On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 3:46 AM, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> Me too! > Maybe someday we will have to make a librestreetmap fork of project > with stricter licenses policies for the software and better policies > for the wiki. Mike, I'm a long time Free Software advocate/writing and a member of the FSF (in that I pay dues). And as far as writing software is concerned, I agree wholeheartedly with you that software should be free, and given the choice between Free and non-free software, I encourage people to use the Free Software, and discourage people from writing non-free software. That said, as far as I know, no Free software project has ever put in its license that there's a requirement for data accessed via an API or via a data format be made available under any specific license requirements. In other words, Apache doesn't say that you must use Firefox, and OpenOffice.org doesn't say you must use OpenOffice, or Abiword, etc. I think that even the most ardent Free Software person would argue that these terms would be a net negative against the project. Free Software is about giving the users freedoms[1], but it's always been made clear that calls made "at arms length" and data exchange formats are not subject to the terms of the license. As for the sentiment in general, OpenStreetMap has two general definitions. The first is the most strict- it's that OpenStreetMap is the database, and just the database. The second is that OpenStreetMap is the database, the web site, the tools (Postgis, Mapnik, etc.). It's easy to see where the lines can be muddled. It's my understanding that the OSMF only produces Free Software, it also encourages the use of OSM to a larger audience, and that may mean non-Free software. That's okay. That's part of our ecosystem of partners. So long as the various organizations and individuals comply with the license, this is okay. Arguing for yet stricter license requirements seems silly when there are parts of our existing population which find the license too restrictive[2]. And I can tell you, as a Free Software supporter, that if there were a project which dictated terms of use on remote APIs or data exchange formats, I'd be pretty turned off myself. - Serge [1] Placing minimal restrictions when necessary to ensure those freedoms, such as in the GPL. [2] They are in favor of something more akin to Public Domain or CC0. _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
