On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Richard Fairhurst <[email protected]>wrote:
> I'd seen a vague allusion to this but not actually heard the full > response. Really interesting - Michael Jones of Google explaining why > they don't use OSM data. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQXDAFJTH6w#t=1m47s > > To summarise: the only reason is that Google don't think our licensing > works; they didn't actually want to launch a competitor; if OSM had > "got its legal act in order" they wouldn't have launched Map Maker > against us and would have used our data. > > Being generally more disposed to the little guy and pretty sceptical > about Google in particular, I take all of this with a Siberian > saltmine or two. > > But what I'm puzzled about is that he says Google were talking to OSM > about licensing for a year. Presumably this was prior to the launch of > Map Maker. > > Map Maker was launched in July 2008. I was on the OSMF Board from > summer 2007 to summer 2008, partly as the "legal guy", so would expect > that "year" and some part of my year to have coincided. But I don't > recall any mention of discussions with Google, either within OSMF or > among the wider community. (I may be forgetful, of course.) > > Basically, I have no idea what he's going on about. > > Can anyone enlighten me? > No (I can't enlighten), but when I've spoken with Google's engineers and managers, this little nugget of information has never arisen. So perhaps the CTO of Geo at Google hasn't exactly made this widely-known or he was mistaken about something he heard a colleague say? Perhaps we could e-mail him directly? Or SteveC could fill us in...
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