[Talk-ca] Microsoft has released its building outlines for Canada

[John Whelan]

Two years ago a group of Toronto mappers submitted the City of Toronto 
Open Data license to the LWG to see if it was acceptable.  I assume they 
meant to import things such as building outlines.  I also assumed as I 
think others did that this meant Toronto mappers were happy to import 
the City of Toronto's data especially as it was discussed on talk-ca first.

More recently Nate who currently lives in Toronto feels that this should 
be discussed once more in Toronto to work out what is desired etc.

Tim I think is organising Montreal open data import.

I note that Nate and Tim have different ideas about what should be 
imported.  One is happy with bay windows and I think the other feels 
they should be removed.

We also have Pierre who is unhappy because the imported building 
outlines available have too many corners that are not right angles.

The local Ottawa mappers are content with their Open Data import and 
find the data quality acceptable even though Pierre has expressed 
reservations about it.

Someone in Manitoba? mentioned there were no building outlines released 
for Manitoba?  I apologise if I have the province name wrong.

So we have a mixture of expectations which is only to be expected in a 
large group.

Microsoft's Open Data provides another source of Open Data which might 
meet Pierre's data quality expectations.  They may meet Nate's.  All 
provinces and Territories now have Open Data building outlines available.

Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon have populations of around 
35,000 people.  Realistically I don't think they have a group of local 
OSM mappers.

The next four provinces in size range between 142,000 to 1,275,000.

The larger provinces contain Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and 
Edmonton.

Essentially the problem now we no longer have a Canada wide consensus on 
what is acceptable appears to be how do you identify local mappers 
across Canada and how far away can a "local" mapper be to be considered 
local since it is the local mappers who make the decision about what is 
acceptable and I think it is they who have to drive the import process.

I'm sure if a local group would like to contact me we can find resources 
to assist them if required.

Cheerio John

OSM Volunteer stevea wrote on 2019-03-02 5:52 PM:
> No, I am not planning to import these.  However, your notification that the data are available seems to be encouraging the data to BE imported into OSM.  Of course, there is a "more correct" way to do that.
>
> Perhaps I might encourage you to sharpen up your intention for notifying talk-ca of the availability of the data.  Are they an additional source to ENTER into OSM?  (Thus importing them).  Or, perhaps you mean them to be a set of "comparison data" which might be used to verify or compare against the "other" data.  Although, then, should there be a discrepancy, the question becomes "which are (more) correct?"  I didn't see any of these issues addressed by your notification, which feel likes it begs these questions.  Thank you in advance for any follow-up that better clarifies.
>
> Late notice just before I clicked Send:  thanks to James for letting us know here that the data are ODbL and therefore OSM-compatible.  (One down, perhaps a bit more to go).
>
> SteveA
>
>> On Mar 2, 2019, at 2:40 PM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Why are you planning to import it?
>>
>> Cheerio John
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 2, 2019, 5:26 PM OSM Volunteer stevea, <steveaOSM at softworkers.com> wrote:
>> A responsible complement to this would be a link to license information, a wiki page about these data, and perhaps an Import Plan should those data actually be asserted to be worthy of being responsibly imported into OSM.
>>
>> SteveA
>> California
>>
>>> On Mar 2, 2019, at 2:17 PM, john whelan <jwhelan0112 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/Microsoft/CanadianBuildingFootprints
>>>
>>> So now there are two Open Data sources for building outlines in Canada.
>>>
>>> Cheerio John
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Talk-ca mailing list
>>> Talk-ca at openstreetmap.org
>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca

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