[OSM-talk] License change: database rebuild schedule

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 03/12/2012 08:06 PM, Alex Barth wrote:
> The message titled "The Vandalism has begun" on talk-us [1] suggests
> that purging the OSM database of non-ODBL data has already begun
> leading to data effectively being removed from OSM at least as of
> today.

Ever since the April 1st target was declared, people have started to 
work towards "remapping" their area with the goal of making it "safe" 
for the license change.

There are various tools available that mark probelmatic data, e.g. the 
OSM Inspector license change view.

There are cases where data by one prolific mapper or importer who chose 
not to agree (but where the community believes that these contributions 
are either of limited value or can be easily re-imported later) 
basically colours the whole of the local map red, and overshadows those 
bits that *really* need work.

Occasionally, people have therefore decided to remove such data from one 
or two contributors wholesale and then work on whatever remains.

This is not an OSMF or LWG decision but one taken by the 
local/regional/national community and has been going on for months.

In some cases I have been asked by the community to help them remove 
stuff, for example a series of maxspeed tags in Austraila around Jan 20, 
or a whole lot of "acrosscanadatrails" imports in Canada, or just 
recently another bunch of vreimer/acrosscanadatrails imports, but I 
reckon that I am by far not the only person doing that.

Let me repeat that this is just me acting on my own because someone 
asked me to help them, not LWG hunting for bad data and removing it. As 
part of the "remapping" campagin which you will be familiar with, some 
areas have been manually cleaned out and remapped, sometimes adding 
details, but not always preserving the full detail that was there before 
so if you wanted a database unaffected by any remapping you'll perhaps 
want to go back to December or so.

> - Is there an official database rebuild schedule and where can I find it?

Not as far as I know. I believe that the current plan is a sort of 
"gradual transition" that would fix things up for the change, possibly 
deleting or modifying objects, until the DB is ready for the switch to 
be thrown.

> - Until when exactly will the pre-license change OSM database be available?

As I said, for data unaffected by any remapping you'll have to go back 
to an earlier dataset. As for the official OSMF action, my guess is that 
it will at best have a test run in an isolated area before 1st April but 
I would be surprised if we'd see any bulk action in March. (Such bulk 
action in March would be required if the switch was to be made on April 
1st but I don't see it happening. *Start* on April 1st, perhaps.)

Note that OSMF has never promised to not do anything before April 1st; 
but of course it would not be ok to do so without at least talking to 
the local community.

Bye
Frederik

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