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

Thu Jan 21 16:30:16 GMT 2010

Felix Hartmann schrieb am 21.01.2010 02:31:
>   I already had quite a few ideas/concepts copied by Garmin map 
> compilers (e.g. using assymetric transparent lines - which was so 
> forgotten by Garmin or not intended that they stopped supporting it 
> until copying many parts for the Garmin Transalpin - if you look at 
> their typfile it really shows many traces of the typfiles I used when 
> starting my then called "mtb maps" on the osm wiki, or first versions of 
> my "openmtbmap".).

I can't really understand your "problem".

For once, in my the eyes the ideas/concepts your are mentioning not so
groundbraking, that nobody else is able to think of them. (Today they might
still be good enough for a patent :-) I really admit your work, but i think the
greatest part is not getting the ideas but getting everything done.
So I would not say that somebody copied your ideas/concepts, i would rather say
that they were inspired by your work.
Above you write, that some of your concepts were forgotten by Garmin. So
actually you are also copying their ideas :-)

And as a second point, why do you worry about someone copying your work as
closed source? It is certainly not nice, but is it really a problem? If you give
away your maps for free (free beer as well as really free), what would change,
if Garmin would sell identical maps for money? They will make some money, but
you will not loose any money. I do not care if anybody earns some money with the
aid of my free contributions, as long as my work is still available for free to
other people.

It migth look different, if you want to earn some money yourself with your maps.
But then the problem would not be, to stop other companies yousing your work in
a closed source manner, but to stop other people using your work at all.

By the way, I think you could earn some money (not much but at least some), if
you would sell ready to use flash-cards with your maps on ebay. You could sell
them with the recquired free-to-copy license, since most buyers wouldn't bother
about copying, if they could by an actual map for perhaps 10 or 15EUR.

Gruss
Torsten