[Legal-general] Fwd: FW: [OSGeo-Discuss] Data Hosting For OSM PD?

[Sunburned Surveyor]

Guys,

Below is my response to a message that was sent in reply to my posting
an inquiry about the OSGeo hosting our PD repository. It wasn't
exactly what I was expecting, but it may be a promising lead. It
sounds like this non-profit would be interested in helping us set up
our infrastructure.

I know we would need more details about Bob's organization before we
made a decision. I wanted to send this message here so you guys can
chew it over. I don't want to make this type of decision all on my
own.

Richard, Kari, Joseph...What are your thoughts?

Landon



Bob,

You wrote: " While we're interested in any type of publicly available
data, we're particularly interested in any datasets that would apply to
emergency management or situational awareness."

I would think that a street map would be very applicable for emergency
management, at least for things like evacuation planning and emergency
response.

You wrote: "I'm part of a non-profit recently put together to try to
help promote this same sort of data sharing, we want to take it a bit
further than you describe though, by allowing the option of setting up
data feeds for WMS/WFS services.  These resulting services would be
intended as seamless coverages and that are classified by type and not
necessarily by data owner."

I have to be careful about this. We decided not to set up a complete
replication of the OSM server, because we don't want to create a fork.
We're just looking for a pool that would allow us to collaborate on our
public domain mapping efforts.

However...Since our data would be in the public domain, your non-profit
could easily vacuum our repository to create a WMS. That wouldn't be a
problem at all. In fact, this type of use case is why our group wants to
release the data PD in the first place.


If you think our small group could work out a hosting arrangement with
your non-profit given our restriction against creating a web map that
would essentially compete with/fork OSM, please let me know.

Landon


Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Basques [mailto:Bob.Basques at ci.stpaul.mn.us]
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2008 11:16 AM
To: Landon Blake; discuss at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Data Hosting For OSM PD?

Landon,

I'm part of a non-profit recently put together to try to help promote
this same sort of data sharing, we want to take it a bit further than
you describe though, by allowing the option of setting up data feeds for
WMS/WFS services.  These resulting services would be intended as
seamless coverages and that are classified by type and not necessarily
by data owner.

The general idea is to set up services with an eye towards dissolving
political boundaries while still allowing the data custodians to manage
their particular chunk of the data.  We've also put quite a lot of work
into the data organizational aspects as well as authentication services
for sensitive data.  We also applied some effort to providing a measure
of metadata related to the publication process.

Our intent is to provide technical and infrastructure services that
allow for a very easy and usable publication process for anyone that
wants to share their (spatially referenced) public domain data.

While we're interested in any type of publicly available data, we're
particularly interested in any datasets that would apply to emergency
management or situational awareness.

If interested, I'm available offline to talk further, just email me
directly.

bobb


>>> "Landon Blake" <lblake at ksninc.com> 11/07/08 12:12 PM >>>
I've been working with a few of the folks from the Open Street Map. We
are a group within the OSM community that is very interested in setting
up a repository or pool to host the map data we contribute in a separate
space, before it is uploaded to OSM. We'd like to do this so we can
collaborate on and release our data in the public domain. This avoids a
lot of the licensing problems and challenges that OSM is currently
struggling with.



We've got a tentative folder structure nailed down, at least for the
time being.



I'd like to know if there would be any interest at the OSGeo in
providing some web server space for our repository. We don't need
anything fancy. No database, no scripting, no special software. We just
need a place to put folders and files.



I'd be happy to discuss the proposed repository structure in more detail
if the OSGeo was interested.



I can start the repository with some space on my own site, but I think I
will quickly become overwhelmed by the data and bandwidth requirements.
If the OSGeo isn't interested our group can look into getting support
from a University or other organization.



At any rate, I thought this might be a good opportunity for the OSGeo to
get involved in the free data side of the FOSS GIS equation.



Landon







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