[OSM-talk] immutable=yes Fwd: DEC Lands

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Russ Nelson wrote:
> On Mar 9, 2009, at 3:07 PM, Matthew Toups wrote:
>>  If we can't change the data, what's the point of having it in OSM?
> 
> Having consistent metadata and a consistent single-source API.

That's exactly what I said in my first reply:

Once OSM and its tool chain are established, everyone is going to want 
to have their data in OSM. ("Because then I only have to change my style 
file and the data is there on my map, instead of having to think about 
how to download it from elsewhere.")

Which is ok, even desired, as long as the data is relevant and unless 
you consider the data your property that nobody must change.

The power of OSM is not the API but the people. If you don't want the 
people then don't misuse our API to store your data just because it 
makes it easier for you to generate nice maps.

By all means, set up another server with the OSM API running on it where 
you hand out accounts only to those who are privileged enough to change 
immutable data and adapt your toolchain to query both servers. (Or 
generally adapt the OSM toolchain to work with multiple servers.)

I am absolutely sure that the dataset in question will, like any other 
dataset on the planet, contain errors. And if we find erroneous data in 
OSM, and know better, we will fix it in OSM, rather than asking some 
authority to please correct their data and then have a fixed update half 
a year later.

There are a number of things one could do when working with such 
official data. As 80n has suggested, the data could be tagged and 
editors could make the user aware of the fact that someone was of the 
opinion that this data should not be changed and whether he's sure of 
what he's doing. It would also be possible to write software that works 
in a web-of-trust kind of way: "Extract these boundaries from OSM but 
only accept changes from users I trust; if other users have changed the 
data then go back in history until you find a change done by a trusted 
user". So anyone who is keen on extracting the "official" view rather 
than what OSM mappers made of it could do so.

The cool thing about this is that it would follow OSM's mantra of 
filtering on the output side, not on the input side. The output you get 
would depend on which people you trust; whereas what you had been 
suggesting would be to just discard, in the database, everything done by 
people you don't trust.

I maintain that it would be totally inacceptable to OSM to automatically 
revert changes to objects that are deemed "immutable".

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"