[OSM-talk] OSM based printed directory, possible?

[Mark Williams]

Matías Iturburu wrote:
> Hello list. Newbie here.
> 
> I work for a small press plublishing shop in my city, for a number of 
> years we have been developing and selling the most complete map of the 
> city and towns nearby, being the de-facto reference for all the 
> citizens, bus and taxi drivers, as well as for tourist in town.
> 
> Lately we have been interested in osm and, after noting that our town 
> isn't in osm, we would like to upload all our catography to osm (it's 
> quite a chunk of data). As a matter of taste we would like for the tiles 
> on our (printed) maps, to be the same than those online.
> 
> So the question arises, it is possible for us to have most of our 
> cartography on osm and still being able to print (and sell) our directory?
> 
> Take into account that at this point we are more worries about legal and 
> "community" concerns that on technical stuff. Also, if you know any 
> other experience like this in other countries it's more than wellcome.
> 
> Kind regards.
> 
> --
> Matías Iturburu


essentially, if it's your map & you made it, not adapted it from some 
other map, yes you   can. If you did base it on something else, it's 
ever so complicated.

Given the above, if you put it into OSM you can still sell copies; if 
people work out how to make & print their own, they can, however most of 
your customers wouldn't do so.

Making it look the same may be interesting; the default OSM Mapnik 
interpretation may differ, but you can write your own set of rules to 
make it the same for your prints. The basic map would of course be the 
same; only details of how a given road is represented would change. The 
OSM.org map will have the default settings whatever you do, unless you 
convince the rest of the world that your way is sufficiently better to 
make them all change.

You may feel that being able to quote the OSM map (and website) is a 
sufficient advantage to be worth the small number who feel able to 'roll 
their own' version. You may wish to keep a set of POI's for your own 
whilst placing the base map into the OSM domain.
It is easy to include a small link to the OSM map in your own web site 
which displays the map nicely, so long as the link is credited that's 
OK. I do, not that we're in the cartography business but it's a nice 
touch & much better than the other offerings, IMHO.

I've had a map link on my work website for about a year; number of 
people commenting to date: 0.00 - HiHo. Not a desperately busy site.

Mark