It's funny, Google doesn't seem to be using OSM data directly, but I think they might be looking periodically at OSM activity to know where to focus their map generation.

Google never had any real super high quality detail in my tiny home town. When I first got into OSM, I did what lots of people do: I filled in a bunch of details I know about where I grew up. Kind of fun. Well a month or so later, I checked out Google maps and, lo and behold, their data was much better for that little town. It was NOT the OSM edits I made--they didn't steal anything. But I found it odd that they'd all of a sudden take interest in a little town of less than 1500 people in the middle of nowhere. I don't know. It could have been a coincidence--It's possible they had a big world-wide map update during that month that updated everything.

Oh, and it RAISES the question, not "begs" the question.

Quoting Wikipedia: In modern vernacular usage, "to beg the question" more frequently is used to mean "to raise the question" (as in "This begs the question of whether …") or "to dodge the question".

Perhaps it's time to stop saying "begging the question" and start exclusively using "assuming the conclusion" instead.

It's more self-explanatory, for one, and is less misused in the vernacular.

They can't, unless they're willing to free their own datasets as well:

"You are free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt our data, as long as you credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors. If you alter or build upon our data, you may distribute the result only under the same licence. The full legal code explains your rights and responsibilities."

Does that "build-upon" clause also apply for the case where a provider is mixing OSM data with other third-party licensed map data ? For example, it is mentioned/known that Apple makes some use of OSM data[1] to improve their maps in some places. Are they then legally obliged to release the full data behind their maps for those regions?

If so, that's very nice but I am not sure that's what is actually happening: the third-party source whom they are licensing data from is unlikely to be happy with a scenario where their data ends up in the public domain as this considerably reduces the commercial value of their map data.

[1] - https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2012/10/02/apple-maps/

What I see people saying is that Apple is using OSM data from earlier in the project, when the license was somewhat different.

But Apple simply cannot force someone else's data into the public domain, if they were mixing the data without permission, they would be violating the licenses and legal action could force them to fix that (but it wouldn't directly change the licensing of any of the data)

OpenStreetMap's ODbL license has a sharealike clause that would legally require Google to share the dataset they combine OSM with: http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

Copyright. They can, but OSM is open content, and Google Maps would have to release their own data too.

The OSM fan in me thinks that eventually Google Maps will be based on OSM. :)

The minute Google took open street map data hacker news would explode with submissions chastising google for taking without contributing back.

No-one said they should take the data and not contribute back anything. Except OSM in their license of course, http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright (well it's attribution anyway).

Either a bit a fraction of a percent of a days profit or some data for OSM, sure either would be most acceptable.