Friday, April 04, 2014

On Mapping and Licenses

I was recently asked a question on licensing of the mapping technique. 

I developed the mapping technique (and the later work on evolution) initially for my own use in 2005 and later refined this in 2007. I have always published the technique under creative commons license. The license I use is known as CC BY-SA 3.0

What this means is that you are free to copy the mapping technique and make derivatives of it under the same license. Does this mean I expect you to open up any maps you create? No. Only the technique, derivatives of the technique and anything which is built upon the technique whether guides or otherwise.

If you don't like that, well ... you can always create your own technique? It only took me several years of thinking about the problem and collecting data to demonstrate the effect. I gave it to the community as a gift as the community has given me so much. Do likewise.

As for writing a book - well, I've started again in my spare time. You can read part of my earlier effort here through a series of posts. As for workshops, I currently do these for LEF members and speak on the subject at Open Source Conferences such as OSCON. I will look at running more public workshops on this subject at some point in the future.