismiss share-alike as a business-unfriendly concept altogether. In fact, with its attempt to codify "moral" issues, as I have outlined in another posting, it is probably geared even more towards the needs of businesses than those of humans. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk