On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 5:32 PM, Frederik Ramm <frede...@remote.org> wrote:
> Hi, > > I would like to counter another often-repeated misconception about > PD (or CC0, or BSD) licenses, namely that these licenses are better for > business because they allow businesses to do what they want. > > The matter arose in the follwoing exchange here on talk: > > > As I've said many times before, if you thought about it for 2 > > seconds it would be much better to move OSM to PD or CC0 for > > ***** and all the other companies so we could do what we like > > with the data. > > > > Yeah, but it'd be a *lot* better for some of "the other companies" > > (like, maybe 10^100) than it would be for *****. > > It doesn't matter who said this because it is an idea that many people > in OSM seem to share: Do PD and big business will love you because they > can rip you off; do share-alike and be protected from such rip-off. > That definitely wasn't what I said. I fact, restrictions often provide a competitive advantage for business. > "Competitive advantage" is in fact exactly what I was talking about. Restrictions can serve to benefit one company (which we'll call *****), compared to another company (which we'll call 10^100). Or we can just come right out and name names. Google has built a business around mixing public domain data with its own proprietary improvements. Cloudmade has build a business around "provid[ing] professional services around open mapdata". If everyone who improves map data has to share their improvements (with improvements defined a way that doesn't include the types of improvements which Cloudmade makes, namely Produced Works), Google loses, and Cloudmade, at worst, isn't affected at all. Less restrictions favour individuals. Less restrictions favor some individuals, sometimes, depending on what those restrictions are. This isn't an "individuals vs. corporations" thing. Let's not get too commie here, okay?
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