More Open - Why It's Time To Drop Share-Alike

How will OpenStreetMap grow from today? Yes, the success of OpenStreetMap depends on how well we foster our community and its infrastructure, but what is the fertile ground it will thrive on in years to come?

OpenStreetMap is changing who draws the map of the world and it gains impact and contributors with every instance it is used in. The more OpenStreetMap is used in business, government and civil society, the more eyes are on our map, the more individuals and institutions have incentives to improve it. This is what makes OpenStreetMap impactful from a social perspective and valuable from a business perspective.

Today the share-alike implications of OpenStreetMap’s license put a brake onto both, incentives and impact, by impeding and complicating use cases where OpenStreetMap data needs to be combined with other data. To radically augment OpenStreetMap’s exposure and impact we need to go one step further and drop share-alike altogether to make OpenStreetMap available for many more use cases. More Open is more OpenStreetMap.