[OSM-talk] Frederik declares war on data imports...

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Sun Aug 8 15:07:52 BST 2010


John,

On 08/08/2010 11:38 AM, John Smith wrote:
> Basically those in favour of PD but not directly effected by or
> benefiting from data imports would like to have them all ripped out
> and replaced with surveyed data.

It's nothing to do with PD. It's that I'm sick and tired of hearing we 
cannot go ahead with ODbL because someone in Australia imported some 
coastline.

There are many places in the world where we have the "second-best" data 
in OSM because the best available data is not under a suitable license. 
That's accepted, we're making do with that, it even encourages us.

Now for the last half year I've had to listen to two or three people 
from Australia whining about the proposed move to ODbL not being 
possible because they have imported coastline. But in my eyes that's not 
at all different to any other situation regarding license - if the 
coastline turns out to be incompatible with the license we want to use, 
then we have to use another data source.

I don't see any reason for an outcry other than this might make the 
coastline less precise for a while. Chances are it is going to be fixed 
very quickly in areas with Yahoo imagery, and might retain some of the 
typical "blockiness" of the PGS import in wilderness areas. But honestly 
- if *that* is something that holds us back from doing the license 
change then maybe we should simply switch off the servers.

Bye
Frederik




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