[OSM-talk] OSMHQ (Open Street Map High Quality): Viable Alternative For The National Map Corps

[Sunburned Surveyor]

"Of course, some surveyors may prefer that their work be under a
Copyleft license. That's fine, and I certainly wouldn't want to
discourage anyone from contributing directly to OSM in that case. But
if given a choice some would choose PD, please consider providing them
a workspace where such a choice isn't compromised."

I'm not that familiar with the licensing issues related to OSM, but I
hope to become more familiar with them. As a result, I am hesitant to
comment on this. It sounds similar to the GPL versus LGPL debate that
goes on in the open source world. I'll subscribe to the OSM license
mailing list and post some more quesitons of mine there.

Landon

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 10:12 AM, Nathan Vander Wilt
<nate-lists at calftrail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 2, 2008, at 7:47 AM, Sunburned Surveyor wrote:
>>
>> Nate,
>>
>> What data are you talking about? Do you mean the actual vector
>> geometry created as part of the mapping, or do you mean the extra
>> stuff, like the metadata and the photos?
>
>
> Not sure exactly what you're asking, but I see I was a bit unclear myself
> below.
>
> In my first paragraph, I was referring to all the data that is produced via
> federal money (e.g. USGS, NASA, Census Bureau, CIA, NOAA...) and is thus in
> the public domain. There's a lot of great US and world datasets from these
> agencies that have enabled, or at least got started, a lot of neat stuff
> because of the generous (non-)license Federal (and some state???) works are
> under.
>
> In my second paragraph, I was referring to the data that you hope to
> encourage Corps members to continue to collect. If they are willing to
> continue having their work placed in the public domain, it might be best to
> keep it totally separate from OSM. If surveyors start with public domain
> base maps such as TIGER, revised with their own GPS traces, there can be no
> questions as to whether they are a "derived work" of a virally licensed
> dataset like OSM. (See
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2008-May/025912.html for an
> example of the FUD spread on the idea of extracting PD data back out of
> OSM.)
>
> Of course, some surveyors may prefer that their work be under a Copyleft
> license. That's fine, and I certainly wouldn't want to discourage anyone
> from contributing directly to OSM in that case. But if given a choice some
> would choose PD, please consider providing them a workspace where such a
> choice isn't compromised.
>
> Have you been able to get into contact with any now-restless surveyors? lf
> so, and you'd like assistance in the matter, I know there are at least a few
> others on this list of similar mind with regards to the licensing problems.
>
> thanks,
> -natevw
>
>
>> On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 10:40 AM, Nathan Vander Wilt
>> <nate-lists at calftrail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Aug 19, 2008, at 12:22 PM, Sunburned Surveyor wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Note: This message will probably be of the most interset to OSM
>>>> mappers in the United States.
>>>>
>>>> I was very disappointed in the recent shut down of the National Map
>>>> Corps. This shutdown prompted me to consider if OSM could be a viable
>>>> alternative to the former federally sponsored base mapping of the
>>>> United States. I started to put down some of my thoughts on paper. I
>>>> realized that it wouldn't take a great deal of changes to have OSM
>>>> fill this much needed role. I started to put together some "suggested"
>>>> procedures and other ideas that would increase the quality of OSM data
>>>> and allow it to provide "base map" layers for a traditional GIS. I'll
>>>> be trying out some of these ideas and procedures on a OSM mapping
>>>> project near my home in Stockton, California.
>>>
>>> Here in the US, we have the wonderful benefit of a great deal of public
>>> domain map data, because of federal sponsorships like that.
>>>
>>> Would it be possible, instead of putting this data directly into OSM, to
>>> set
>>> up a separate database/webserver/API stack for the collection of data
>>> under
>>> a public domain license? OSM could then certainly use this data, but the
>>> main database's "public domain-ness" would not be compromised by the
>>> viral
>>> license.
>>>
>>> thanks,
>>> -natevw
>>>
>
>