> It's a great project.. but I think they really messed up the licensing in a misguided effort to make the project viral.
OSM's sharealike provision has never been about making the project "viral". Free map data is enough to do that by itself.
OSM's sharealike provision is, and always has been, unambiguously aimed at stopping bigcos killing the project by scooping up the map data then contributing nothing back - the scenario where Schmoogle Maps takes all OSM's footpath data, combines it with their own motor-centric, sensor-fuelled dataset to create the one map to rule them all, and thereby attracts the flow of new contributors that OSM needs to survive.
OSM's sharealike provision has never been about making the project "viral". Free map data is enough to do that by itself.
OSM's sharealike provision is, and always has been, unambiguously aimed at stopping bigcos killing the project by scooping up the map data then contributing nothing back - the scenario where Schmoogle Maps takes all OSM's footpath data, combines it with their own motor-centric, sensor-fuelled dataset to create the one map to rule them all, and thereby attracts the flow of new contributors that OSM needs to survive.