The current license used for OSM data does not seem to be suitable. Therefore there are attempts to change it. This will be a hard process, as it requires to either get all contributors into the same boat, or to drop the contributions of those who are in the minority in case of a popular vote.
Theoretically there are many options to choose from, but I will try to list those who are, in my humble opinion, worth mentioning:
CC-by-SA
The current license of the data is the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license (CC-by-SA), which causes several issues, depending on one’s point of view. Some argue that it is too restrictive and prohibits a lot of free and even commercial uses, even ones the community would like to see. On the other hand there is some consensus that it is not suitable at all for protecting geographical data. opengeodata.org states:
Most importantly, though, there is a strong body of legal opinion that our existing licence is not valid (for our purposes) in most of the world. Creative Commons bases its licences on copyright. In Europe, however, geographical data is principally protected by database right, and in the States, the only available protection is contractual. OSM data is potentially in a curious unlicensed limbo at the moment, which will not protect us if a major geodata company, for example, decides to take our data without respecting the intent of the licence.
ODbL
It seems that there is no “ready-to-use” license similar to the CC-by-SA that could serve the project intents well. Therefore The Open Knowledge Foundation is developing the Open Database License (ODbL) which can be used to protect collaborative data collections – worldwide. The license was not explicitely invented for OSM. If other projects will make use of it as well it will ease the exchange of data between projects, e.g. for creating mashups.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons, “a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.”, have commented the ODbL. They conclude that the OSM data should be available “with the fewest possible restrictions and obligations”.
PD
Making the data available in the public domain would it make possible to use the data for any purpose, regardless if it was educational, scientific, hobby or even commercial use.
