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

Anselm Hook anselm at gmail.com
Wed Sep 3 19:52:44 BST 2008


osm has a viral license?

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:39 AM, Sunburned Surveyor <
sunburned.surveyor at gmail.com> wrote:

> "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
> >>>
> >
> >
>
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>



-- 
anselm 415 215 4856 http://hook.org http://makerlab.com http://meedan.net
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