[Discuss] OpenStreetMap in Victoria

[Corey Burger]

On 7/31/07, David Bronaugh <dbronaugh at linuxboxen.org> wrote:
> Corey Burger wrote:
> > On 7/30/07, Murray Strome <wmstrome at shaw.ca> wrote:
> >
> >> Corey Burger wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 7/29/07, Nick Black <nickblack1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On 7/29/07, Hristofor Todorov <chris.todorov at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> I guess that's good news because not everyone who would want to help has
> >>>>> a gps :) In that case what exactly needs to be done, because from what I
> >>>>> read from Nick's original post he said:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 09:42 +0100, Nick Black wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> We take GPS units and walk, cycle or drive
> >>>>>> around all the roads and footpaths we can find, noting their names and
> >>>>>> attributes. Once back at the desk, we then upload all the data we
> >>>>>> collect to create the maps you see at openstreetmap.org.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>> Thats right - we take GPS units to map stuff with, and I will have a
> >>>> load of GPS units to lend out to anyone who wants to use them.
> >>>>
> >>>> Recently Yahoo have allowed us to  work from their aerial imagery,
> >>>> which means a lot of the tracing can be done from the comfort of a
> >>>> chair.  But, we still need to get the names of the streets - which
> >>>> means walking down them.  At a mapping party in London recently, we
> >>>> had a lot of success with printing out aerial imagery and noting down
> >>>> road names on the maps, and then uploading the data.
> >>>>
> >>>> Another problem with satellite imagery is that it isn't always current
> >>>> - so new developments won't appear, requiring a good old GPS.
> >>>>
> >>>> Finally, satellite imagery provided by Yahoo is typically only
> >>>> available for urban areas.  So mapping downtown Victoria will be no
> >>>> problem, but if people want to go out further and map some rural
> >>>> areas, a GPS unit could also be required.
> >>>>
> >>>> So - I'll have some GPS units which will be useful for some stuff.
> >>>> Having a laptop will also be helpful, as will print outs of yahoo
> >>>> images and OSM maps.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> The Yahoo aerial imagery covers all of the Saanich Peninsula, running
> >>> west all the way until just past Thetis Lake before Goldstream. Thus
> >>> we have all of Greater Victoria covered.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >> I must admit that I have not read every posting in this thread, but I
> >> wonder if you have looked at this resource:
> >>
> >> http://www.crd.bc.ca/maps/natural/index.htm
> >>
> >> It contains a lot of detailed information, including house numbers on
> >> individual homes (at least in my neighbourhood). In the aerial photo
> >> view, I can even clearly see the 1m satellite dish which was on my roof
> >> when the photo was taken.
> >>
> >> I don't know about the legality of using the information for other
> >> projects, but I am very impressed with the quality of the data (in
> >> addition to streets, etc. there is a lot of other GIS information that
> >> can be displayed).
> >>
> >> Murray
> >>
> >
> > So OpenStreetMap is CC by sa 2.0 licensed. As such, we can only use
> > data sources that have compatible licenses. Looking at the
> > contributors to the atlas:
> > http://www.crd.bc.ca/maps/natural/sponsors.htm , I would say that hte
> > data is probably not avaiable for us.
> >
> > For instances, there is a great Canadian data source at
> > http://www.geogratis.gc.ca/ that we cannot use because although the
> > license is almost compatible, it has a few nasty sections, such as
> > termination, etc.
> >
> > Corey
> >
> Why not lobby the gov't to change the nasty and disagreeable sections?
> Our taxpayers dollars created it, why should we not be able to integrate
> it into free products?

Actually, the license has already changed once:
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2007-April/000307.html

However, the new license still requires attribution to Geobase. This
is a grey area that we currently believe is not compatible:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Canada#Canada_Datasources

Corey