[OSM-newbies] Adding to OSM database from Streetviews

[Serge Wroclawski]

I think this discussion has moved to the point where it should go on
the dev list, rather than the newbies list, but I'll start the
discussion anyway.

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Tac Tacelosky <tacman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm almost at the point where I can look at one of my streetview images, see
> a feature (store, sign, etc.) that's not in the OSM database and tag it
> appropriately.

Great.

> I'd like to get some feedback before diving into the actual 'bot' part that
> updates the OSM database via the API.

What do you mean by "bot"? What would be updating the API?

Any user contributions should be made with the user's own account, and
we have an API for that. Look at the oAuth work that's been done by
both iD and Maprouette.

> Some people I've met are somewhat
> hostile to the idea of what I've been working on, since even though I plan
> to license some of panoramic images I've taken as ODbL, the camera itself
> and the process for creating the images is closed.

I don't know who you've met, but when we talked, the issue was "Could
this be an extension of OSM itself, or a similar project where people
could contribute?" and my answer was that it was related to OSM but
not in the same scope. It's certainly important, but that if it was a
FLOSS project, then the processing and the image API needed to be made
available under FLOSS license terms.

At the time, even the display was using Google Streetview, and that it
was my opinion (while not a lawyer) that this would be frowned upon by
Google, and could be a potential problem for the project. I suggested
you have a new display made, and I offered to help find funders and
programmers for the work, so long as the image processing and display
were made available under the terms of a FLOSS license.

tl;dr

"I'm probably the guy yu're saying is negative, but in fact, I was
very enthusiastic about the project, and I offered my services and
money as long as the thing was made available as Open Source."


>  I am also a North
> American reseller for the camera (www.diy-streetview.com)

The issue of the cameras seems fine to me. There are many project
which have some components which are Free and others which are
proprietary. The issue is clearly separating out what's what.

- Serge