[josm-dev] Fwd: Filter Google from Imagery?

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Ulf Lamping wrote:
> Reasoning: Using Google or alike to check a GPX trace to be reasonable 
> (e.g. the shape of the track corresponds to the aerial imagery) 

But then again, there are myriad tools out there that can be used for 
exactly that. Google Earth, for example. I agree with you that this is a 
legitimate use of Google data but I don't think that this necessarily 
has to be done with JOSM.

On the contrary, by saying: "We want to make it easy FOR JOSM USERS to 
check their GPX traces against Google imagery" is already on the edge 
because JOSM is mainly and primarily an OSM upload tool.

Maybe we should make a version of JOSM that has no OSM editing 
capability (just drop the OSM data layer and all functions related to 
it). That could then display anything you want.

I've added a very simple blacklisting mechanism now that basically sets 
a "blacklisted" flag on the imagery layer and, for now, simply grays out 
blacklisted entries in the imagery menu. If someone fancies, they could 
modify that to do all sort of warning messages etc.; however after this 
discussion I am pretty sure that whatever we do we must make sure that 
you are only allowed to upload or save OSM data if you have either not 
displayed Google images, or not modified your data after doing so. No 
amount of "yes I am really sure" buttons should allow you to bypass that 
  - we can always do a warning message that goes: "Warning, unsaved 
data. You requested to display a blacklisted background layer. You will 
not be able to save or upload your edits after enabling that layer. Are 
you sure you want to proceed" or whatever.

I understand that there will be a tiny fraction of users negatively 
affected by this, but I think it is necessary. We've witnessed a growing 
number of "Google violations" in the past year and I would not want 
JOSM's reputation to be tainted as the editor that makes this easy.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"