use case scenario / license question

General talk
1

Hi,

I’d like to use mapquest’s open geocoding api in a webapp i’m developing.
Mapquest’s open api uses OSM data as the source. My question is this:

Let’s say i’m developing a website which allows users to create blogs (or
something) and associate them with a location. I would like to use the
mapquest open geocoding api to do geocoding of the address information, to
support location based searches and plotting of those blogs on a map. But
seeing as this api is based openstreetmap data i’m a little confused as to
the license implications.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ#3b._If_I_have_data_derived_from_OSM_data.2C_do_I_have_to_distribute_it.3F

This FAQ would seem to suggest that if i were to use mapquest’s osm-based
api to build my webapp, i would need to make my website’s db publicly
available under the Open Database License. My website’s db would
technically be considered a “Derivative Database”. Is this correct?

Thanks,

-Jordan

2

Well I cannot give you a concrete answer like yes or no, but see similar questions at http://help.openstreetmap.org → search for licence or othet related keyword there … or ask at the OSM Legal mailing list.