[Talk-us] parcel data in OSM

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 6:15 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

> If, on the other hand, these low and high water lines are defined/recorded
> elsewhere (probably even in a legally binding form if they are relevant to
> some statue), and the only reason you want them in OSM is because you don't
> have the means, knowledge, or patience to actually retrieve that data from
> elsewhere and have it drawn into your map, then you advocate abusing OSM as
> a third party data distribution vehicle.

I think people's patience is frayed a bit, so let me try to rephrase
what some of the people who are against this type of import are
saying:

OSM is not data repository, it's a dataset onto itself. Through years
of experience, and trial and error, we have found that importing these
external datasets does not help the project in most cases. Therefore
we propose different solutions to some of the problems.

Where imported data can be used to aid mappers, we recommend making
imagery available either for tracing, or as a visual aid for
surveyors.

For places where the data is not observable by amateurs, then the
solution appears to be to to create data mashups.

> OSM is for crowdsourced data; that is OSM's strength - that hundreds of
> thousands of people can actually improve, edit, fix the data, and that is
> something you can't achieve by downloading a shape file from your county's
> GIS department.

But you can (and are encouraged) to use OSM data alongside your
county's data (in ways that comply with all applicable license
agreements).

> OSM's strength is definitely not collecting all the third-party geodata in
> the world that someone might find useful and load that into a common
> database so that people who want to make maps have easy access to such data.

Other projects exist which attempt this, some commercial, and some not.

These projects work differently than OSM, and folks wanting this are
encouraged to use those resources.


> OSM is not that system, and therefore it is not surprising that people who
> want such a system are often told to look elsewhere.

This may seem unfriendly at first, but it's a bit like being upset at
your dog for being unable to fly, or yelling at a bird for being
unable to breathe under water. The communities around Free geodata are
varied, and it doesn't make sense for one project to try to do and be
everything, but rather to work off the strengths of each project, and
see here collaboration makes sense.

- Serge