[OSM-legal-talk] Warning about not mapping military areas

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

I notice that you might have been expecting to email the legal working
group but ended up on a public mailing list. But why not, it's a matter
that deserves some attention.

However I fail to see what the argument is about. You said that you
included a warning

> As always, if it is illegal in your country to
> map military establishments, please do not do so

which more or less equates to "please don't put yourself in danger while
mapping". There's nothing to be said against that. Now someone seems to
have misconstrued your wording as "it is against OSM's rules to map
stuff that is illegal to map in your country", which is (a) not correct
but crucially also (b) not what you said.

> It was suggested that I approach you to get a definitive ruling of
> whether or not a warning should be included in these pages?

I'm not in a position to give you a definitive ruling but I think your
warning is perfectly ok. I would even make it more explicit and explain
that even if something is visible on Bing it might *still* be illegal to
put it on the map.

Just like we remind people not to trespass for mapping. Adding something
to OSM that has been surveyed while trespassing is not against OSM's
rules but we do ask people not to trespass.

If push came to shove, such warnings could even prove that we do not
actively encourage people to do illegal things.

Bye
Frederik

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