[OSM-talk] Contributing GIS Data to OSM

[IT Intern]

Thanks again Serge!  I think for the most part that cleared everything up
:).  Only thing I'm still not so clear on is the tagging.

> Another question about this is that I
> am working in the U.S., but I would be importing data for a region in an
> another country.  Do I follow the tagging system of the U.S. or do I
follow
> that of the country I am importing for?

>They should be roughly the same. Can you give me a specific example of
>a difference?

When I look at the U.S. tagging format, I see key-value pairs.  The data I
want to map is in China.  When I go to the Hong Kong format I don't see the
same type of pairing as I do for the U.S. version...

> What if that country has different
> tagging systems for different regions and none listed for the region of my
> interest?

>They generally don't. If they do, use the local one.

The area I want to map in China is Tibet, not Hong Kong.  Should I just use
Hong Kong's version?  Or U.S. since I am in U.S.?

Again many thank you's,

elshae

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 1:28 PM, Serge Wroclawski <emacsen at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:19 PM, IT Intern <itintern12 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thank you for your response Serge!  This is a very good outline and you
> are
> > very kind to have given me this kind of walk through.  I have read
> through
> > the docs about each part you outlined for me and have some more
> questions..
>
> Great.
>
> > "If you've signed up recently, you've accepted the new Contributor Terms"
> > So I believe this means that I should work under OSM's future license
> > policy, even though they have not yet made the crossover?
>
> I'd like to avoid discussing licenses too much since it's a hot topic,
> and not in the good way...
>
> But if you've accepted the CT, the CT handles the licence transition
> as far as OSM is concerned. But your organisation must be comfortable
> handing this data to OSM and letting it re license it.
>
> Let me put it to you another way...
>
> Once you accept the CT and contribute the data to OSM, the data
> belongs to the OSM Foundation, and the foundation may re license it.
> There are very good reasons for this, but as you might imagine, this
> can be somewhat controversial.
>
> >  Or do I work
> > under the current terms for now and then change everything later?  Sorry
> for
> > asking what may seem like dumb questions, but I want to be really sure
> about
> > this :)
>
> Nothing dumb about this; it's a bit complex.
>
> The short answer is, as long as you've accepted the CT on behalf of
> your organisation and they're okay, you don't have to worry about
> licenses again.
>
> > "If you understand OSM, then you know how we use tags to classify
> features."
> > My data is in a GIS database.  I looked at the tagging section of the
> docs.
> > The way I understood it is that I have to change my database to reflect
> the
> > tags?
>
> You don't need to change your database to fit our API.
>
> Let's imagine a fictional database full of historical fountains.
>
> The table might be "fountains" and there might be a single row called
> "latlong"
>
> OSM doesn't care about how the data looks internally, it only cares
> about how the data looks when it enters the system, that is a fountain
> from your system would need to come in like:
>
> <node id="-1" lon="..." lat="..." version="1">
>   <tag k="amenity" v="fountain" />
> </node>
>
> Using our XML schema as per the API documents.
>
> This example is a little simplified, but you probably get the point,
> which is that  OSM  only cares about the data representation as it
> enters OSM, not how it's represented inside your own system.
>
> >  I'm not really sure since I have a lot of columns with entries such
> > as place_name, lon, lat, geom, etc.
>
> In several jobs I've been at, I've had to do data mapping from one
> system to another. Maybe one customer has one stream format they
> prefer data in, and another is different.
>
> OSM has its own format, and it would then be your job to map the
> fields in your database to ours.
>
> So for example, "place_name" might become "name", and so on.
>
> > Another question about this is that I
> > am working in the U.S., but I would be importing data for a region in an
> > another country.  Do I follow the tagging system of the U.S. or do I
> follow
> > that of the country I am importing for?
>
> They should be roughly the same. Can you give me a specific example of
> a difference?
>
> > What if that country has different
> > tagging systems for different regions and none listed for the region of
> my
> > interest?
>
> They generally don't. If they do, use the local one.
>
> > As for importing data, I saw it mentioned somewhere that there is a test
> > database for OSM that I can work with to ensure my actual import goes
> > right.  Is this so?
>
> dev06 is meant for experimentation of software and you are encouraged
> to use it as such. The data in it is throwaway, so be aware that what
> you see won't look like normal OSM data.
>
> > Other than that is there a place I can show my .osm
> > files for moderation and checked by an OSM team or professionals alike
> that
> > will ensure me that my pending import data will benefit OSM?
>
> That's an excellent question. I've been suggesting this for a long
> time. My suggestion is join the import list, write up a wiki page on
> it, share it, share the osm, wait for feedback. If you don't get any,
> go for it. If you do get feedback, try to address it.
>
> This process may seem slow, but as someone who has personally caused
> import pain, and spent a long time cleaning it up, I can tell you it's
> well worth it.
>
> >  Also I saw
> > that you said that mass data imports are not favored.  What constitutes
> as a
> > "mass import" as opposed a more normal/manageable one?
>
> Any automated process is generally disfavoured.
>
> > As for the XML/.osm format, isn't there a tool from the FWTools suite,
> > something like ogr2osm that will correctly convert my GIS to .osm?  I am
> > guessing that even with such a tool, that I might have to edit/clean-up
> the
> > .osm files a bit, but I assume there has to be many tools out there to do
> > the bulk of the conversion...
>
> Ivan said he'd help you with that. Ivan knows what he's doing.
>
> > I truly appreciate all your kind help and assistance with this.  I don't
> > know what I would do if it wasn't for you guys :)
>
> It's our pleasure to help.
>
> - Serge
>
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