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Licence/Historic/We Are Changing The License: Difference between revisions
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== We Are Changing The License ==
''OpenStreetMap creates and provides free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. The project was started because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, productive, or unexpected ways.''
OpenStreetMap is asking existing contributors to re-license their contributions under the [http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ Open Database License 1.0]. For those not familiar, this page explains the basic reasons and provides links to further resources with more detail.
== Why do we have a license? ==
Our goal is to provide geographic data that is free and open to all to use. To make sure that your contributions are provided free and open, and remain free and open, we have a license that says that.
== What license is being changed? ==
We want to change the current CC-BY-SA 2.0 to Open Database License (OdbL) 1.0.
The change does not cover the wiki which will remain CC BY-SA. It does not cover software and software source code, which are usually but not always GPL (GNU Public License).
== Why are we changing the license? ==
Our current user license is Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0. It for not designed for data and the creators of the license state, "Creative Commons does not recommend using Creative Commons licenses for informational databases, such as educational or scientific databases.".
You can read more here: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/Why_CC_BY-SA_is_Unsuitable
== Have other options been considered? ==
Yes. There are three main options. Which option you personally support depends on how what "free and open" means to you. We believe that a reasonable consensus has been built that our current progress should be to maintain a Share-Alike license (see more below) but have it written explicitly for data.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Why_You_Should_Vote_No
== What are the main differences between the old and the new license? ==
The old license is written for creative works such as text and photos. The new license is specifically written for data and databases.
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