[OSM-legal-talk] Substantial meaning

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

El Jueves, 23 de Abril de 2009, SteveC escribió:

> Basically, what do we feel substantial means when someone takes some
> part of the data? How much is 'substantial'? [...]
> We're not looking for a legal opinion [...] rather, what do we think it 
> means? 

My personal point of view is:

If the extraction needs an automated tool, then it is substantial. If the data 
can be extracted without automated tools, in a reasonable amount of time 
(~5-15 minutes), then it is not substantial.

Example: running osmosis to extract data intersecting a polygon (e.g. a 
country or province) is substantial. Filtering out all amenity=pub in a bbox 
is substantial if you do it using software for just that (e.g. all pubs in a 
country). Converting a super-relation into a big linestring by 
cross-referencing 100s of way and node IDs is substantial.

On the other hand, picking up a tag value for a given node (e.g. the name of 
the pub with id# 1234567) is not substantial: I don't need any special tools 
for that (just peer through the XML). Filtering out all amenity=pub in a 
small area is not substantial (e.g. all pubs in a 100m x 100m bbox - again, 
just peer through the XML with *any* text editor and Ctrl+F)

Moreover, I don't think the API is a specific tool for anything - it's a 
technical artifact needed. I don't think that any single way, node, relation, 
changeset or bbox is substantial.

I don't think that the size of the bbox matters - even the planet is a mere 
technical artifact. I think that the extraction is done the moment you apply 
a *specific* and/or *specialized* software tool to a bbox or to a planet 
dump.



-- 
----------------------------------
Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivan at sanchezortega.es>

	You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the
Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the
parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.
		-- Sherlock Holmes
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
Url : http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/attachments/20090423/35639938/attachment.pgp