[OSM-newbies] Fwd: Question about the IndianaMap

David Ellams osmlists at dellams.fastmail.fm
Sat Jul 17 15:54:48 BST 2010



On Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:49:28 -0400, Marcin Zalewski
<marcin.zalewski at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Hello,
> 
> I am a newbie from Indiana. I have been disappointed by the quality of
> some maps, and I have searched a little for an external source. I have
> contacted IndianaMap (indianamap.org) and asked about the availability
> of their data. Could anyone advise, based on the forwarded discussion,
> if IndianaMap data can be used for OpenStreetMap? If so, how would one
> go about it?

As James has said, it is interesting to label the data public domain and
then to specify how to attribute. I have had a look around their web
site, and I can see nothing stipulating any restrictions, even for
attribution, just a statement that it is a "public source". I think it
might be wise to let your contact know how we do attribute in OSM. We do
so on this page:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors

And we also normally add the source (something like source=IndianaMap)
on each individual object taken/derived from their dataset. But neither
actually show up to a map end user, and we don't force anyone else
wanting to use the data to add their own copy of the contributors page,
etc., rather just to attribute something like "OpenStreetMap
contributors" and link back to OSM where practical (see
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ for more info).

As James said, it would be better if there were a clearer statement. I
am not a lawyer (!), but if it were me, so long as the contact was happy
with the attribution conventions, or even if he wasn't happy, then he
was clear that it is public domain and we can do what we like, then I
would personally use the data. Given that he has given permission to
circulate his email to the community, I create an OSM wiki page for
IndianaMap including the text of his email, and link this into the
potential datasources page:




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