Apple has finally given proper credit to OpenStreetMap, the crowd-sourced mapping platform it began using in its new iPhoto for iOS app two months ago without attribution.

The acknowledgements under the app's setting page now credits "OpenStreetMap contributors," with a link back to the site. OpenStreetMap announced the change yesterday on Twitter and its blog, posting an image of the attribution page with the file name "success."

The issue dates back to March, when Apple released iPhoto for iOS alongside the new iPad. Following the release, users quickly noticed that the map tiles in the app's location feature looked different than those in Apple's other apps. That's because Apple nixed the familiar Google Map images it uses in all its other apps, and instead gave iPhoto for iOS new maps that were generated with data from OpenStreetMap (OSM).

At the time, OpenStreetMap confirmed the change in a blog post, but noted that the app was "missing the necessary credit to OpenStreetMap's contributors." OpenStreetMap data is free for anyone to copy or distribute, as long as they give proper credit to the service and its contributors. For the past two months, Apple has skirted that policy.

Richard Fairhurst, a board member at the OpenStreetMap Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees the project, welcomed the belated attribution.

"Obviously we'd rather that Apple had attributed right from the start, but nonetheless this is a big step forward," Fairhurst told TalkingPointsMemo. "If the biggest computer company in the world, one with a perfectionist instinct, feels that OpenStreetMap data meets its needs and is happy to publicly attribute us, then that's a great vote of confidence in our community's work."

A number of other organizations have switched from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap in recent months, including Wikipedia and Foursquare.