[OSM-talk] OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?

[Andy Townsend]

On 23/11/2018 21:03, Tomas Straupis wrote:
>
>    Ok. So do I understand OSMF position is this:

All the answers here are "my personal understanding of OSM's collective 
position, based on many years to and fro in mailing lists, wiki pages, 
etc. etc.".  Some of the questions below are technical, some are 
political, some have implications for how data is stored and some have 
implications for how data is represented (and it's important to 
disconnect those last two).  Also, OSM is a very broad church and some 
people have very different views about what we should record and how we 
should record it.

>    1. There are no technical problems with having international
> boundaries overlapping and representing official position of involved
> countries.

There are technical problems, in that things may be "double counted" - 
the "total number of X in the world" will be higher if we count by 
overlapping countries.  However, often we're choosing the "least worst 
option" - the one with fewest problems (technical and political), not 
the one with none.


>    2. International boundaries DO sometimes overlap.


I'm not actually aware of a situation where countries have said "this 
bit belongs equally to both of us" (I'd be interested to hear of any 
examples, actually), though there are plenty of places where they say "I 
think it belongs to me, and you think it belongs to you, but let's work 
together and manage it jointly".

>    3. OSMF is aware that overlapping boundaries would have satisfied
> more users (especially LOCAL users).

There's a clear split here between the views of people from Ukraine (and 
other countries closer to Russia's borders) and mappers from elsewhere.  
The former are saying "Ukraine was invaded and part was taken away by 
force; maps should show it as part of Ukraine because that act was not 
legal according to International law".  The latter are saying "we have 
always mapped what's on the ground, regardless of the legal situation".

Essentially it's a political decision what the admin_level=2 boundaries 
in OSM should reflect.  There's no one answer that will please everyone 
- if we said that admin_level=2 boundaries should show "the extent that 
each country thinks that it should have regardless of actual control on 
the ground" then we'd have to invent another boundary type for "actual 
borders" that did tell people where they were crossing a patrolled frontier.

Conversely, I personally don't think that there's a reason (subject to 
verifiability, which isn't a problem here) why claims such as this 
shouldn't be in OSM (so that people can make maps from them), just as 
long as people can't confuse them with the areas that particular 
countries actually control.  Western Sahara is an example - 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2559126 . There was a discussion 
(with mappers who'd been active in the area and in the OSM boundaries 
forum) that decided that Morocco should be in OSM as the area that it 
controls, and the SADR area as the area outside that.  According to the 
UN, Western Sahara should be a country, and if someone wants to create a 
map based on OSM data that shows the boundary of Western Sahara, they 
can, because that data is in OSM.

It's important to remember this last point - anyone can, and is 
encouraged to, make their own maps from OSM data.  What you see in the 
"standard style" at openstreetmap.org is just one possible rendering of 
many.  If you want to render OSM data without boundaries and then 
overlay a set of boundaries on it, you can (see 
https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SomeoneElse/diary/47007 for a worked 
example).  If you want to have different boundaries displayed for 
different URLs or different audiences, you can do that too (and many 
consumers of OSM data do exactly that).

There are other technical options about how best to show de jure and de 
facto boundaries.  As another example have a look at 
https://www.mapquest.com/ and browse to Western Sahara - there are at 
least 3 different styles of boundaries shown there that represent de 
facto and de jure country boundaries.  Those are technical decisions 
made by the people making those maps (in this case Mapbox, based on OSM 
data).

>    4. Precedence is taken by "most widely internationally recognised
> and best meets realities on the ground" where only second part is
> actually important, so this sentence should be changed to "best meets
> realities on the ground IRRESPECTIVE OF WIDE INTERNATIONAL
> RECOGNITION".

Frankly you're really not helping your argument by cherry-picking pieces 
of text from 
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/d/d8/DisputedTerritoriesInformation.pdf 
like that.   For the avoidance of doubt the full sentence from which you 
have quoted part of is:

*"Currently, we record one set that, in OpenStreetMap contributor 
opinion, is most widely internationally recognised and best meets 
realities on the ground, generally meaning physical control." *

It seems to me that it's the application of exactly that principle to 
the Russia/Ukraine border that you're objecting to. - it is widely 
internationally recognised that Russia now controls Crimea.  By all 
means lobby the developers of maps based on OSM data about how they show 
particular countries to particular audiences, and ensure that (where 
verifiable) data is contained within OSM to allow those maps to be made, 
but please don't say that this decision went against the letter or the 
spirit of that policy.  Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions - as 
I said near the top of this email, often we're choosing the "least worst 
option" of all of the available ones.

Best Regards,

Andy Townsend (from the Data Working Group, but written in a personal 
capacity)

PS: If anyone would like any help with any of the technical stuff 
(setting up a server, multiple sets of boundaries for multiple groups of 
users, different languages) then please do just ask 
(https://help.openstreetmap.org is a good place to start).  There are 
lots of options and lots of resources out there, and despite all the 
list, diary and forum posts I don't think I've seen anyone ask.



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