10-07-2018, 03:44 PM
(10-07-2018, 02:47 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(10-07-2018, 02:39 AM)plam Wrote: There's the Open Data movement which points out that making data publicly available fo under liberal licenses can have many beneficial and unanticipated side effects. Having to negotiate a license stifles innovation, even a $0 license. So if the government isn't trying to make money from the imagery, releasing it is probably best for society. That is assuming that they own the data, rather than licensing it.
US government works are public domain, but not Canadian works.
Stifles innovation? Hmmm. Negotiating a licence is a relatively small task to everything else that would need to be done for a startup.
And once Google puts their logo on our maps, they are no longer public domain. Are we OK with that?
Doesn't have to be a startup. Let's say that I wanted to do something with the data, since I have relevant skills. I'm not going to negotiate a license (and realistically I actually don't have time to do anything), but I would be more likely to do something without having to negotiate a license. mpd618 has been excited about open data in the past. Students have done things e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comme...you_catch/.
The fact that Google shows the data with the Google license does not mean that the data also doesn't exist under other licenses. So, no, they aren't necessarily restricting the license on the underlying data. In the software world, that's the same as releasing your software under GPL to the world but also under other licenses by negotiation.