[dageshi]

Agreed, I don't believe OSM could have survived without this license, I don't think the contributors who put so much time into building it would have done so if they thought that realistically much of their contribution would have gone to bolstering google's bottom line as opposed to creating an alternative to google maps.

[belorn]

I am sure I would not have contributed to OSM map if the licensed allowed google to just take everything.

That would be me working for google for free, and I value my time more. It is enough that my tax money goes to make maps that google later buys.

[dllthomas]

For what it's worth, I probably would have contributed if it was not share alike. That said, my contribution was minor and I think keeping share-alike is the right move.

[timthorn]

Moving to the ODBL occurred reasonably recently in OSM history. At the time, there was an amount of argument and PD had a lot of support.

[1ris]

I think PD had a lot of support not only because people liked the implications for osm, but because there is somewhat unlikely it's even possible in many countries to copyright this data.