On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Simon Ward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 08:19:50PM +0100, Brian Quinion wrote: >> Personally I'd be very happy to see the discussion of PD continue on >> the talk list but a mailing list seems a very minor resource compared >> to the time and effort that have gone into the creating the new >> license. > > I see the PD route as just giving up. "It's too hard" is not a good > answer for me. It's clear that my opinion isn't global though.
My motivation for being interested in this stems from an issue I had before the license was changed. I wanted to write an iphone application to help people catch public transport in my local area. The idea was that people could pull out their iphone, point on a map where they wanted to go and it would show them which bus stop to walk to, which busses to catch, how long it would take, etc. I intended to have an overlay on my map which showed bus stops. This data would be collected from the local bus company. Under the old license, I couldn't use OSM because I couldn't share the overlay. It might not have been a problem - but I couldn't risk it. This got me wondering - what applications will never be written because of the OSM SA licensing? I think this problem has changed with the new license; but _any_ share-alike license will have similar problems. I would love to see the same free mapping data used everywhere; by tourists, local councils, proprietary satnav systems, google earth, etc. I don't think this will ever happen with the OSM data because of the share-alike requirement. It would be similar to a linux license requiring you to also GPL any software you write on your computer. I know its not _that_ bad anymore, but I got idealistic. -J > Simon > -- > A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a > simple system that works.—John Gall _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk