Re: How "open" is OpenStreetMap?
"...I have to assume that most of its data comes from hobbyists scanning in material from copyrighted and/or paid-for sources..."
No, definitely not the case. Anyone who contributes to OSM is endlessly reminded not to copy. Lots of contributers take great pleasure in spotting possible breaches of that rule.
Its worth noting some governments decide, quite rightly, that their data is publicly funded and therefore publicly owned. See the OSM "Attribution" pages. But overall, I still think most data in there has come from people walking, riding or driving with phones or GPS enabled laptops recording away.
"... an example of what a community can ...." - that it is, most certainly !
Biting the hand that feeds IT
