[mkgmap-dev] Question on license for style-file

Wed Jan 20 07:01:14 GMT 2010

Hi Felix, all,

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 01:18:18AM +0100, Felix Hartmann wrote:
> I am going to publish my style-file (and dual license the rest like 
> typfiles), but I would like that
> a) any works that build upon it, have to give attribution to openmtbmap.org
> b) any maps generated by using the style-file or large parts of it have 
> to give attribution to openmtbmap.org
> 
> Which license does fit here. Is GnuGPL v2 compatible with my intention 
> or is b) not possible?
> Would CCBYSA 3.0 be better?
> 
> Hope someone knows a bit better what I should choose. I don't really 
> understand how b) is treated by open-source licenses.

I spent some thought on this last weekend.  I would choose GPLv2 by default,
but I am not sure if it is compatible with the OpenStreetMap license
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_License>.
To my knowledge, the GPL is not compatible with any attribution clause,
so it is not what you are looking for.

You might want to read about the DFSG
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines>
and especially on the GFDL resolution.

It could be reasonable to release all TYP files under the same license
as the OpenStreetMap data.  Currently, this would be the CCBYSA 2.0.

I believe that the mkgmap built-in styles can be licensed by any license
(currently the GPLv2).  This is OK because the styles are not copied to
the output, but they are only rules for generating the output.  But as
soon as we start to distribute TYP files and other files that are literally
copied to the output, it would be reasonable to use a different license
or to grant a license exception, similar to what exists for the built-in
run-time libraries of GCC (libgcc) and code generators such as compiler
compilers (Flex, Bison, ANTLR, ...).

	Marko