[Talk-ca] Talk-ca Digest, Vol 107, Issue 20
Bjenk Ellefsen
bjenk.ellefsen at gmail.com
Mon Jan 23 10:52:31 UTC 2017
The fundamental principle of Open Data is that some data are freely available to all and can be used and republished however they wish. Municipalities and Governments have embraced the idea and these initiatives are not only there for everyone but for OSM as well.
ODL are there precisely to give these permissions so bureaucrats don't have to give personal permission to every single person asking for something.
When raising a concern with the current City of Ottawa ODL, the least that should be done is to state clearly what problem there is in the wording. This has not been done and it's clear that most here consider it to be valid for what we do.
What is the problem with the wording?
Sent from my iPhone
> On Jan 22, 2017, at 12:48 PM, talk-ca-request at openstreetmap.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada (James)
> 2. Re: Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada (Steve Singer)
> 3. Re: Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada (James)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 12:06:39 -0500
> From: James <james2432 at gmail.com>
> To: John Marshall <rps333 at gmail.com>
> Cc: Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com>, Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
> <talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
> Message-ID:
> <CANk4qi_zhDoYkG0DywWJFXHUh1pfpK+zVYbHGMp0a_iyOF3BUw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> What I don't understand is even if there was the most open license
> possible, you are requiring to get an authorisation to use the data...So
> what's the point of having a legal group or dealing with licensing as if a
> restrictive copyrighted dataset that sues anyone who uses the data, if we
> have express permission that license doesnt apply to us as we have been
> added as an exception to the license.
>
> So if I understand correctly Paul, CC0 or any other license would require
> permission as a bypass to the license, even though it would be considered
> compatible with ODBL. To me this is why licensing exists, to avoid having
> to have to manage each licensing use case and says what you can/can't do
> with the data.
>
>> On Jan 22, 2017 10:08 AM, "John Marshall" <rps333 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Paul,
>>
>> So once we get a letter from the City of Ottawa, are we good to add the
>> buildings as per the wiki?
>>
>> John
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 8:41 AM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> There is another way forward for Stats at the moment and that would be to
>>> use the Statistics Canada address file which is available on the Federal
>>> Government Open Data portal under the Federal Government Open Data
>>> licence. The addresses are nodes rather than building outlines but there
>>> is nothing to stop building:levels, and postcode etc. being added to a node.
>>>
>>> This was the file that Metrolink used to add addresses in the Toronto
>>> area. It also has the benefit that it uses less storage in the OSM
>>> database.
>>>
>>> Cheerio John
>>>
>>>> On 21 January 2017 at 21:34, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It's to do with the way government works and is structured. What you
>>>> have is an official interpretation which carries weight. Quite a lot of
>>>> weight.
>>>>
>>>> Essentially both Canada and the UK are run by acts of parliament.
>>>> However these are normally interpreted by civil servants to keep things
>>>> running smoothly. For example in the UK by an Act of parliament of 1837
>>>> bicycles are not permitted to use the sidewalks but administratively you
>>>> will not be prosecuted for cycling on the sidewalk in certain parts of the
>>>> UK. The act hasn't been repealed but it is simply not enforced. The
>>>> decision was taken by a civil servant after consultations but is upheld by
>>>> the government.
>>>>
>>>> The day to day running is done by civil servants interpreting the
>>>> minister's wishes or act of Parliament. There will be discussion and
>>>> debate at a greater depth than either a minister or Parliament have the
>>>> time for and the decision will be recorded together with the reasons for
>>>> and against it. This can lead to a formal report with a recommendation.
>>>> It is a brave manager or minister who doesn't accept the recommendations.
>>>> Have a look at Yes Minister and you'll see that brave here means foolish.
>>>> There has to be a level of trust between the politicians and the civil
>>>> service for this to work. The direction is set by the politicians but the
>>>> day to day stuff by the civil servants. If a civil servant screws up then
>>>> its special assignment time which is the civil service way of terminating
>>>> you. So an interpretation is not given lightly.
>>>>
>>>> It has taken three or four years of discussion to get this far. My
>>>> understanding is the City of Ottawa licence actually makes reference to the
>>>> Federal government licence in the FAQ basically because all the expertise,
>>>> hard work and effort on licensing was done at the federal level.
>>>>
>>>> I think in this case you have to rely on civil servants and retired
>>>> civil servants expertise. Both Bjenk and I are of the opinion, as his his
>>>> manager, that for practical purposes the OGL-CA and the Municipal
>>>> equivalent are identical. There are a number of CANVEC employees and
>>>> retired employees floating around as well who will have an opinion but I
>>>> think it will be supportive. The open data manager at Ottawa is also of
>>>> the same opinion. My casual contacts at TB on the Open Data side are also
>>>> of the same opinion.
>>>>
>>>> My hope is that we can accept Open Data from municipalities that are
>>>> covered by the equivalent of the OGL-CA. What you seem to be asking for is
>>>> a resolution or vote by each municipality of their councillors before OSM
>>>> can use the data. This I think is getting towards the unreasonable and
>>>> unwieldy side of things.
>>>>
>>>> Canadian cities would like to encourage their citizens to walk, cycle
>>>> and use public transport. Tagging which paths maybe used by cycles helps
>>>> both sides. In Ottawa until I sat down with the cycling specialist and
>>>> pointed out on their cycle maps one path running through a park was on
>>>> their cycle maps and an identical one in the same park wasn't so how was I
>>>> to know which could be used? I was armed with photos from both paths and
>>>> of the signs, they were identical. After that the city expanded its
>>>> official cycle path network by many kms. "The *city of Ottawa* has a
>>>> vibrant *cycling* culture and now boasts over 600 km of multi-use
>>>> pathways, *bike* lanes, off-road paths and paved shoulders" We need
>>>> the City to identify these so they can be correctly tagged on the map.
>>>> Often there are no signs on a path to say if it maybe used by cyclists or
>>>> not.
>>>>
>>>> Metrolink has done a fair bit of address mapping in OSM in support of
>>>> getting people to use public transport. They're in Toronto by the way.
>>>> Both sides are better off with imported bus stops.
>>>>
>>>> Life was so much simpler when OSM was just a group of cyclists going
>>>> round with GPS devices recording tracks but I think times are changing and
>>>> there are benefits. The main problem in my mind is controlling the quality
>>>> of data for an import and in its careful merging with existing data. For
>>>> the City of Ottawa data the quality is reasonably good and some of it is
>>>> already present in the CANVEC data. The GTFS bus stop position data is far
>>>> better than many American cities because of the automated stop announcement
>>>> system to assist blind or partially sighted people. They went out and very
>>>> carefully checked the position of each and every bus stop with a high
>>>> accuracy GPS system so it would be correct.
>>>>
>>>> There is another issue and that is volume of data. If you are using OSM
>>>> data on a phone off line the smaller the database the faster it is but that
>>>> is a different kettle of fish. At least if its there you can filter out
>>>> those things you don't need.
>>>>
>>>> My suggestion is both the OGL-CA and the municipality equivalent should
>>>> be acceptable to OSM based on the interpretations you have from civil
>>>> servants.
>>>>
>>>> Cheerio John
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On 21 January 2017 at 19:37, Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/21/2017 4:34 PM, john whelan wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What you have is an interpretation of the Federal Government license.
>>>>>> From my background in the civil service my understanding is for a statement
>>>>>> it would have to be over a minister's signature or by act of parliament.
>>>>>> No one else has the authority unless it is delegated.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> If that's true and we can't rely on a statement from a government
>>>>> employee to interpret their license, then we can no longer use OGL-CA data.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Talk-ca mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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> ------------------------------
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> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 12:33:45 -0500 (EST)
> From: Steve Singer <steve at ssinger.info>
> To: Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com>
> Cc: talk-ca at openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
> Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1701221201480.14855 at opti.atlantida>
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>
>> On Sat, 21 Jan 2017, Paul Norman wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/20/2017 6:00 PM, James wrote:
>>> Is OGL-CA not compatible with osm?
>>
>> The license isn't OGL-CA. OGL-CA is the license from the Federal
>> government, while the City of Ottawa uses the ODL. In the case of OGL-CA
>> data it's compatible because they gave a statement on compatibility.
>
> It seems to me that there are at least three situations that can crop up in
> deciding if we can use data
>
> 1) A reading of the license text allows the use with OSM. If the text of a
> given license is compatible with the requirements of OSM then I don't see
> why we need any additional statement.
>
> 2) The compatibility of the license is unclear because of particular terms
> of the license. A particular government entity then gives us a statement
> saying that they feel the license is compatible with OSM. That same
> government entity would then have a hard time coming back later and saying
> that the license isn't compatible. However it doesn't tie the hands of other
> government entities that happen to be using the same license.
>
> 3) A particular license might not be compatible with OSM but the government
> entity gives us permission to use their data. In this case the 'permission'
> is the license.
>
> Why doesn't the OGL 2.0 qualify as compatible under criteria 1? Is there any
> particular term in a templated OGL 2.0 that someone feels is a concern?
>
> Replacing a <INSERT_LICENSING_ENTITY_HERE> variable with 'Government of
> Canada' versus 'City of Ottawa' doesn't change the license. we see this
> in software licenses all the time. The BSD software license reads 'Regents
> of the University of California' but changing that to the organization that
> is releasing the code doesn't make it no longer be a BSD license.
>
> The whole point of open-data licenses is that people can use the data
> without having to get special permission from the government for each use of
> the data. Some of the licenses used by Canadian governments in the past
> had clauses that made them not open/suitable. It isn't clear to me what the
> problem is with this license.
>
>
> Steve
>
>
>>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2017 12:48:04 -0500
> From: James <james2432 at gmail.com>
> To: Steve Singer <steve at ssinger.info>
> Cc: Paul Norman <penorman at mac.com>, Talk-CA OpenStreetMap
> <talk-ca at openstreetmap.org>
> Subject: Re: [Talk-ca] Crowdsourcing buildings with Statistics Canada
> Message-ID:
> <CANk4qi-3FcyiqKmh63BxvkfJdrXZuSFVYFsKv=4bQypmWRUjoA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> If someone actually read the introduction, it is saying exactly what Steve
> is saying: replacing governing bodies.
>
> This licence is based on version 2.0 of the Open Government Licence –
> Canada, which was developed through public consultation. The only
> substantive changes in this licence are to replace direct references to the
> Government of Canada with the City of Ottawa, replace a reference to the
> Federal Privacy Act with a reference to the Ontario Municipal Freedom of
> Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and remove a reference to the
> Federal Court of Canada.
>
> So why is this not considered the exact same as OGL-CA, which is considered
> compatible with ODBL?
>
>
>
>
>> On Jan 22, 2017 12:36 PM, "Steve Singer" <steve at ssinger.info> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, 21 Jan 2017, Paul Norman wrote:
>>
>> On 1/20/2017 6:00 PM, James wrote:
>>>
>>>> Is OGL-CA not compatible with osm?
>>>>
>>>
>>> The license isn't OGL-CA. OGL-CA is the license from the Federal
>>> government, while the City of Ottawa uses the ODL. In the case of OGL-CA
>>> data it's compatible because they gave a statement on compatibility.
>>>
>>
>> It seems to me that there are at least three situations that can crop up
>> in deciding if we can use data
>>
>> 1) A reading of the license text allows the use with OSM. If the text of
>> a given license is compatible with the requirements of OSM then I don't
>> see why we need any additional statement.
>>
>> 2) The compatibility of the license is unclear because of particular terms
>> of the license. A particular government entity then gives us a statement
>> saying that they feel the license is compatible with OSM. That same
>> government entity would then have a hard time coming back later and saying
>> that the license isn't compatible. However it doesn't tie the hands of
>> other government entities that happen to be using the same license.
>>
>> 3) A particular license might not be compatible with OSM but the
>> government entity gives us permission to use their data. In this case the
>> 'permission' is the license.
>>
>> Why doesn't the OGL 2.0 qualify as compatible under criteria 1? Is there
>> any particular term in a templated OGL 2.0 that someone feels is a concern?
>>
>> Replacing a <INSERT_LICENSING_ENTITY_HERE> variable with 'Government of
>> Canada' versus 'City of Ottawa' doesn't change the license. we see this in
>> software licenses all the time. The BSD software license reads 'Regents of
>> the University of California' but changing that to the organization that is
>> releasing the code doesn't make it no longer be a BSD license.
>>
>> The whole point of open-data licenses is that people can use the data
>> without having to get special permission from the government for each use
>> of the data. Some of the licenses used by Canadian governments in the past
>> had clauses that made them not open/suitable. It isn't clear to me what the
>> problem is with this license.
>>
>>
>> Steve
>>
>>
>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
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