[Talk-ca] Yukon Mapping Protected areas

[Richard Weait]

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 1:14 PM, Sam Vekemans
<acrosscanadatrails at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yup,
> I was waiting for you to respond. :-)
[ ... ]
> So at your "general intent" of your reply, i "shelve it" until all the
> "recieved Rw Approval" has been imported, and deal with it later :-)

Dear Sam,

Your enthusiasm and energy for OpenStreetMap in general, and for
recreational trails in particular appear to be boundless.  It may be
that you are, in fact, a renewable energy resource.  I'm glad that you
are participating in OpenStreetMap.

Please don't interpret my concerns about licensing as any sort of
authority.  There is no requirement for "rw approval" and I claim no
more authority than any other contributor to OpenStreetMap.  It's not
about me.

It is my preference and recommendation that any contact with any
database publisher be passed through the OSM Foundation for approval
of any license.  That is a burden of additional work for the
Foundation which is why I also recommend that the contributors in
contact with the publisher try to do as much of the up front work as
possible and provide links, and a summary.  That is the process that I
have observed in earlier successful arrangements to include data from
other sources in OpenStreetMap.

A nice, simplifying exception exists when data is published under a
license compatible with the current OSM license CCBYSA and the
proposed future OSM license ODbL.  Once a list of those compatible
licenses exists, and publishers adopt those licenses, things will be
much easier for OSM contributors to accept data.

Right now, the data licenses that are automatically always okay for
inclusion in OpenStreetMap are:

US Gov't Public Domain.
Public Domain - only available at the expiry of copyright period in
most jurisdictions
PDDL - http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/summary/
CCzero - http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0

During the transition period, even CCBYSA, and ODbL are not
"automatic" because both licenses should be accepted by the donor.  No
point in accepting data today that may have to be removed for the
transition.

Dear Matt,

Very good to meet you in your official capacity!  With your support
and enthusiasm, I expect that OSM will find a way to dot all of the Is
and cross all of the Ts with gov.yk.ca  I'll reply to you off-list as
well.

Best regards to all ,
Richard