[talk-au] Adelaide out of copyright street directory

[Darrin Smith]

On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 02:01:14 +0000 (UTC)
BlueMM <bluemm1975-osm at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I don't see the point of "remove the dependence on yahoo", either we
> are allowed to use it or we are not. Maybe it's a data purity thing,
> but then I must be only half a zealot :P

I don't trust the decision in the case of Yahoo, the current people in
charge may accept the situation but all it would take is them being
brought out by a company known for throwing around their copyrights and
it could become a very different story.

Besides if GPS's a road and then adjust the whole road to line up to
that (nowhere I've been have I found a yahoo road where I haven't had
to adjust *every* point to line it up with the GPS tracks avaliable)
it's a bit silly to claim it's a yahoo road when it's no longer aligned
to yahoo anywhere. Might as well claim a road is a UBD/Google/Ausway
road because somewhere along the line someone used a UBD/Google/Ausway
to get to a road, then uploaded the track they made going there. It's
about as relevant.

> Don't base any decisions or form principles on my understanding, it's
> just an interpretation. Maybe we should ask on the Legal mailing
> list, as to what happens if a Yahoo traced way is altered by using a
> GPS track. Another interesting issue is can we drop the source=yahoo
> is we delete the way, then create another way by using a GPS track,
> but join to all the existing nodes from cross streets etc. Those
> nodes came from Yahoo originally...

Yes this last point I had through of already and it just leads to the
problem of eventually everything having to have a yahoo tag because it's
linked to something that has a yahoo tag and that's just painful to
think about :D
Of course if you are properly clearing the way of yahoo heritage you
would remove all the points on the way including intersections with
other ways. (Of course, you could just duplicate the way, seperate to a
new set of points, remove all the old data and adjust the nodes
creating a completely new looking way without 1/2 the effort ;)

And that's why I said "If this is the accepted correct practice". I was
hoping some others would weigh in on your comments and say yay or nay
to them :) What follows after that is the implications as I see them if
yay is the way it should be. Because of those implications I'd like to
know the general opinion because I don't want to have to make the
effort required unless it's the expected practice. 

> Frowning on Yahoo tracing isn't going to do much, since mappers are
> going to continue either way. BTW, I don't understand your last
> sentence, why do they need to do more work? I imagine all Yahoo!
> traced data needs to be verified anyway, and to ideally all GPS stuff
> should be confirmed by another person (QA and all).

Yahoo tracing often is out of date, doesn't always reflect the
experience of one on the ground and is yet to properly align with GPS
in any area I've looked at in S.A. These are all issues of Quality which
GPS tracks can improve on because someone actually visits the location
(obviously someone using some other persons GPS track suffers from most
of the problems also). I realise it isn't going to stop tracing but
it's going to change opinions I express and it's just going to
re-enforce my growing opinion that yahoo tracing is sub-standard for
OSM.

It becomes more work because instead of uploading a GPS track and
adjusting the way to properly match the GPS path one has to remove the
old way (and nodes!) and add the new way and nodes.

-- 

=b