<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">I've been meaning to get in touch with Tracks4Africa. This month, they're a Featured Layer in Google Earth, and have a lot of good data.<br><br>They operate differently from OpenStreetMap. They accept GPS track contributions from their community, apparently run an algorithm<br>to derive "spatial averages" of the tracks, and make that derived data available for community members only, for personal use only.<br>In fact, that data is not to be used for any other purpose than verifying your uploads. <br><br>They (Tracks4Africa people, not the community) then add metadata, producing a navigable map dataset with features, and market that commercially.<br><br><span><a target="_blank"
href="http://www.tracks4africa.co.za/misc/the_red_and_the_grey.pdf">http://www.tracks4africa.co.za/misc/the_red_and_the_grey.pdf</a></span><br><br>I'm not really sure what's the benefit for the community here .. you still have to purchase the data you help contribute to.<br><br><br><span>Looking through their mailing list, <a target="_blank" href="http://paperjam.overland.co.za/pipermail/t4a/2006-November/thread.html">http://paperjam.overland.co.za/pipermail/t4a/2006-November/thread.html</a>,</span><br>looks like Etienne has made contact, but very oddly the discussion on OpenStreetMap degenerates into a discussion of Spam.<br><br><br>It's an interesting twist. Suppose they are doing well, with the Google Earth tie in and all. Wonder ultimately what would keep the community<br>from contributing their tracks to OpenStreetMap as well. Would be great to find a way to work with them.<br><br>-Mikel<br><br><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;
font-size: 12pt;">----- Original Message ----<br>From: John Fagan <John@multimap.com><br>To: talk@openstreetmap.org<br>Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 4:11:14 PM<br>Subject: [OSM-talk] Tracks4Africa<br><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Would be neat if these guys would contribute to OSM.</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.tracks4africa.co.za/">http://www.tracks4africa.co.za/</a></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">My apology if this has been discussed before.</span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">John.</span></font></p>
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