Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Multiple license declaration
I moved the multiple licensing site out of beta. You cannot not revoke licenses once they are accepted. I hope it will be useful. http://timsc.dev.openstreetmap.org/extralicenses/ Tim ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] CTs are not full copyright assignment
On 27/06/11 09:12, Olaf Schmidt-Wischhöfer wrote: I appreciate the fact that you work with TimSC. I look forward to being able to read the page http://timsc.dev.openstreetmap.org/extralicenses/ (I do not want to click Decline at the moment, because I am still undecided, and reading this page might contribute to my decision.) Olaf I added a test account to people who can't get OAuth access. http://timsc.dev.openstreetmap.org/extralicenses/testaccount.php Please have a read and let me know what you think! Tim ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Multiple license declaration
Hi all, I wanted to create a way for individual users to relicense their data under difference licenses. Since OSM and derivatives are OAuth capable, it is possible to authenticate a user and get them to agree to a license. This can be stored in a machine readable format. I hope this will be useful in transferring data between forks, particularly if a significant number of people chose permissive licenses. From what I can tell, most mappers pretty much agree to any license they are presented with. :) http://timsc.dev.openstreetmap.org/extralicenses/ At this stage, I was hoping for ideas for improvements of the legal issues. Any thoughts? TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What is ad hominem and bad faith
On 6/20/2011 8:03 AM, TimSC wrote: It would be nice if the committee would be aware of this long standing problems and as[k] for help from the community too. We have considerable human resources in the community and if people are over worked, perhaps they should delegate more? Also, it can be that someone tried to do something they think constructive, they risk the ire of someone else who believes it should be done differently. Credo experto - believe me, i've tried. On 20/06/11 16:33, Steve Coast wrote: I'd take a long look at how you have sucked up the LWGs time, Tim, before you make these kinds of statements. Steve, can you stop changing the subject on to me? It's ad hominem and a violation of etiquette. And it is off topic and doesn't assume good faith. Do you understand what I am asking, as you keep doing it even when I ask you to stop? On 21/06/11 06:00, SteveC wrote: An ad hominem attack would be something where you complained about what the LWG spent it's time on and I replied with a comment about your mother. Instead, I replied pointing out that you are in fact the one using most of their time recently. That would be called a rebuttal or perhaps a riposte, but it's not an ad hominem attack. Steve, Thanks for responding. I moved this to a different thread as it is getting on to a new topic. I tried to sort the conversation in to chronological order so we can see the relevant parts. Your definition of ad hominem is slightly wrong. An ad hominem is always against the author of the argument being criticised. An attack on a third party (e.g. my mother) would be merely an insult and can never be ad hominem. A better definition is an attempt to undermine an argument with perceived negative attributes or character of the author (paraphrased from [1][2]). You did so. The highlighted a negative attribute because I supposedly sucked up the LWGs time, and claimed I can't make my point because of that alleged fact: I'd take a long look [...] before you make these kinds of statements. It's the same as criticising a poltician's stance on family values because they had an alleged affair. Tabloids say how dare that hypocrite make statements on family values. Both your point and this are classic ad hominem. I think this is an important point. If we can try to rid the mailing lists of these personal attacks, we might be more productive. Steve, do you understand what I am trying to say? Regards, TimSC [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad+hominem [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-legal-talk] License for OSM tiles
Hi all, With the CTs/ODbL upon us, I was wondering about the tiles on the default layer on the OSM web page. The license change is based on the premise that CC-BY-SA is not appropriate for data*. The LWG are pushing to drop the CC-BY-SA license for data extracted from OSM and go with a single license**. My question is are we keeping the CC-BY-SA license for OSM tiles, which is a produced work under ODbL? or would be better to change? My opinion is we should stay with a standard license for tiles that makes interoperability with other data easy. Therefore we should stay within the creative commons family of licenses as being very mainstream. We might want to move to a more liberal license though - from CC-BY-SA to CC-BY or CC0. I am involved with two projects in Kent, UK that require tracing the location of new features over a map - and at the moment I don't recommend SA licensed tiles for that. This forces me into OS's arms with their BY type OpenData. I would prefer to use a crowd sourced map that is not SA for tiles. (Unless I can trace over OSM tiles without violating the current tile license, which I don't think is possible.) Any thoughts? TimSC PS I could try to argue that OSM is a data project so the tiles should be licensed as liberally as possible, but even _I_ don't buy that argument! * this is disputed but ignored for now ** I strongly oppose this, but moving on ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Pitiful proceedings - as usual
On 20/06/11 15:53, Richard Fairhurst wrote: NopMap wrote: Yeah, sure, I'll just burn some incense, look deep into my crystal ball and guess what everybody has been doing. Why do you need to do that? Why don't you e-mail LWG and say: I think you've been having difficulties with your communications. I'd like to volunteer to be your communications officer. I'll sit in on your weekly meetings, draw up a comms plan, and be responsible for carrying it through? cheers Richard It would be nice if the committee would be aware of this long standing problems and as for help from the community too. We have considerable human resources in the community and if people are over worked, perhaps they should delegate more? Also, it can be that someone tried to do something they think constructive, they risk the ire of someone else who believes it should be done differently. Credo experto - believe me, i've tried. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Pitiful proceedings - as usual
On 20/06/11 16:33, Steve Coast wrote: I think the LWG is more than well aware that they are imperfect human beings volunteering in a horrible environment to make things better. So, can you point to where LWG itself has explicitly asked for help? Or recognised it's difficulties with communication in writing? Perhaps we need a request for help page on the wiki? It would be good to have them ask for specific types of help because people with those skills can step forward. I'd take a long look at how you have sucked up the LWGs time, Tim, before you make these kinds of statements. Steve, can you stop changing the subject on to me? It's ad hominem and a violation of etiquette. And it is off topic and doesn't assume good faith. Do you understand what I am asking, as you keep doing it even when I ask you to stop? Everything I have done, I have done in good faith. I shouldn't have to defend myself on every thread. (And Steve, if you want to talk about this seriously, try constructively responding to my email to the LWG on 15th June first. Continued discussion on this probably should be off the mailing list.) On 20/06/11 16:39, Chris Hill wrote: Maybe part of the reason that these volunteers are working too hard is because some people demand individual attention. Imagine if everyone made their own demands of the LWG ... Are you seriously saying that a handful of people directly talking to the LWG is a significant factor in LWG having communication difficulties? Or is this just another ad hominem? Is there a constructive solution to this? or are you telling me to shut up? It seems to me the same issues come up again and again, but never concluded, so it is not necessarily the fault of the person asking the question (or even of the LWG). I suggest that people directly trying to communicate with the LWG is a symptom and not a cause of the communication problem. Of course the LWG has a tough job, because legal issues are very hard to resolve and I have never denied that. But the solution is not to blame me or LWG but to actually try to solve the problems. So stop pointing fingers, please. Perhaps if we can reduce the barriers to people helping OSM it would help. We obviously do this in mapping with friendlier tools. But I am told we talk people that can do sys admin tasks and get involved with the LWG (and probably many other things I don't know about). This might be due to the selection of pretty obscure prerequisites to get involved: ruby on rails in development (I have never met a RoR developer in person, at least knowingly), and being familiar with the background of ODbL (which most normal legal professionals can't understand, unless they are specialists). I suggest as many tasks as possible be moved into domains were people actually have the skills to help out. (This might be a lame idea but at least I am trying to be constructive.) Regards, TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Pitiful proceedings - as usual
On 20/06/11 18:11, Chris Hill wrote: It seems to me the same issues come up again and again, but never concluded, so it is not necessarily the fault of the person asking the question (or even of the LWG). I suggest that people directly trying to communicate with the LWG is a symptom and not a cause of the communication problem. And exactly how did making a long list of personal demands at the eleventh hour help with that process? Ok, just sanity check here - I looked at subject line as to what we are talking about - which is communication difficulties and LWG and related issues. Part of the problem in OSM mailing lists is that discussions keep going off topic and this is even directly after I raised it as a problem. Given that is a significant problem, the question is how do we address it? I suggest list moderation (which is community lead, not by a dictator) and a high standard of behavior set by the community leaders. (Yes, admittedly moderation takes volunteers but we need to agree on a plan before implementing it.) Can anyone think of a better plan? Regards, TimSC PS I plan to disregard, as much as I can, all non-constructive input. I will probably only be partly successful though. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Pitiful proceedings - as usual
On 20/06/11 18:35, Dair Grant wrote: TimSC wrote: I suggest as many tasks as possible be moved into domains were people actually have the skills to help out. Then I suggest you do it, rather than just suggest it. Doing things without discussing it might result in bad things happening. Discussion first, then do. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] data derived from UK Ordnace Survey
On 16/06/11 11:00, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, On 06/16/11 10:55, Richard Fairhurst wrote: In the event of a future relicensing, LWG and the community would need to check existing data and delete it if so. Does that not effectively rule out any future relicensing because the burden of checking existing data is just too high? I mean, how would one even *begin* to perform such a check, given that nobody is actually obliged to tell us what license restriction his externally-sourced data might be under? I agree with what Robert said [1]: No, Clause 2 of the CTs requires you to grant OSMF a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable licence to do any act that is restricted by copyright, database right or any related right over anything within the Contents... subject only to some limitations on how OSMF may license the OSM database to others. Those limitations do not include any obligation for OSMF to ensure future licences have an attribution clause, and *that* is the problem I'm trying to highlight TimSC [1]http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2011-April/011458.html ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [Talk-GB] Woodland Trust and Open Data
My communication recent with the woodland trust, regarding open data: It would be good if you could do more on data openness - that is more permissive permissions to use data on your web site. Also it would be good to be able to upload creative commons licensed photos to your visitwoods pages, as there are many good photos on flickr like that. Regards, Tim On 16/06/11 15:28, Tim Sheerman-Chase wrote: On 16/06/11 15:20, visitwo...@woodlandtrust.org.uk wrote: Your comments about data and creative commons prompted an interesting discussion in our team. While we would like to do more about data openness, our data is licensed from a huge number of partners, so we are unable at present to make it more open. We would like to assure you that your comments have been taken seriously, and have been fed into our ongoing project development. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I look forward to any future attempts that can be made on your part to adopt open data. You might be interested in something I did with Kent Council Council recently. They released a list and rough location of green spaces in the Medway area. I have created a web 2.0 website to collect user annotations and improved position data. http://toolserver.org/~timsc/locateservices/greenspaces/ I hope it is food for thought. Regards, Tim ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [OSM-talk] Poll on Governance, what constitutes news, wiki front page
(see above) 3. The link to the poll is news under your definition, and my judgment too, but you deleted it. 4. I asked people not to make a big deal of my discussions with OSMF [3], which you immediately ignored without explanation [4]. Richard, can't we just live and let live? You're profile has the wise words to avoid endless discussions and go do stuff. I think it is possible since we recently dropped a discussion that was going nowhere, at your suggestion [5]. I respected your request - live and let live. I am not asking you to do much - I am just asking for you to lay off, please. So now I hope we can agree that other people think the poll is news, and that it is consistent with past news items, are there any other _constructive_ comments regarding putting the poll on the wiki front page? Regards, TimSC (the cross post on talk-gb was an accident) [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/News_Archive [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Newslimit=500action=history [3] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2011-June/006134.html [4] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2011-June/006135.html [5] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2011-June/011752.html [6] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2011-June/058729.html [7] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Objectivity_%28journalism%29#Criticisms [8] http://journalism.about.com/od/reporting/a/newsworthy.htm ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [Talk-GB] Poll on Governance, what constitutes news, wiki front page
(see above) 3. The link to the poll is news under your definition, and my judgment too, but you deleted it. 4. I asked people not to make a big deal of my discussions with OSMF [3], which you immediately ignored without explanation [4]. Richard, can't we just live and let live? You're profile has the wise words to avoid endless discussions and go do stuff. I think it is possible since we recently dropped a discussion that was going nowhere, at your suggestion [5]. I respected your request - live and let live. I am not asking you to do much - I am just asking for you to lay off, please. So now I hope we can agree that other people think the poll is news, and that it is consistent with past news items, are there any other _constructive_ comments regarding putting the poll on the wiki front page? Regards, TimSC [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/News_Archive [2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Newslimit=500action=history [3] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2011-June/006134.html [4] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2011-June/006135.html [5] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2011-June/011752.html [6] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2011-June/058729.html [7] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Objectivity_%28journalism%29#Criticisms [8] http://journalism.about.com/od/reporting/a/newsworthy.htm ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OSM Governance: How Should Decisions Be Made?
On 15/06/11 10:14, Jerry Clough : SK53 on OSM wrote: Please do not start cross-posting about an non talk-gb issue here. Oops, it was a mistake by me. Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [OSM-talk] Join the OSMF !
On 13/06/11 12:30, Serge Wroclawski wrote: That vote took place three times. It was done first by the OSMF members, then the community at large, and then separately by the community by a different community member who had concerned over the first poll. Check the archives, you'll find references to them. They're several years old now. The community polls were post-hoc rationalizing, window dressing, unofficial and poorly worded. In legitimate democratic votes, the vote occurs BEFORE the decision to implement a plan takes place. It is tacitly acknowledged in that the mechanism in the CTs is different from what previously had happened. But really the past doesn't matter as much as what we do next. Regards, TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] Poll on Governance, what constitutes news, wiki front page
Hi all, cc Richard Fairhurst, I recently created a poll on doodle about how decisions are taken in OSM. I think this issue matters to many people. I put the poll in the news section on the front page of the wiki, so we can get a decent turn out and be able to draw some conclusions. Richard Fairhurst reverted that edit with the reason 'This is not remotely news. It's one person's hobbyhorse. By this reckoning I could post a news item every time I ask a question on the mailing lists'. [1] This issue not just one person's hobby horse - its an issue that is very topical and very relevant. People actually bothered to vote, including significant people in the community. This shows people care. Also, OSMF is actively debating this issue and it would be invaluable to have some empirical data. If there was some documentation on guidelines on what constitutes news, Richard might have a point. (Admittedly some would rather get on and map and I wish them all the best - I am by no means stopping them.) It seems like the poll is going to be more valuable than a dozen circular discussions on the mailing lists... So I ask any interested parties and Richard: please respond with a definition of what constitutes news and/or some reasoning that it is one person's hobbyhorse, otherwise I will revert you back. Also if you want to raise awareness of the poll, I would appreciate some support here! ;) Regards, TimSC [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Newsaction=history ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Join the OSMF !
Hi all, I suggest people try to a bit more constructive on this thread. It has gone off topic and contains a few breaches of the etiquette guidelines. The process that got us to where we are but if people have a problem with it, it would be more useful to look to the future IMHO. I am not saying everything in the process was fine. This is tacitly acknowledged by the CTs now having a defined mechanism for license change (regardless of if you agree with the CTs, they still are a clarification). If we don't get more constructive, the mailing lists are just full of noise but no signal, as engineers would call it. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Join the OSMF !
On 11/06/11 12:09, Ben Laenen wrote: OK, so the thread went into a different direction along the way, but above is what my question originally was: what gave OSMF the power to be this small group in the first place? The OSMF only had the purpose to support OSM and suddenly it's now making the decisions? If the OSMF really wants to be the governing power, and the OSM communitity agrees to give them this power (by vote...), then fine, but please state so beforehand so we could actually have participated in it if we wanted to. But since the OSMF had (and still has) no mandate at all, they have just as much power to make decisions on OSM as any other mapper. Ben I agree but saying this on the mailing list will make no difference at all. We need to discuss HOW we bring about change, and what that change might be. Suggestions: 1) Petition and poll to gather consensus. I create a doodle poll here: http://doodle.com/s2zg64vyaup72dcw Please publicize and vote. 2) Go to the OSMF open session tomorrow. 3) Contact OSMF directly though the committees but preferably not electronically (otherwise you might get ignored). They are actually quite a friendly bunch! 4) Join the OSMF as a member (people keep suggesting this but I don't actually agree!) Regards, TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Join the OSMF !
On 10/06/11 19:18, Ben Laenen wrote: then why is it making all the decisions on the new license? Or am I then misunderstanding how the whole process is taking place? Greetings Ben I was talking to Henk and Oliver of OSMF today* and I think we agree that what ever OSMFs role is, it would be good to have it somewhat clarified and in writing. Their view was that OSMF, apart from growing the community and maintaining infrastructure, OSMF should also be directing the momentum/energy/image of the project to meet OSM goal of creating and providing free geographic data. This includes pushing the license change, controlling use of OSM resources, representing OSM as a point of contact, etc, and this definition of OSMF roughly reflects the current situation IMHO. I argued that OSMF might be better if their role was more limited, but we agree that some collective decision making (by OSMF on the community's behalf) was necessary. On 10/06/11 19:27, Dermot McNally wrote: We the mappers are making the decisions based on a proposal drawn up at great length by OSMF. And mappers will continue to hold the power over future decisions of this sort. At the moment, the real power doesn't lie with the general community (probably). Again, not really defined. There are many gray areas. I suggest if people have opinions, they should contact the OSMF board directly, or go to their Sunday meeting [1]. The more in person you get, I suspect, the more effective is the communication. Posting on the mailing list is likely to get ignored. As I understand it, the role of OSMF is being actively debated internally (and externally, thanks to my sturring the hornets nest [2]). If you must debate this issue by mailing list, perhaps try the strategic mailing list? So the question is: how should the various organs of OSM interact to best achieve the overall goal of OSM? Answers on a post card :) Regards, TimSC [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Board_Meeting_June_2011 [2] https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_119fr26kqdz * thanks guys, and Ed Avis too ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Join the OSMF !
On 10/06/11 21:50, Dermot McNally wrote: On 10 June 2011 21:38, Nic Roetsnro...@gmail.com wrote: 2. How do they know that there is overwhelming support from the community ? (I don't believe the license change passed this test) and Close to 99% of mappers who actively voted supported the change. I think you are confusing support the relicense with accept the relicense and that difference is significant. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Join the OSMF !
On 10/06/11 22:51, Dermot McNally wrote: On 10 June 2011 22:16, TimSCmappingli...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: I think you are confusing support the relicense with accept the relicense and that difference is significant. Not at all - I know of no form of democracy that distinguishes between grudging acceptance or evangelical zeal. An interesting response! :) I think you are using support in a different sense than Nic Roets's original question: How do they know that there is overwhelming support from the community? Care to clarify Nic? TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Private negotiations
Quoting Richard Fairhurst rich...@systemed.net: I'm led to believe that people have been issuing LWG with private lists of demands that they want met before they will consent to ODbL+CT. Yes, I attended to previous LWG teleconference and I asked for LWG, as a committee, to enter into direct negotiations with me, an individual mapper. The draft minutes are online [1]. I argued that since LWG were asking something of me (to accept the CTs), that it would be fair if they provide some things I want. (This logic was a pretext, to my mind. The LWG should be routinely influenced by the community, and therefore me, so my conditions shouldn't even be necessary.) They agreed to take a look at my list of conditions and that they did not have any objection to entering into a discussion. I tried to outline my conditions but it a long and detailed list. They fall into three broad themes: increase in the involvement of mapping contributors in OSM decisions, the role of OSMF and licensing issues. I have abandoned trying to talk OSMF out of ODbL adoption. I am looking to the future and trying to influence the future direction of OSM. My future involvement in OSM depends on how OSMF evolves - but that is true for everyone. I will probably have at least some involvement even my worst case scenario - I want to be involved though. But I can't in good conscience give my enthusiastic support to a body that I feel doesn't listen to me... or rather they DO listen to me but I am doubtful if I have any influence at all. Previously, I have put forward my arguments on the mailing list and this doesn't seem to be effective. I have tried other means. My personal negotiation to the LWG is a new approach for me. BTW, OSMF and its committees are all very hard working and I believe have the best intentions. Thanks for the countless hours of work guys! But I am trying to influence them too because I disagree with some of their decisions and policies. I am unsure to what extent this negotiation will be make public. I am hopefully talking to Henk in the next few days and I might have some idea then. If you were to ask anyone in the LWG for what I have requested, there is no prohibition with them sharing it with you. I would discourage it though and I would however be slow to distribute it myself, because the result would be loss of my time for no real gain to anyone. The conclusion of the negotiation will almost certainly be public. Could I ask that said people have the courtesy to post their demands here, too? As far as I am concerned, I, as an individual, am having a negotiation with LWG/OSMF. Although it is not secret by any means, I am not sure there is much of a benefit to gain by posting this on this mailing list. All the ideas have previously been discussed on the mailing lists - to no avail. It has consumed a great deal of my time and yours too, probably. For me, the mailing list is a forum where we, the community, can collectively discuss issues. Just from that, it doesn't necessarily follow that we should have every external interaction with OSMF documented on the mailing lists. This doesn't mean I think the community should be cut out of decision making - in fact I believe the opposite. I am sorry if the community thinks I am circumventing them to control OSM. But I am not taking any decisions on behalf of the community and I feel like I don't have much influence anyway. The LWG and OSMF seem to be making the decisions. You should talk to them if you want to be involved in the future of OSM - and that is what I am trying to do. In a way, I am in agreement that it is disturbing that a very obscure discussion could take place and OSMF (in the best interests of the project) was to take a decision based on it without consulting the community. But this IS how OSM operates. The solution is not to move every discussion into a public forum, but to move the decision making process to the public forum. It would be a shame if the suspicion arose that the process is being swayed by closed demands. For me, that sounds like a potential problem with the way decisions are made in OSM, not a problem with the possibility of secret/closed/obscure communication between people inside and outside OSMF. The possibility of secret conversations cannot be eliminated. But we can try to make the final decision making process open - I think we can do better than we currently do. I have a feeling I will be accused of being cryptic. I have tried to explain my actions as best as I can. Regards, TimSC [1] https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_119fr26kqdz ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [Talk-GB] OpenKent, OSM coverage estimation
On 08/06/11 08:15, Peter Miller wrote: My experience is that the LWG never makes definitive statements! I find that annoying sometimes but, if we are to follow to Spinoza's example that we should made a ceaseless effort not to [...] scorn human actions, but to understand them, LWG have to deal with legal advice that is also not definitive. Hopefully they can offer a definitive position on matters such as good mapping practice - like if we should import data of uncertain compatibility. I suggest that you turn the tables on them and send them an email saying that you will import the OGL-licensed data in xx days unless you get a statement from them in the mean time saying that it would be violating the OSM licensing terms and compromising your status as a contributor. I have set one or two deadlines on LWG in the past but it doesn't fit with their working pattern. Until now, nothing gets decided, or is put to discussion leading up to a decision, in any forum other than the teleconference. But to their credit, they are quite open and understanding when you do phone in and discuss matters. This is something I want to work on: to have a medium-long term discussion with LWG outside the weekly teleconference. I think the suggestion was met with a mixed response - discussions will continue. In the modern world with email, wikis, face to face, etc, there is more to life than teleconferences! Regarding data formats. Can I suggest that that we gratefully accept data in whatever format it is provided. We can ask politely for it to be in an better format but please don't complain either about the quality of the data or the suitability of the format which may support councils who will argue that they should delay releasing anything until they have got it right and in the perfect format. The phrase is 'raw data now' (warts and all). Agreed. If the data is even slightly usable, someone in the community can convert it. I am currently working on a legally gray dataset (which I am not importing, obviously) which is currently a mixture of closed data and data that a government agency aspires to make open data. They seem to lack the urgency or resources to separate the two, so I am doing it for them (without them asking) and I will ask nicely if they will release my data subset (for which they have the copyright). On a separate note. Would you be able to do a comparison between place names in NatGaz and in OSM. I think we will be surprised how many places we are still missing from OSM. My guess is that OSM only contains about 65% of the 50K places in that database. Here it is: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/nptg That is an interesting data set. I might use a different approach because it seems unlikely the original data contains significant errors(?). Currently, I use XAPI to query OSM for objects near to a record in the government database. I am not sure if the admins would appreciate me hammering the XAPI server with 50K requests! or that might be fine... I could use the UK dump, slice it to get place=*, import it into a separate microcosm server on my laptop, and then do XAPI requests to my laptop server. I will have a think. Regards, Tim ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OpenKent, OSM coverage estimation
On 07/06/11 13:34, Richard Fairhurst wrote: If you go out and find the exact position of a service, with a piece of paper and a pen (or a GPS or whatever), that's your data, not theirs. So of course it's compatible. I think you miss my point. The datasets contain more than just their postal address. If the licenses are compatible, we can mash up the data. And you should do that anyway. This implies I don't already, which is a false. (Otherwise, why are you telling me I should?) OSM is meant to be a crowd-sourced, This is a meaningless statement in my way of thinking. Even if it was meant to be something, by some one, at some stage proves nothing. Just because it has been crowd sourced to some extent doesn't preclude other approaches. Some types of data are in OSM that are almost impossible to survey with our crowd sourcing resources. UK streams, for example, mostly were not crowd sourced (in terms of surveying). constantly updated representation of what's on the ground, not some cheapass mirror of any dataset that Government happens to have lying around. Any what if the government dataset is open and stomps on OSM's attempt? (Don't bother saying improve OSM because that IS the approach we use and still the government set is better, in some cases.) Duplicating other open data sets seems a waste of time - as you seem to imply by resurveying stuff already available elsewhere. I am not advocating we only import data either. A hybrid approach - import AND crowd source - is better. If you want crowd sourced surveying only, I suggest you start another project. Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OpenKent, OSM coverage estimation
On 07/06/11 14:37, Richard Fairhurst wrote: TimSC wrote: I think you miss my point. The datasets contain more than just their postal address. If the licenses are compatible, we can mash up the data. You don't need to put stuff into OSM to make it mashable-uppable. Most competent licences will have a Collective Work/Database provision to enable this. While this this strictly true, it is sometimes hard to associate external records with specific OSM objects. Some importing of reference and ID numbers makes this easier. And back to my original point, I am still not sure if under the new OSM license if I can mash up OSM data with, for example, OGL data as a produced work. I think I remember you are in the camp that thinks there is no problem with that, legally speaking. But issues of license compatibility are probably best on the legal list anyway. This implies I don't already, which is a false. (Otherwise, why are you telling me I should?) Oh, cool. Sorry, I thought you were still using Yahoo imagery to trace places you'd never been. Glad you've stopped. :) Yeah I have reformed and seen the light. I now use Bing. :) [...] Any what if the government dataset is open and stomps on OSM's attempt? OS OpenData is easily the best free geodata available in the UK and I've just used it (in preference to OSM) to make a lovely paper map, but it hasn't killed OSM yet. :) Again, separate issue. Ok, contributors still contribute to OSM but how are we doing on users actually using OSM when it is incomplete compared to other data sets? Would we have more users if our coverage was better? I argue, yes of course. In a few cases, manually importing data can indeed be a useful tool. The high-resolution rivers and streams in VectorMap District are quite useful _if_ you know the stream is indeed there, which obviously VMD doesn't tell you. You are referencing the common guideline that mappers should only edit areas they have been to. I don't follow that guideline blindly, as you pointed out. Steve Chilton and myself have traced many streams from decades old maps. We like to think we are improving OSM and no one has complained about a specific stream edit yet, as far as I am aware. I had a few (four or five) queries about specific roads but the questions are always requests for confirmation rather than demands to stop importing. As far as I understand, your vision of a map which has only direct knowledge and survey would leave many countryside and mountainous areas very bare. You obviously consider this acceptable (and actually that view has some merit). Many tracing contributors don't. A near blank walking map is nearly useless - which is what would result, if we only have map data on OSM contributor accessible places. I guess you already thought of all this, so time for me to shut up on that point! It's not really any better than using a combination of aerial imagery and your own knowledge, but it can be useful, yes. (I feel like I am disagreeing with every point to make, but here goes!) I disagree. The quality of VMD is better than what I can produce using Bing - thanks to tree cover, or even GPS surveying with my consumer level gear. VMD is very detailed and precise (but not without errors, obviously). But this is pretty much only true where the data is impractical to survey yourself. The canonical example is: if you import a town's roads, you get a town's roads. If you survey a town's roads, you get a town's roads, footpaths, cycle routes, pubs, etc. etc. I agree (yay!) and that a badly managed import can drive away people from improving it. I still feel this is more of an issue with tools and physiology than the data import itself. For example, if I see a bus stop, I normally think that Naptan has imported that, I will ignore it. - this is not an ideal attitude but it frees time to map other things. However, if I could easily distinguish between unverified imported data and surveyor data, I might do more on bus stops. We would then have a dataset that is better than either a pure OSM surveyor set and the original naptan data. We need to ask how do we make this possible? and move beyond the answer ban imports. I'm sure there's been an example where an import has been significant in the success of OSM in the UK but I'm struggling to think of one. Maybe someone else can help? It depends on your definition of import (obviously). If you include tracing, I traced 90% of SE London and then Semantic Tourist used that in walking papers to survey it personally. Would that be an example? It also fits my vision of import and improve. I traced the buildings for my neighbourhood in Guildford and then used that as a basis to collect addresses? Any good? From the point of view of improving coverage, naptan was a success. It was a disaster in terms of avoiding duplicates. It would be hard to argue that OS Opendata has
Re: [Talk-GB] OpenKent, OSM coverage estimation
That looks like useful data. It looks to me like Edinburgh are not quite embracing open data - the terms and conditions for the entire web site is for personal and non-commercial use only. I stumbled on this recently: http://openlylocal.com/councils/open This list the councils that do open data. If this was promote it and re-visualise it (with a heat map or other display), it might encourage councils to be more open. Perhaps you shouldn't listen to me though in influencing institutions - my track record is not great! Anyone else have a more informed opinion? Regards, Tim On 07/06/11 15:15, Bob Kerr wrote: Hi, In Edinburgh the list of public roads is available here http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/177/register_of_public_roads/865/public_roads_in_edinburgh The reason that I refer to this is that the Data from OS is not as accurate or up to date as this data. There is also some roads that are not named. I know from experience that the OS data is not fully correct and neither is OSM data. However as we are correcting the roads in edinburgh, this gets filtered back to OS which in turn goes to ITO and eventually we will all have the same correct data, It will take some time. We also have very few surveyors. My point though is that we do have some data available from the council, and if we can create a heat map that shows which councils are releasing data then it may encourage others to do the same. My question is would it be worthwhile doing. Cheers bob ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OpenKent, OSM coverage estimation
On 07/06/11 16:02, TimSC wrote: It depends on your definition of import (obviously). If you include tracing, I traced 90% of SE London and then Semantic Tourist used that in walking papers to survey it personally. Would that be an example? It also fits my vision of import and improve. Oops, It was UrbanRambler that did most of SE London! Tim ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OpenKent, OSM coverage estimation
On 04/06/11 11:04, Bob Kerr wrote: Hi, Is there any way that we can request the data in a standard easy to use format, one that we can requested from different councils throughout the uk. That would be ideal because data standards enable sharing and use. On the other hand, any barrier to councils releasing the data might be used as an excuse not to share it at all. The problem is different councils have different levels of commitment to open data. The most popular formats from Kent seems to be Excel and RSS feeds. At least it is not PDF! If we can do this, and use a standard tool for comparison I think it would be beneficial for us and the local councils. If there isn't should we make one? My locateservices CMS goes some way towards this. An alternative, for data with high spacial accuracy (within GPS receiver accuracy), is to import it directly into OSM and maintain the data there. Also, I think the councils might be confused by any license beyond the most simple (that is just a guess though), so sharing the data back with the source might be problematic with OSM (with either the old or new license). TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] OpenKent, OSM coverage estimation
Hi all, Some stats on OSM coverage of Kent. I tried to pair the records of KCC OpenKent with the OSM database. Assuming the KCC list is complete (which it is usually, but not entirely), we can estimate OSM's coverage in the area. Schools: 618 of 915 (915 (67.54 %) Pharmacies: 67 of 274 (274 (24.45 %) Doctors: 33 of 286 (286 (11.54 %) Libraries: 70 of 101 (101 (69.31 %) Opticians: 12 of 170 (170 (7.06 %) Hospitals: 24 of 33 (33 (72.73 %) So, OSM is good on some features and poor on others. It seems for profit locations are not so well mapped, compared to public services. My philosophy is that OSM omissions should be regarded as errors. With complete lists of addresses, we can go and find exact positions of these services. I am still unsure if this is compatible with the relicensing. This data is distributed under OGL (and sometimes OS OpenData too). Can LWG attempt to reduce the legal uncertainty of this, by a definitive statement? Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] LocateServices for annotating open data
Hi all, I got a basic feature complete version of my web site for annotating government data sets. I would be interested to know if anyone can manage to use it. I documented the installation process. The code is Simplified BSD. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/LocateServices Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Pharmacy, OSM Validation
I have given the site a face lift: http://toolserver.org/~timsc/locateservices/ Is there anyone interesting in testing a beta on a different data set? I would supply the code and help to try to get it imported. Basic HTML would be good but not necessary. They would also need somewhere to host it (with PHP enabled) - like the OSM dev server. Regarding importing with clashes against nearby shops, I would say that is a reason FOR doing an import, as it shows the deficiencies in the existing data! TimSC On 28/05/11 14:33, Ed Avis wrote: TimSCmapping@... writes: I have done further investigations. As I said, the national dataset has about 90% of pharmacies exactly located. But in the Kent data set does not include this precise data and instead has the postcode centre as the pharmacy position. IMHO, if we can get permission for the national level data set, we should import/merge the good 90% (and manually survey the remainder). If pharmacies are just points with lat/lon, it is not always simple to import into the existing map, even if we knew the position were entirely accurate. The road network in OSM has some margin for error so a pharmacy might end up on the wrong side of the road. In areas with buildings, the pharmacy node might appear in the next-door building by mistake. That said, if you are looking for a pharmacy, it is certainly more useful to have one within a five metre accuracy rather than no data at all. So I would still be in favour of adding the data. ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Pharmacy, OSM Validation
Good idea trying to get clarification on the dataset terms and conditions. I have done further investigations. As I said, the national dataset has about 90% of pharmacies exactly located. But in the Kent data set does not include this precise data and instead has the postcode centre as the pharmacy position. IMHO, if we can get permission for the national level data set, we should import/merge the good 90% (and manually survey the remainder). If not, we can work on the inaccurate county level data and manually survey pharmacies as needed. In either case, the web site tool thing has a role. I now have OSTN02 transformation working, which is nice. I'll continue working on improving the usability of the site, and work towards a public release of the code real soon now. :) It would be good to get several different data sets online and have a central registry of them (on the wiki). TimSC On 25/05/11 23:43, Andy Mabbett wrote: I've also reported the issue here: http://data.gov.uk/dataset/location_of_pharmacies#comment-5657 On 25 May 2011 23:31, TimSCmapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: On 25/05/11 23:25, Andy Mabbett wrote: Presumably you're using the data from the CSV, not the PDF? In any case the OG license is more recent, and thus supersedes the restrictive terms in the PDF. The web site says Except where otherwise noted this is the Open Government Licence.. The data set does indeed say it has different conditions. I suspect this is an oversight by the website or they couldn't be bothered to update the PDF. I'll sleep on this one! Regards, Tim ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] OSTN02 in python and PHP
Hi, I've been thinking about these high spatial accuracy data sets and realized we need a decent PHP implementation of OSTN02 - so I did one. Also, I finished up my python OSTN02 as well and packaged it as a stand alone program. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSTN02_for_PHP http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSTN02_for_Python This was made possible by Toby Thurston kindly allowing me to use this perl code as a basis with no restrictions. For those keeping score, the PHP is slightly more accurate. There is something going in grid_to_ll function that introduces about 1 metre error - this is not a big deal for OSM purposes. TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] Kent Pharmacy, OSM Validation
Hi all, I was thinking about Kent's open data and how we can improve our mapping. I've been talking to Gregory about missing schools but for some reason, I chose to look at pharmacies. I was partly inspired by Draco's post box locator [1]. I thought I could do a web 2.0 annotation of the pharmacy data set and allow adding links into the OSM database. This is the result. http://toolserver.org/~timsc/locateservices/view.php On this site you can: *Geolocate pharmacies on NPE, OS7, StreetView, OSM, given their rough initial positions from the original data set (I am guessing the initial position is simply the postcode centre). *Associate a pharmacy with an OSM database object. This marks it as found. *Export a GPX with all the missing pharmacies. Apologies for the minimalist appearance of the site. I will get around to tarting it up some time... I also wrote the code to apply to other data sets - watch this space. We are actually lacking most pharmacies in Kent. On the other hand, OSM has one or two that the KCC data set doesn't (in new estates). This site should help everybody find them. Any comments? TimSC [1] http://www.dracos.co.uk/play/locating-postboxes/ ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Pharmacy, OSM Validation
Thanks for the feedback, all. I'll have a think about if I can do something about that. Apart from having to modify the code, the main effort to making this type of data useful is to do the comparison with OSM to find what is missing. The post boxes have an obvious reference number physically written on them. Pharmacies don't have an obvious unique code (I am referring to surveying in OSM, rather than peeking in the database.). I found matches by doing a XAPI query and then manually comparing the results. That probably won't scale up to the national size database without other people helping. Currently, I can't just import the whole database into my script because every pharmacy is sent every time the page is refreshed. This works for small ish data sets. I could split the data into regions, or do some fancy dynamic map stuff. Also, it would be harder to patrol so many pages from abuse, unless I just remove the comment feature... TimSC On 25/05/11 14:48, Andy Mabbett wrote: I'm told, in private e-mail: You can get all England from http://data.gov.uk/dataset/location_of_pharmacies at least - presumably under the OGL. ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Pharmacy, OSM Validation
Well, I adapted my code to spit the data into areas and to handle the whole of the UK. I noticed that about 90% of the entries claim to be within 1m of the delivery address. From a few tests, it seems to be true. I can see the marker in google street view exactly where it should be. We probably need to use OSTN02 to get an accurate lat,lon. I'd say this data set might be ripe for an import into OSM... The remaining 10% that are inaccurate the community can survey on the ground. Tim On 25/05/11 14:48, Andy Mabbett wrote: I'm told, in private e-mail: You can get all England from http://data.gov.uk/dataset/location_of_pharmacies at least - presumably under the OGL. ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Pharmacy, OSM Validation
On 25/05/11 22:33, Chris Hill wrote: That data looks to be four and a half years old. Importing it en masse seems inappropriate to me. The point is it's massively more complete than OSM. Correcting the imported data would be easier than surveying from scratch. OSM goes out of date faster than we are actually surveying! (at least with respect to pharmacies) But I found a slight snag with the terms and conditions included with the PDF: Terms of use - it is permitted to incorporate data from the nhs.uk and this site into software or computer systems used by any person or body performing statutory functions under, or by virtue of, legislation relating to the NHS. So it seems the national data set is not open data at all! Anyone have any experience in this? TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Pharmacy, OSM Validation
On 25/05/11 22:41, Steve Doerr wrote: I preferred the old version where you didn't have to know about PCTs and the like :-( Steve You mean you can't find the PCT you want? That's a good point. I wanted to split the data set by county but that was not reliably in one column of the spreadsheet. I'll have a think! TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Open Data, KCC
I have been informed that the beta OpenKent site, with more data and visualisation tools is here: http://www.openkent.org.uk/ Some things that caught my eye: lists of librarys, GPs, opticians, pharmacy, KCC offices, medway car parks, schools. This would be good for validation, as I said. As well as what has already been mentioned (speed limits, etc), we could also do with lists of post offices, alchohol licensed buildings, sure starts (kindergartens), petrol stations (or petrol storage), public telephones*, taxi ranks*, dentists*, arts centres, public art, law courts, crematoria, fire stations, police stations, council grave yards*, markets*, prisons, recycling points, public toilets, places of worship*, parks, landfills, allotments, sports centres, tourist information offices, museums, highway maintenance depots, quarries, planning permissions, amusements, auction licenses, animal boardings, pet shops, tattoo shops, sex establishments, horse riding establishments, gambling locations, zoos, trees (apparently the highway authority has a tree database), park parks (including outside medway), highway renaming, new highway designations, changes to rights of way, all business premises did I miss anything?! If that is too much, we can prioritise our request to the council. We might start by asking for data that no one else has on their map and that is hard to comprehensively survey without their information. (Remember, I am not proposing to import anything yet, just to check against what the council has.) Hackey council has a list of many things they license, on the web [1], which is good for ideas. * that is if the council holds the data. If people can think of more data sets, we can put together a doodle poll to find the most wanted and to provide some justification (i.e. public demand) for us requesting the data. Btw, I found the parish data I was looking for in OS OpenData, so no need to pester the council for that. TimSC [1] http://www.hackney.gov.uk/licensing.htm On 23/05/11 16:10, Gregory Williams wrote: I've seen excerpts of that data in reports presented to the various Joint Transport Board meetings, so yes they have it. Gregory ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Open Data, KCC
Ed, I suspect that they only have access to a list of all taxable address, probably under license from the post office. Can anyone confirm or deny? Tim On 22/05/11 15:42, Ed Avis wrote: Clearly the local authority must have a list of all taxable addresses, with house number and postcode. If it can be safely released (just the address, with no other identifying information) then it would be a great completeness check for OSM, even better than OS Locator. ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] Kent Heritage Trees Project - launch event report
Hi all, I just attended the Kent Heritage Tree project launch event. This comprised of a few presentations about the overall project and about how interesting trees can be. The project is a national lottery funded, BTCV administered 5 year effort to raise awareness of trees through various means. This includes nature training courses, cultural events, tree planting and artistic works. The total project cost is £65. The core of the project is an attempt to survey 10,000 trees in Kent. They apparently want to train 300 tree surveyors and hope that some will become long term tree wardens. The turn out was good at the first launch, with about 150+ people attending, by my estimate. The local MP Damian Green was there, etc. There was surprisingly little information about the surveying itself. They mentioned it would be possible to do paper or electronic submissions. They also accept tip-offs from the general public and tree surveyors in the area would be alerted that a tree needed checking. It is planned that once the surveyor checked the tree, it would immediately appear on their slippy map. It seems that surveyors would need to do a tree surveyor course, because they are interested in not merely a tree's location, but also condition, physical size, other species on and near it, local history, photographic records, etc. They do not have any requirements for how much time one needs to commit beyond attending the surveying course, but they ask that you do at least bit. The offered free tree identification leaflets, OS maps (boo hiss), and the loan of GPS receivers and digital cameras. The data will be used to monitor trees condition, raise awareness with tree owners, to be a historical archive domesday book, and to press for more legal projection of heritage trees. The thinking is that monitoring of trees will at least help to prevent any human instigated accidents befalling the trees (like some sort of arboreal Amnesty International). They consider any notable tree to be heritage, by the way. If you want to do the minimum to get involved, just register as an interested party and attend the tree surveyor course. If you wonder if it is worth your while at all or you want a free lunch, consider going to a launch event. The next are: 4 Jun 2011 - 10:00 Canterbury 10 Jul 2011 - 10:00 Tonbridge http://kentheritagetrees.btcv.org.uk/ I talked briefly to the project manager Viginia Hodge. BTCV are seeking to raise awareness and I said I would do what I could by getting the OSM community involved. Even if people survey heritage trees into the OSM db, rather than their project, it would still be useful. Or contribute to both... I might start a wikiproject on trees or at least update the wiki with some standardised tags for what BTCV are surveying. I suggested that their data should be opened for any use and they seemed receptive to the idea, but further discussions are needed. They already have a smaller tree database around the Ashford area. I didn't get into what license would be appropriate, because that would have opened a can of worms... Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Kent Heritage Trees Project - launch event report
On 14/05/11 17:39, Andy Mabbett wrote: The Woodland Trust do something similar (no URL, sorry, as I'm mobile). Do you mean http://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/en/visit-woods/ ? I already asked for their data set but they were not very communicative... It would be cool to have though. (A fairly comprehensive list of public and permissive access woods for the UK and their operator.) TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] traditional orchard survey
Hi all, I thought this UK list of orchards was interesting. It would be nice if they were to release it as open data. Not sure if they traced it from some restricted source though. http://www.ptes.org/index.php?page=205 http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9474000/9474777.stm I also notice the Kent Heritage Tree Project has launch events: Ashford 14th May (I might attend) Canterbury 14th June Tonbridge 10th July http://www2.btcv.org.uk/display/kent_heritage_tree_project TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] traditional orchard survey
On 05/05/11 09:35, Peter Miller wrote: Just what I was thinking as well. Would someone (TimSC?) like to contact them. Given that it was from aerial survey and given that we have access to Bing aerial then all we need from these people is a geocodet and ideally also a name and their reference code for the orchard. We can create the boundary from that information. A geocode/name/reference is unlikely to contain any restrictive IPR. Regards, Peter I am willing to ask them but I am a bit busy with other stuff. I had a meeting set up with Openkent people, but it was postponed at the last minute. And I want to try to get the BTCV tree data sets. Also, I received a letter from Surrey county council saying they are considering releasing the rights of way data as open data - but it won't happen in the short term because of their scarce resources. Anyone who wants to be the main person on the orchard survey, please go ahead! TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Definitive Public Right Of Way map for Northumberland
On 21/04/11 10:40, Graham Stewart wrote: Northumberland county council have a definitive PROW map, showing over 3000 miles of public rights of way in Northumberland available online at: http://maps.northumberland.gov.uk/prow/frontsheet.asp?Cmd=INITHeight=600Width=1000 How could we go about using this rather excellent resource in OSM? You might want to take a look at an earlier thread starting here: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2011-March/011253.html In short, there is some controversy as to if the deinitive map is a derived work from OS products. The council also have copyright on the data. It would be excellent to negotiate with the right parties to get permission to use it, as it was not included in OS Opendata. TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] Definitive Public Right Of Way map for Northumberland
On 21/04/11 12:14, Graham Stewart wrote: Where do we stand if I manually create a way (i.e. by tracing from Bing imagery or by surveying it) and then refer to this published definitive map to determine if it is a designated footpath/bridleway/BOAT? (And possibly get other details that could be used in tags/notes like an identifier). Presumably this would be using the council's data and we would need some form of agreement with them? The most I do is to compare the maps and how well or badly we are doing. It might also inspire me to go and find a footpath in the real world. In the end, all data should come from direct observations (or legally compatible data sets). I usually take extra care to photograph the signs and upload traces to show we actually surveyed things. I would strongly advise against taking the classification or route number from any council map or data set without permission (and some apparently do have permission). (Robert just made the same point.) If we can get agreement from them and OS, we can use the data in OSM. Some councils seem to have a more permissive attitude. Mike Harris mentions two councils that have no restriction on the definitive map (as long as the underlying OS map not covered) [1]. Mike, which council's are these, and are they willing to make a public statement? (An FOI can be used to force a response, but strictly speaking, FOI should be used for fractal data, not interpretation of law.) Contrary to Robert's view, I don't think FOI can be used to get the information directly, as the FOI response is still copyright. I still think that the PSMA exemption route might be necessary, because it seems likely to me the definitive map is a derivative work from OS maps. If anyone has relevant contacts in local authorities, please make them aware of the option and encourage them to take it. The council might release the data as free to use or as OGL or Opendata, and I am not sure if the OGL or Opendata is compatible with the CTs... (I suspect it isn't.) If you have patience, the OS 7th series sheets that are coming out of copyright and have rights of way on them. Of course they are 50 years out of date... (but it's mostly accurate in my experience). [1] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2011-March/011269.html (God how I hate licensing/copyright issues!) I second that motion. Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OSM Contributor Terms vs OS OpenData Licence
I have been wondering how much data has been imported into OSM from OS Opendata and who has accepted the CTs. I still think that the CTs ask for rights to be granted that are broader than are granted by the Opendata license. This point is disputed by Richard and others. Here are the most prolific Opendata users (in terms of version 1 objects) that have accepted the CTs, along with their user IDs: 9065brianboru 41362Eriks Zelenka 69853Central America 51722Chris Parker 57884EdLoach 26825Warofdreams 91225tms13 592JonS 229419piedwagtail91 82783Paul The Archivist The top contributor, brianboru, has 29020 objects that use opendata source tags (and are version 1 objects). We should not focus too much on these specific individuals, as there are probably hundreds of users that have done the same thing. Now, if we were to accept my concern that Opendata and the CTs are incompatible, these users, along with users not listed above, are bringing OSM into disrepute, because they are not respecting other's license terms. The fact that they might plan to remove the data is in a way irrelevant, they should only agree to the CTs after they are in compliance. Here is a link to a random example, from each of the above contributors: http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/693084884 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/58688965 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/737268177 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/856782137 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/753395732 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/771249204 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/699639016 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/719665162 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/697029337 http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/node/688497237 The list of people accepting the CTs is here: http://planet.openstreetmap.org/users_agreed/users_agreed.txt The only solution is to reject their CTs response until their edits are no longer in violation of the Opendata license. Unless I am mistaken in my interpretation of the CTs, in which case this might be a non-issue! Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OSM Contributor Terms vs OS OpenData Licence
On 19/04/11 11:45, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, On 04/19/11 12:32, TimSC wrote: I still think that the CTs ask for rights to be granted that are broader than are granted by the Opendata license. This point is disputed by Richard and others. Here are the most prolific Opendata users (in terms of version 1 objects) that have accepted the CTs, along with their user IDs: Does the explicit naming of these people actually contribute anything to solving the problem? Determining the scope of the problem is perhaps the first step to solving it. And we might want to find out why these users felt the need to (possibly) violate OS Opendata's license. User education might be something we can work on? However, does your question go towards solving the problem? Ad hominem tu quoque! TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] BTCV Kent Heritage Trees Project
This project looks interesting. BTCV are planning to survey 10,000 trees in Kent using volunteers. I am talking to BTCV about sharing data but it's early days... http://www2.btcv.org.uk/display/kent_heritage_tree_project TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OSM Contributor Terms vs OS OpenData Licence
On 18/04/11 21:59, Andy Robinson (blackadder-lists) wrote: If you make sure your OS derived contributions carry the source information then that attribution will be in the OSM db for all to see for ever and a day, regardless of what OSMF does with it in the future under some other free and open format. Except if someone creates a derivative database based on the main OSM database, and strips out the source tags. Or creates a produced works, which doesn't carry attribution to OSM but not OS. You also violate the CTs. Or am I missing something? TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] OSM Contributor Terms vs OS OpenData Licence
On 18/04/11 22:23, Frederik Ramm wrote: I'm an outsider to all this OS business but if you guys in the UK should really have been uploading data that requires attributing OS in every downstream product then we have a problem which has nothing whatsover to do with the license change. I can see *no* OS attribution on any of the major tile providers, including our own. Of course you can always go to the source and see from the object history that OS was involved, but that is a technique that you seem to discount above. So either this is all a big misunderstanding, or nobody who used OS data until now has cared sh*t for the license. Now I could understand if someone has always maintained that OS data was incompatible with OSM and thus refused to use it. What I cannot understand is if someone has happily used OS data until now, in the full knowledge that nobody would attribute OS downstream anywhere, but now says they cannot sign the CT because they codify exactly what has been happening. Reality check, anyone? Bye Frederik I actually agree with you Frederik, but the entire project so far overlooks the even bigger problem that CC-by-SA technically demands that every contributor is attributed in every derived work. Given that we ignore that issue, and that OS Opendata is compatible with CC-by and that is always compatible with CC-by-SA, we have just imported OS data into OSM because the larger attribution issue never was solved. So we are all equally guilty. Now along comes ODbL, which was intended to address shortcomings with CC-by-SA. To say we were in technical violation of CC-by-SA doesn't justify us going along with ODbL if ODbL is flawed. If anything, we should strive to be more legally rigorous, not less. We do have an imperfect attribution on the wiki [1] for CC attribution. Agreeing to the CTs seems to be a bigger violation than our current practice, because it declares that the contributor has unlimited rights over the data (in order to grant OSMF that right too). Also, just because OS has not complained so far is not a reason to continue to abuse their license. The solution, as far as I can see, is to improve attribution requirements (which would mean rewriting the CTs again) or to remove the data. I know Richard thinks Opendata doesn't pose a problem, so there may be other answers... I call for LWG to get their analysis of the Opendata legal situation done ASAP - that might put minds at rest or allow us to get on with fixing the problem. Regards, TimSC [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Contributors ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] Ordnance Survey Public Sector Mapping Agreement
Hi all, Here is part of an email I sent to a few councils regarding rights of way data (footpaths, bridleways, etc): I have a big and fairly complicated request regarding the definitive map. I am interested in making data more accessible to the public (as encouraged by central government [1]). It would be great if the rights of way data could be released without restriction, specifically the definite map. As you probably know, the rights of way data is derived from Ordnance Survey products which until now has prevented this data being released without restriction because of copyright. However OS will soon introduce the Public Sector Mapping Agreement which defines how government bodies can use OS products [2]. This includes a new mechanism for public bodies to request datasets that have been derived from OS products to be release either licensed as OS OpenData or Free to Use (section 2.5 of the license [3]). [1] http://data.gov.uk/ [2] http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/business/sectors/government/psma/ [3] http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/business/sectors/government/psma/docs/psma-member-licence.pdf Kent County Council wrote back: Dear Mr Sheerman-Chase Thank you for your email. I will forward your suggestions and comments to the Head of the Service and Definitive Map Team. Kind regards Countryside Access Service Does anyone have any ideas on how to actually get the councils to apply to OS to exempt their data and release it? Currently, I get the impression that they don't rate data openness as a high priority - they just nod and smile until I go away. It would be good to get this data for quality assurance or even ... dun dun dun... importing. Could we start a petition? Or use any contacts the community has to make this happen? Any other data sets worth liberating? Once we have set a precedent, it should be easier to get other councils to comply, because of the way the OS exemption process works. Thoughts? Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [OSM-talk] Multiple OSM instances
On 06/10/10 13:45, andrzej zaborowski wrote: How about one OSM project with multiple databases? I raised that possibility with OSMF and others. OSMF did not seem too keen. The discussion was here: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/strategic/2010-August/date.html http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Forking TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] If you've missed this ...
On 06/10/10 00:59, Richard Weait wrote: http://opengeodata.org/osm-founder-steve-coast-leaves-cloudmade What, if any, impact does this have on OSM and OSMF, I wonder? TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata amp; the new license
On 01/10/10 11:01, Rob Myers wrote: On 10/01/2010 10:38 AM, Elizabeth Dodd wrote: I ask once more from where did OSMF get a mandate to change the licence? The vote. That is effectively an admission that you don't have a mandate from the contributors because the vote was only of OSMF members, not of the OSM project generally. Any representational or governing body will be a small set of persons. Depending on which sense of representative you are using, the vote rings true given my experience of OSM debates around licencing and OSMF is as open and responsible or more so than other Free projects. The OSMF may support the community, but it doesn't represent the community. For them to be representative, there would have to be some direct accountability to mapping contributors and I don't see any mechanism in place for that. Anyone can join OSMF. How is that relevant to OSMF having a mandate? TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata the new license
On 01/10/10 11:57, Richard Fairhurst wrote: Elizabeth Dodd wrote: I ask once more from where did OSMF get a mandate to change the licence? It doesn't. That's why it's asking the rights-holders to change the licence for the data which they've contributed[1]. My mind is slightly boggled by you stating OSMF doesn't have a mandate, contrary to OSMF's claims. I guess you are conflating the legal right for license change with the mandate. They really are separate things. Anyway, the planned relicensing doesn't confer a mandate. It only asks about an individual's contribution, not about the direction of the project. What OSMF does have, though, is a mandate to host whatever it likes at openstreetmap.org, because it's the owner of the domain name: Ownership of something doesn't imply a mandate to change it. One is a legal concept, the other is political. OSMF has determined, through decisions taken by the elected board and through a plebiscite of its members, that it would like to host an ODbL+CT dataset at openstreetmap.org, subject to such a dataset being viable. You didn't mention OSMF having to consult the contributors, which makes this mandate questionable at best. We are talking about governance of the OSM project. Legitimacy of governing bodies, in some people's view, comes from consent of the governed. Without that consent, there is no mandate. It may be possible to argue that OSMF did try to engage the community. Rather than me try to make the case, it's more fun seeing what justifications people are trying to use on the mailing list! On 01/10/10 12:04, Rob Myers wrote: OSMF would not be competent if it ignored the problems with the licence. It would be failing in its duty. Where is the community mandate for that duty? The OSMF just assuming powers is what is at the core of the question of mandate. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata the new license
On 01/10/10 13:43, Richard Fairhurst wrote: TimSC wrote: It may be possible to argue that OSMF did try to engage the community. Rather than me try to make the case, it's more fun seeing what justifications people are trying to use on the mailing list! Seriously? Seriously, no. :) I was hinting at something else, and you have interpreted me in a way that I did not intend. I guess I should make myself clearer in future. I was jokingly suggesting that I was not trying to steer the discussion away from irrelevant points (like the ownership of the domain and the fact that the OSMF board is elected). But really I was trying to get people to talk about OSMF community engagement. Sorry my hint was not very obvious. The REAL reason I don't make that case is I don't believe its valid. But that is the best approach to demonstrating a mandate IMHO. Anyway, enjoying a discussing doesn't necessarily imply I am trying to troll the list. Please assume good faith. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] OS Opendata amp; the new license
On 29/09/10 12:22, Richard Fairhurst wrote: kevin wrote: The issue here is a licence has been chosen, that appears incompatible with current practise Think you've got your chronology the wrong way round there. Blog post on moving to ODbL: January 2008. [1] OS OpenData released: April 2010. ... as if OS Opendata was the only data that was imported or traced into OSM... TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] [OSM-legal-talk] In what direction should OSM go?
On 29/09/10 10:57, Peter Körner wrote: Imported data is dead data - there's no one that feels responsible for it. In the long run, both OSM surveyed data and imported data are dead data. Over the course of years people come and go. We need to get used to the idea of maintaining a data set for which the original surveyor is no longer participating. The alternative is to resurvey the whole planet every decade from scratch. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[Talk-GB] Announcement: more 7th series sheets added to out of copyright layer
Hi all, The 7th series layer has been updated with additional out of copyright OS scans for the 1950s. The areas are around Liverpool, Cardiff, Swindon, South London, Surrey, parts of Kent, and a few other places. Some areas of rights of way data, which was not included in the modern OS Opendata. Obviously, take care when tracing because things change, but they might provide an additional tool or a basis for planning survey expeditions. Thanks to James Rutter for the scans. The recent additions were all from my own folded sheets. Hopefully we can get more sheets available early next year, as the copyright lapses on another batch of OS data. Steve Chilton has a complete set of rolled sheets. I have a most sheets too. Slippy map: http://ooc.openstreetmap.org/?layers=00B00 To use it in editors: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/7th_Series TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Noise vs unanswered questions
On 01/09/10 22:55, SteveC wrote: On Sep 1, 2010, at 3:17 PM, Liz wrote: The complete lack of any arguments left in the brains of the pro-ODbL lobby shows in the complete falling apart of any discussion on this list, with previously thoughtful people concentrating on personal attacks on others, mostly claiming that they are making personal attacks. Um, no, just all the smart people are kind of bored by you and your friends so we don't participate in the mindless circular 'debates' you engender any more. So all we have left on the list is you guys jerking off. I would have hoped the guy who established moderation on the lists would have thought to avoid insulting people. Will the other moderators do their job or just rally round Steve, regardless what he says on the list? Also, try answering Liz's question [1]. If you have previously done so, link to the old discussion. Otherwise, it might be interpreted that you just change the subject to personal attacks to avoid the topic. So I call on OSMF to engage in this discussion (I cc'ed the board). I might add some supplementary questions: 1) How is the future direction of OSM determined? Community consensus? OSMF committees with OSMF votes? Something else? 2) What is the primary forum to establish community consensus? For gaining consensus, is that forum representative of the entire OSM community? If it is community consensus: 3) Do we have community consensus to change the license? 4) Do we have community consensus to change to ODbL? If yes: 5) On what date was it clear that we had community consensus for the license change? Where is this documented? (Saying it's obvious is not good enough. Documentation please.) 6) On what date was it clear that we had community consensus for CTs/ODbL? Where is this documented? If you can't point me to the answer, or specifically answer these questions, the current direction of OSM is definitely in question. In fact, the information should be at your finger tips. If you can't enter this debate without ad hominem attacks, I suggest you don't waste your time responding. And I am trying to engage OSMF using official channels on this issue too [2], but that debate has not attracted much interest yet. TimSC [1] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-September/004431.html [2] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/strategic/2010-August/000137.html ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] ODbL vs CC-by-SA pros and cons
On 28/08/10 14:47, Joe Richards wrote: For those of us who perhaps haven't watched all of the threads too carefully, is there such a thing as a list of the issues the new ODbL was intended to address (its pros) and the problems that those who wish to stick to the CC-by-SA license perceive with the switch (cons)? Here are two lists, but they might not be complete: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Why_You_Should_Vote_Yes http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Why_You_Should_Vote_No The ODbL proposal document and supporting pages sums up the pro case quite well: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/File:License_Proposal.pdf http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/We_Are_Changing_The_License TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL, CTs and tracing GPS tracks
Assuming GPS tracks have some legal protection in some legal jurisdictions, does anyone care to take a stab at answering my original question? :) TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL, CTs and tracing GPS tracks
On 18/08/10 15:13, Anthony wrote: On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 1:51 PM, TimSC mapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: Is tracing someones ODbL licensed GPS track a creation of a derived database or a produced work? Depends how you store the trace, doesn't it? How specifically does the interpretation of the ODbL depend on trace storage? TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] ODbL, CTs and tracing GPS tracks
On 17/08/10 08:58, Jukka Rahkonen wrote I have understood that uploaded GPS track logs that we have now are effectively public domain. They are facts (even they do not allways tell the truth) and they miss all the creativity so they are not copyrightable. Since there was substantial investment in obtaining the data, don't database rights come into play? TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] ODbL, CTs and tracing GPS tracks
Hi all, Apologies if this has been raised before, but I was wondering about GPS track data and licenses. Presumably we are using public GPS trace data under CC-BY-SA. By the way, it would be helpful to clarify that on the wiki. I'll ignore the problem of tracing other people's tracks and the resulting relicensing issues. At the moment, I am considering how GPS tracks work with the CT and ODbL (assuming they too will be relicensed). Is tracing someones ODbL licensed GPS track a creation of a derived database or a produced work? What is the impact when we upload the traced data under the CTs? It seems the tracing will require at least attribution (to OSM admittedly) but possibly also share alike. Would the attribution or share alikeness of tracing be a problem with the CTs? I am not even going to try to speculate on the answer this time, I am more interested in other people's views. Regards, TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Hypothetical question about objects that will not be relicensed
On 13/08/10 22:48, Nathan Edgars II wrote: So would I be wrong to delete it and replace it with a new way, even if the new one is not as good as the old tainted one? I strive for accuracy and completeness in mapping. However, if we are still left between a choice of two data sources, or new data and existing data, I don't see a problem going for the data with the most legal certainty. Also consider the principle of do no harm when considering replacing existing data - including avoiding annoyance to other mappers. For example, I now avoid OS opendata if I can use Surrey Aerial Surrey data or a PD map. I rarely rip out existing data, unless it is my own. Given the (... how can I express this without soundingly like conspiracy theorist ...) relicensing question, I'd suggest avoid pro-actively modifying existing data until we know more. It might do more harm than good, depending on the outcome. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] BDFL Moderation
On 11/08/10 21:56, Liz wrote: There are a list of questions which have not been answered whether on osmf- talk or legal-talk or talk. I also find that is a problem with the mailing list, and when I contact the working groups. No definitive answer is provided, usually the discussion gets distracted to a side issue. Some answers are simply delayed because they depend on future events, and are not anyones fault. But for questions which have been addressed, I hope people will begin to reference the appropriate archived discussion to reduce repetition. This seemed to be a key point on that google talk on youtube that SteveC referenced [2]. Fortunately, the principle of assume good faith has appeared in the draft code of conduct. If someone raises a repeatedly raises a question, please assume they are sincere until they have been directed to the appropriate place in the archives. I am now considering OSMF as an annoying third party which has interspersed itself between myself and OSM. I have no original contract of any form between myself and OSMF. In the Subversion project (to use the google talk's example [2]), discussions may begin privately and are then moved to the public forum. Decisions are taken by consensus of all contributors in the public forum. This is different from OSMF's approach, particularly with respect to relicensing [3]. OSMF's committee approach is appropriate for very complex issues, but as much as possible should be done in a broader forum (if necessary, lead by respected community members). I think OSMF and the LWG are working with good intentions, I just don't agree with their methods on occasion. But the role of OSMF is to support OSM [1]. By moderating the forums within well defined guidelines, I think they are fulfilling that role. I am not sure why the title Benevolent Dictator For Life is needed to moderate the forums. I would appreciate knowing what are the limits of this power? I expect it doesn't include the ability to override established OSM procedure. Perhaps the title OSM discussion moderator might be more appropriate, and enables SteveC to pass it along if necessary. TimSC [1] http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Main_Page [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSFDm3UYkeE [3] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Questions_to_LWG_on_ODbL#Response_from_Mike_Collinson_on_ODbL_Adoption ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Two questions to LWG
Hi LWG, cc legal-talk I noticed that the wording on the relicensing web page has not been updated [1]. I expressed my concern that the PD wording is rather vague. According to the LWG minutes, you are already have people using it. Aren't you going to address this? Now the LWG have decided on using the existing contributor term document [2], can you answer my question on allowed licensing of produced works, as stated in my previous email? Regards, TimSC [1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/terms [2] https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_76gwvhpcx3 On 27/07/10 20:25, Grant Slater wrote:On 26 July 2010 16:56, TimSC wrote: Hi LWG, I noticed the current OSM sign up page has a PD dedication that is worded as In addition to the above agreement, I consider my contributions to be in the Public Domain. If this is an actual legal statement, it is phrased too colloquially. The concept public domain is only a short hand for a certain concept (a PD-like license) and can't really by used in the way it has been. It could be clarified by using a wikipedia-PD type declaration or PDDL or similar statement. If this page is only to gauge user interest in PD, it is also poor as it effectively has a default value no. It should be a multiple choice with yes, no, I don't know with no default, except perhaps the latter option. I urge you to have this reworded for clarity and balance. Also, the relicensing question for existing users should also have this improved wording. http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-July/003683.html http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-July/003688.html And also I never really had a definitive answer to my previous question: can produced works be released using a PD-like license? The two sides of the case are summed up here: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2010-May/006100.html http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2010-May/006108.html I hope you have time to resolve these issues. I don't particularly want to raise this in person at your regular telemeetings; all the necessary information is public. But let me know if further discussion is required, and I will participate. Regards, Tim ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Enough is enough: disinfecting OSM from poisonous people
On 10/08/10 20:40, F. Heinen wrote: You can have very valid points and be very right but if the guidelines tell that the project is defined red and you think blue is better then when you making this point time after time then you can be defined as poisonous (even though you can even be right) as you are draining the community. What are you talking about? The guidelines SteveC proposed are to moderate how the discussion should be conducted, not how the project is defined! TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Enough is enough: disinfecting OSM from poisonous people
Steve, I might support a code of conduct with a limited scope, but we seem to be moving towards a broad project wide definition of values. I am rapidly cooling to the idea of more central planning being imposed on OSM. I have previously commented that OSM has not needed to impose much central decision making up to now. I particularly recommend these wikipedia policies to potential drafters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_bureaucracy I am beginning to agree with Liz, and others, that this whole proposal is mainly motivated by the desire to censor dissent. TimSC On 10/08/10 21:29, steve brown wrote: If you do suggest changes, just go ahead and make them on the page ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] PD declaration non binding?
On 25/07/10 01:17, Richard Weait wrote: Sure, they all might the great guys as of now, but suppose OSM becomes importatnt enough to big players, who says TeleAtlas or Google or someone won't get say new 1000 members in OSMF and have a strong majority of votes to pass any such thing? it's not like such things never happend (just rembemer OOXML ballot-stuffing at ISO when Microsoft managed to buy out majority of new country representatives just to get fasttracked) That's why it is important to be at least minimally aware of OSMF and the people and activities involved. If you don't tell them what you want, they can only do the things that you want by coincidence. This appears to address Tim's concern. I am not sure exactly what you are proposing currently. I also don't understand how the contributor terms relate to this situation. My mental picture is currently: Richard and Frederik observed that a database right is probably owned by someone and that someone might be (partly) OSMF. They were relatively optimistic that OSMF is nice and would not assert their rights, if any. Matija Nalis pointed out this is no guide to their future behavior. I still think we should have the wiki page say ticking the PD option has some effect, but there are some legal hurdles before anyone attempts to make use of it. We should also get an official statement from OSMF that they will not assert their database rights on our contributions. Will you support the License upgrade? For reasons I have already stated, I am anti-ODbL. But my support will be pragmatic, depending on the likely outcome of support or refusal. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
On 24/07/10 16:49, SteveC wrote: Glad to see you've combined http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem Steve That's ad hominem tu quoque. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Ad_hominem_tu_quoque TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] PD declaration non binding?
Hi again, legal question this time, This is mainly aimed at the LWG but others might have a view. I was wondering, why isn't the PD declaration binding, according to the wiki page? http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Why_would_I_want_my_contributions_to_be_public_domain If you declare your contributions to be in the Public Domain, *you are thereby making a statement only. You will not actually be changing the license or what people can do with your data*, because database law still overrides the protection of individual items. People will have to adhere to ODbL when they want to use OSM, even if a majority of contributions should be declared PD. If this is intended to gauge user opinion, it is a rather blunt tool. What about people who want other licenses? I would start speculating but I might get called a conspiracy nut by SteveC :) According to the wiki, there is no legal implications to the declaration, so it was not intended for this purpose. On the other hand the license page on the rails port says In addition to the above agreement, I consider my contributions to be in the Public Domain - how is this not a legal agreement to put contributions in the PD? Perhaps some clarification would improve the situation. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] PD declaration non binding?
On 23/07/10 12:39, Richard Fairhurst wrote: If you could magically get at the PD data without accessing it from the OSM database (i.e. you asked the user for a local copy that they had saved on their computer before uploading it to OSM), then the PD declaration on its own would be sufficient. I think I understand there is a potential issue but I am still not getting it. Thanks for trying to explain it to me though. The database is available under a particular licence which is separate to the licence of the contributions. This is the bit I guess I still don't fully understand. If I have only agreed to CC-BY-SA, how does this relate to what you have said? What are the separate licenses? I guess you are going to say CC-BY-SA completely fails to address the database rights issue. Imagine if several users upload their own PD data to a central server (imagine it is exclusively PD on this server). Is a database right automatically created and who owns it? It can't be the contributors because they waived their IP rights(?). Does the server owner get the database rights? If so, we can ask them to waive their rights. To what extent is our mixed licensing situation different? On 23/07/10 12:52, Andy Allan wrote: 2) There's clearly not enough legalese there for it to be effective :-) That's a good point, actually. We could do with beefed up wording. On 23/07/10 13:09, Frederik Ramm wrote: However, as Richard correctly pointed out, PD content wrapped in a ODbL database does not allow this kind of use. One of the very reasons ODbL was chosen is that (at least in some jurisdiction) copyright on facts is either very weak or non-existent, so ODbL has necessarily been built in a way to protect the database even if the content was without legal protection. Naturally this applies to PD content as well. You talk as if ODbL was a reality. I suspect it might be soon, but currently it is not in effect. How does the current license situation block PD? I am assuming each PD declaration is in effect immediately, while ODbL has yet to be adopted. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-legal-talk] PD declaration non binding?
Richard, Wow that's a big chunk of analysis! I think I understand you, at least to some extent. On 23/07/10 14:37, Richard Fairhurst wrote: - my head hurts. Same here. Imagine if several users upload their own PD data to a central server (imagine it is exclusively PD on this server). Is a database right automatically created and who owns it? It can't be the contributors because they waived their IP rights(?). Does the server owner get the database rights? If so, we can ask them to waive their rights. To what extent is our mixed licensing situation different? Yes, a database right exists. The author of the database is probably the person/organisation who created the schema, wrote and enforced the criteria for acceptance into the database. (You see my point that the community may have a stake in this.) In that case, is it legally sound if I download my own contribution due, to database rights? Would this interfere with relicensing of the data? TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[Talk-GB] an estimate of data loss under relicensing
Hi all, To try to get a feeling for the potential consequences of relicensing, I have been doing analysis of edits in the UK and how contributors have voted on the doodle poll. I feel that we should look before we leap, regarding the possible impact of people who refuse to relicense. I wondered how many nodes, ways and relations would be transitioned in relicensing. I used the crude assumption that each object has only one editor, which would underestimate the impact of refuser contributions. I requested the biggest contributors to vote on the doodle poll to improve the turn out. Although I only have votes for 1% of individual UK contributors, doodle now has a 24% turn out when weighted by mapping contribution size. A few mappers account for a large proportion of UK data. Previously, I did not notice how many mappers had just done a few small changes: the median number of nodes contributed is only 10! I also have not considered the response rate once OSMF pitch the question to contributors, and what happens if the OS data cannot be relicensed. I want to next give my excuses for not publishing the raw statistics. Even with 24% turn out (by contribution size), the are a few non-committal large contributors (e.g. me and a few others). Unless the turn out rate is higher, the stats can be twisted depending on the mood I am in. But there is a pattern emerging. The overall UK picture seems to be fairly bright for minimal data loss. Every big contributor I contact votes yes to relicencing (with or without reservations). I estimate an overall data loss of 5% to 17% for the UK (ignoring the effect of objects with multiple editors). The main exception to this is a small cluster of refusers around London. (I am not just talking about myself here.) The worst case scenario is 50% data loss in the Greater London area but, really, I don't know how it would play out. Because of the density of mapping, there is more likely to be multiple editors in this area too. Basically, it's a wild card. But I would be surprised if there are big problems outside the London/SE area. Unless of course 5% is a big problem - I am not too sure how much work it would take to patch up omissions, even assuming a relatively smooth transition. Anyway, I never was much good at statistics! I just wanted to circulate something, after many contributors were kind enough to honour my request and vote on doodle. TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [Talk-GB] an estimate of data loss under relicensing
On 22/07/10 19:24, Grant Slater wrote: On 22 July 2010 18:23, 80n80n...@gmail.com wrote: There''s also signs that the project is starting to splinter. Experimental forks are beginning to appear... 80n, you were one of the people agitators pushing for a fork. / Grant. Then he would know, wouldn't he! :) TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On 19/07/10 03:07, Nathan Edgars II wrote: SteveC-2 wrote: And I'll try to imagine your parents basement where you toil endlessly on such counts. If this is how the OSMF board conducts themselves, perhaps it's best to give them as little power as possible over the data and its license. Name calling is the least of our problems at this stage! I don't think Steve was speaking in an official OSMF capacity on this one. But I do think we need to balance the power of OSMF and the contributors. It reminds me of Greek vs. modern political philosophy - the former considered who should rule?, the later considers how do we tame the rulers?. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Relicensing, PD, leverage and petitions
Hi all, It seems to me mapping contributors can primarily influence in outcome of the relicensing in two ways: their choice relicensing their own contributions in the project and their involvement after the switch. I was considering how those two factors can be used to encourage others to release as much data as possible as public domain. I won't bother covering the reasons in favor of PD here, but a significant number of mappers are against it, of course. Firstly, the pro-PD people could propose a strings attached deal to OSMF as a condition for relicensing their data. After relicensing, the pro-PD people have their leverage watered down by the contributor terms. Secondly, our involvement in OSM after the switch can have strings attached. If a significant minority unified on this, it would be very hard for OSMF to ignore. Of course, this only works if both sides in a deal have an amicable arrangement. I am not suggesting backmail! After all, the whole point of PD is that people can do what they want with the data. For the conditions for relicensing our individual contribution's, I propose the following. Each data object (either a node, way or relation) have one or more authors. For each data object, we will agree to relicense our data as ODbL, if all other authors agree to release their data as PD. Note that each data object is treated independently: if two authors both agree, all their shared data is relicensed as PD (and ODbL). If an anti-PD author refuses, none of the data shared in common with a pro-PD-person will be relicensed. This will encourage anti-PD people to release their data, particularly when it is in an area overlapping many other pro-PD users. The pro-PD people have a strong negotiating position if they have a few key mappers operating in a wide area. But pro-ODBL people also get what they want: the data will be relicensed as ODbL. Even if OSMF does not provided infrastructure to support a future PD fork, the data will still be there for use in local scale PD mapping projects. The biggest problem I can see is there is data that is derived from PD incompatible licenses. I guess what we really need to ask is people release their original work into PD and ensure they use correct source tags for incompatible data. This would provide a basis for a PD dataset, once the incompatible data is removed. Of course, that is a non-trivial task. It is likely that the ODbL relicensing will be faced with a similar filtering task as well, unless they get 100% agreement on relicensing imports. As for our continual involvement in the project, we can make it conditional on having a fork under some other license - I guess PD, or CC-BY-SA or similar. Given enough people, this would be a bargaining clip to get any concessions from OSMF. Of course, this has a greater risk of fracturing the community, so unreasonable demands should not be made. We are of course all participating in OSM by free choice, so many people might quit if we relicense. I am merely suggesting potential quitters get organised and, as a cohesive group, make their feelings known to OSMF. Of course, if OSMF claims to listen to contributor's concerns, everything will be fine (I hope). Also, the pro-ODbL people would be happy with a coexisting fork, as mappers would continue to contribute into the overall OSM project, and they can import PD data into ODbL OSM, if the benefit outweighs the effort. I guess the next step is to create petitions for the various possible concessions. Or possibly a doodle poll with the options my relicensing is conditional on this proposal, my future participation is conditional on this proposal, both, I support this proposal but I will continue regardless. This certainly gives us more information than the proposed relicensing yes/no question proposed by the LWG. Being a petition, it does not require a no option. There is a potential problem of spoof signatories - possibly people could confirm their position on their OSM profile. Petitions should not be used to change the overall direction of OSM - that would require an inclusive poll of contributors. But first, I wondered if anyone had thoughts on this? TimSC PS The background to my views is partly summarized here: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-July/003523.html ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On 18/07/10 19:11, SteveC wrote: The companies I talk to today come down in to two camps on PD. The first basically lick their lips and want us to go PD so they don't have to contribute anything (in effect make their business easier) and the second think it would be nuts because then the project wouldn't have long term growth potential and would probably die and fragment like BSD did etc etc etc. I'd count the second group as the brighter ones. And yet BSD continues to be maintained and updated, while coexisting with a similar share-alike project (Linux). So that shows how much most companies know. I don't see BSD as much more or less fragmented than linux (given the whole Google/Android kernel branch being left to rot.) Also, if we really cared about share-alike, we would have it apply to produced works - that would encourage companies to give back. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On 18/07/10 19:39, John Smith wrote: On 19 July 2010 04:30, TimSCmapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: Also, if we really cared about share-alike, we would have it apply to produced works - that would encourage companies to give back. Judging by a same straw poll, very few people cared about SA extending to produced works, and the ODBL has been drafted specifically to avoid this. http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2009-December/000753.html Most cared mostly about attribution and share alike on the data only. It's not a question of OSMF member support, I am talking about how share-alike encourages business to share data with OSM. TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] What could we do to make this licences discussion more inclusive?
On 18/07/10 21:22, John Smith wrote: On 19 July 2010 06:18, TimSCmapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: On 18/07/10 19:39, John Smith wrote: On 19 July 2010 04:30, TimSCmapp...@sheerman-chase.org.uk wrote: Also, if we really cared about share-alike, we would have it apply to produced works - that would encourage companies to give back. Then why mention produced work, since ODBL and cc-by-sa both encourage sharing the underlying data? Share-alike of the underlying data is a separate issue from share-alike produced works (obviously). I am aware that ODbL doesn't do produced work share-alike because certain parties want to layer proprietary data with OSM data. I am saying that share-alike produced works would also encourage the sharing of data. Any data that is encorprated into a share-alike produced work can then be rolled back into OSM, not to mention making the rendering and colours available for reuse. This is the intention of the current license (although how effective it is is a separate controversy). What I fail to see is if share-alike is good one one case, why not in the other? TimSC ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
/Andy Allan wrote: / On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 12:26 AM, TimSCmapping at sheerman-chase.org.uk http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk wrote: / The new contributor rights also waters down my effective // veto rights to control future licenses. / That's one of its great strengths - 150,000 people each with a veto is not a community, it's a recipe for nothing to change. If that were true, the OBdL licensing would definitely fail. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
James Livingston wrote: / Although, as Simon Ward said Everyone has a say on whether their contributions can be licensed under the new license., I am uncomfortable with the ODbL process and I resent not being polled before the license change was decided. OSMF has gotten this far in the process without checking they have a clear majority of contributors behind the process (and not just OSMF members). / How would you actually poll the contributors? The only way I could see it being done that satisfies everyone is in exactly the same way that the actual relicensing question is going to be asked, and that is a very heavyweight thing to do just for a what do people feel poll. If it were just a choice between CC-BY-SA and ODbL, I might agree. But this is a false dichotomy. We could write any number of licenses or revise ODbL based on feedback (except it would be better to resolve this soon). We could go PDDL, CC0 or PD. We could fork. We could do different licenses for different regions. We could do a single transferable vote or majority wins. The current relicensing question also doesn't distinguish between what I want for the future and what I would tolerate. So the question might ask in a poll is far from obvious. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Compatible licenses
Brian Quinion wrote: On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 1:35 PM, Richard Weaitrichard at weait.com http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk wrote: / On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 8:01 AM, James Livingston // lists at sunsetutopia.com http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk wrote: // // * Currently you can import any data with a compatible licence (e.g. CC-BY-SA, CC-BY), you can't if we change without the copyright holder's permission // // This is a tremendous improvement in my opinion. I'd like to see every // data publisher as informed and enthusiastic about having contributed // to OpenStreetMap as the everyday mapper. / My reading of the contributor terms is that I have to be the copyright owner of all data I add. But some of the data I've added recently was based on OSSV tracing and as such I don't own the copyright - I'm licensed to use it SS-BY by Ordnance Survey. Brian That is my interpretation as well. I already raised this issue with the LWG. The good news is this saves me having to worry about the relicensing if I must say no because of a legal issue. TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] License Cut-over and critical mass
Hi all, I agree with Richard Weait: the community is more important than the data. Although, as Simon Ward said Everyone has a say on whether their contributions can be licensed under the new license., I am uncomfortable with the ODbL process and I resent not being polled before the license change was decided. OSMF has gotten this far in the process without checking they have a clear majority of contributors behind the process (and not just OSMF members). Being told (by Steve Coast in an LWG meeting) that an informal poll on doodle of mapping contributors, conducted AFTER the decision had been taken, legitimates the process is not particularly satisfactory. Polls should be done BEFORE the process becomes irreversible. Not to mention the notes that accompanied the vote were unashamedly pro-ODbL, despite Creative Commons criticizing the ODbL. OSMF really need to learn how to run a poll with the intention listening to the contributor's views, rather than guaging agreement to their agenda (however well intentioned). I am worried about the way ahead. Based on unknown level of contributor support, I don't have much faith in having a real voice in the future of OSM beyond relicensing. Of course, the LWG and OSMF have the best intentions and have gone to great lengths to get feedback but they have something to learn about democracy (if they want to claim they are accountable to the majority). But ultimately, the LWG was formed with certain assumptions (no PD) that were never questioned; it is the process that got us here that makes me worried. The new contributor rights also waters down my effective veto rights to control future licenses. I feel OSMF have overstepping their stewardship bounds to become the gatekeepers. I laugh ironically when it says on the OSMF wiki saying OSMF has no desire to own the data: ODbL effectively does that. They should revert to their supporting role and let the contributors drive change with OSMF as support. Steve Coast did explain his reasons to me for not polling the contributors, I think he was against contributors being pestered about non essential issues (apologies if this is incorrect). I'd say the direction of licensing was an essential issue. Rob Myers's (and LWG's) plan to start relicensing with the unquantified possibility of failure would risk the community without good reason. If we try to rectify the problem at this stage, I'd say we are in serious trouble. 80n has a good point about forking the project. Or conduct an inclusive poll of contributors and then make an informed decision - which will add months to an already tortuous process. Unless OSMF indicate they are open to ideas on the way ahead, it is really a bit pointless to seriously suggesting anything - we are already locked in to the process. I already raised these issues with the LWG but I did not get the feeling they were about to crack - lol! My dream scenario is OSMF polls contributors with unbiased supporting documentation, they abide by the result and then I work a PD fork (different people and areas have different licensing situations). I might even license my previous data to ODbL in a deal to get that up and running. Share alike (ODbL) is just too complex to be workable (Creative Commons agrees with me). Of course, it would not be as comprehensive as an SA-licensed OSM, but it would be more legally predictable. Rant concluded! TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[Talk-GB] Building with mapseg
Is there an easy way to find the tile reference for a given area. I have found what I need so far by trial and error, but with 400 tiles it can be a bit of a pain. -- Philip Stubbs Philip, A quick sketch on the method to go from tile filename to coordinates. Say we use the filen//ame su85se.tiff. The su part, the 85 part and the se part each give a different northing and easting offset. The must be summed to get the final bottom left corner position. The first offset is basically coarse grid letter offset and is found in a look up table. The codes are arranged like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:National_Grid_for_Great_Britain_with_central_meridian.gif The 85 is an intermediate offset, I think it is 8x1 metres east and 5x1 metres north. The final code can be se, sw, ne, nw for a fine tile offset. The n sheets are offset north by 5000m. The e sheets are offset east by 5000m. Each tile is 5000m by 5000m, as far as I remember so you can get the coordinates of the other corners. Re-reading your question, I guess you really want the inverse of what I just described? I hope that helps a little anyway. TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] Building with mapseg
Hi all, I have updated the code and put out a new version of mapseg (now v0.2). As Roy Jamison discovered, the previous version was broken by upper case filenames. The program is now case insensitive to that. Available here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapseg I also considered the problem of importing buildings into an area already containing building data. We obviously don't want overlaps. I created a python script to remove duplicate buildings before uploading. This enables building imports into partially mapped areas and also incremental imports. (Details on the wiki.) Roy has been importing data in his area, it will probably take weeks to polish that data! Good luck with that! In my experience, about 10% of polygons are incorrect but flagged by the mapseg program for correction. The remaining 90% are pretty good but not as good as doing it manually, of course. http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.43458lon=0.764zoom=15layers=0B00FTF Here is an area I have imported and manually refined to be correct with OS street view: http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.26083lon=-0.61877zoom=17layers=B000FTF And here is an area I imported and corrected based on the surrey air survey. http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.2455lon=-0.59884zoom=17layers=0B00FTF So many options to choose from... TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] building shapes from OS Street View, with code
Hi mappers, Thanks for the comments on automatic tracing. I have finished an implementation and it is ready for testing. It runs really slowly (30 minutes a tile). Be careful if you try it and don't remove any existing OSM information (and try not to annoy other mappers). The OS open data license is also a concern, so keep the source tags where appropriate. Please limit yourself to areas you are prepared to manually check and fix. (The LWG are aware of this issue, but don't anticipate problems.) The python code is here (with a readme file): http://timsc.dev.openstreetmap.org/dev/mapseg0.1.tar.gz Let me know if there are any major bugs or possible improvements. I am not sure I can put in much time in the short term but I will fix any major problems. I will do a wiki page eventually for further updates. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapseg As Ed Avis suggested, I flag suspected errors during the conversion. I don't use the surrounding pixel colours but there are plenty of other heuristics that indicate problems. I assume all buildings have at least 4 sides which are orthogonal. Any non orthogonal buildings will be flagged for checking. I automatically add a source tag auto_os_street_view. This should be changed to a different source tag when it has been verified. I suggest source=os_street_view for verified buildings. The fuzzer plugin for JOSM is nicely integrated but it operates on the rectified tiles which have lower quality images. My approach uses the original opendata tiles. TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] building shapes from OS Street View, with code
Ah yes, the recommended tag is good. I didn't notice one had been chosen (but it is a bit long for my taste). So use source=OS_OpenData_StreetView for verified buildings. And I will probably change to source=Auto_OS_OpenData_StreetView for automatic tracing in the code. TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] Landuse in greater london
Hello people, I have finished a personal project of mapping landuse in Greater London from yahoo imagery. The inner section (roughly underground zone 1) cannot be usefully mapped from yahoo since all the buildings look the same - houses don't have gardens that are discernible. Outside zone 1 to the M25, the map benefits from land use data. The effort has been on and off work since mid 2007 until yesterday! It took a while... I am surprised that people don't comment on how odd the map looks without landuse being assigned and work to rectify it. I also found many missing roads and other interesting features. I started in Dartford and worked roughly clockwise to get to Romford. I know people like to have highly accurate OSM mapping, but users also expect good coverage. That allows users to say where the map is blank, there is nothing there. This is not very compatible with a typical mapper thinking where a map is blank is where I should go mapping. The latter view is not sustainable as we move towards good coverage. We need other tools to track progress rather than coverage. Using source tags appropriately helps a great deal. Of course I did not do it all, so thanks for those who did land use in this area. I hope people can use it as a basis for refinement based on local knowledge and survey. The next step is to collect landuse data for the central area. I suspect if people used their local knowledge, a significant amount could be done with little effort. An alternative is to estimate it based on the features and road layouts, but this is would not be very accurate. Or does anyone have a better idea? Possibly a series of land use mapping parties for central London? Regards, TimSC PS I have not done anything on tracing buildings recently, but I probably will soon. ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] building shapes from OS Street View
Hi all, I have done a small test of automatically tracing buildings from OS Street View. I have limited this to Wood Street Village, near Guildford. I have not done any manual improvements but these should be done to improve the quality. I am not doing that yet so people can take a look at the result. It seems acceptable to me. I have implemented the code in python and uploaded it using JOSM. There was a glitch with duplicate nodes which JOSM validator fixed, I need to root out the cause in my code. http://osm.org/go/eurUp7x0Q- The biggest problem I can see is where roads or text labels obsure the buildings. This probably can be handled by manually checking the building outlines. So we might want to automatically get the outlines and do manual quality control. It might be worth manually using the JOSM orthogalise where required. I guess the fundamental question is, is this quicker than doing the whole thing manually? http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/60094590 For far this is only a subsection of a tile. More work is required if we want to stream line things. Any thoughts? *ducks* TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] Surrey air survey
Hi, I agree that the surrey air survey will be an amazing resource. But it would be worth checking what strings are attached to the data by the licensing. And also we need to consider the implications with our CC-BY-SA and ODbL situation. I have added a wiki page as a place holder. We need to agree as to which source tag to use. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Surrey_Air_Survey Regards, Tim ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[OSM-legal-talk] Viral can be nice
Frederik Ramm wrote: / OSM is not essentially anything at its core. It is different things to // different people. / I'm talking about the sentence that defines OSM at the top of our Wiki page, which in all likelihood has been there in this form when most of us signed up. As if that that mission statement on the wiki is not open to revision? People may disagree with it, from within the project and try to change policies. We can see a parallel to political constitutions which tend to accumulate amendments. It is human nature to continue to rewrite and reinterpret values. Therefore, OSM is not essentially the mission statement or a data project. What it is changes in time, as well as being different to different people. A more useful way of conceptualizing OSM, is to identify what we want to achieve and what steps we can take to achieve it. (My non-mapping hobby is philosophy. I am borrowing here from Karl Popper.) / The fact that commercial data can't be merged with CC-BY-SA could be // said to be a limitation of commerical data, rather than a limitation of // CC-BY-SA. / You're over-simplifying when you say commercial data. Even GNU FDL data cannot be merged with CC-BY-SA. Well obviously there are other licenses that are not compatible with CC-BY-SA, but my point holds, at least for NC licenses: they are also too restrictive and that is as much a problem with that incompatible license as with CC-BY-SA. It is perhaps ironic that most or all SA type licenses don't inter-operate, which I guess shows the limitation of implementing SA. (a) all maps can be made, but sharing them is a the maker's discretion versus (b) only some maps can be made, but once they are made they will always be shared I'd certainly find (a) to be more encouraging to creativity. I tend to agree with your conclusion here, but my argument is driven as much by avoiding the legal complexity of (b), as creativity. I am actually pro-PD at this moment, despite my argument that ODbL is diverging from the intent of CC-BY-SA. / Can't the same thing apply to maps? And if SA is too restrictive for // produced works, why have SA at all? A watered down SA is the worse of // all worlds IMHO, which is the ODbL. This has high complexity with few SA // rights. / The share-alike element in data is stronger with ODbL than it was with CC-BY-SA. I assume you mean it is stronger as in enforceable? Perhaps I am missing another area of strengthening. The intent of CC-BY-SA is all derived works are also SA. Otherwise, it seems ODbL is weaker - produced works are not share alike? I agree with thread comments that it is the community that makes OSM work, not the license (although it is a small factor in attracting them). And SA confuses various potential users, like the flight simulators, from using our data (arguably ODbL is watered down SA to make this less of a problem). I guess the big question is do we want to prioritize innovation of mapping or do we want to create maps that most people will use? Only to some extent can we do both. The decisions on licensing is driven by the answer to that question, IMHO. Tim ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
Frederik Ramm wrote: TimSC wrote: / What is the point in paragraph 4.3, if it can be easily side stepped? / We have a well working culture of attribution in science, where you usually quote the source you took something from, but not the source behind the source behind the source. Yes, this works well in science and is enforced through professional standards (not legal standards). This prevents the attribution chain exploding. For example, Newton (or Leibniz) is not cited every time calculus is used! / And would the large data set import rights holders be happy if they // found out? / In the light of this, yes, it can be said that the attribution requirement for produced works should be dropped altogether; I think it has remained in the license as a symbol. Symbols can be powerful even if legally meaningless. Look, we want you to attribute us, but we freely chose not to burden you with tons of license code in order to force you to. I oppose this principle of putting in symbols or totems in the license, particularly in this case when it is misleading to the legal meaning. The license, under our interpretation, allows public domain produced works. Paragraph 4.3 hints that the opposite is true. This is confusing and doesn't promote legal certainty. I suggest a better place for requesting an optional courtesy attribution would be an a license preamble. I also note that, with this interpretation, the human readable summary is also wrong. For any use or redistribution of the database, or works produced from it, you must make clear to others the license of the database and keep intact any notices on the original database. This is not true down the chain?! A case of wishful thinking I expect. I am beginning to conclude the ODbL is a bloated, confusing mistake. We would be better serviced in our project goals by a simpler license i.e. a public domain-like license. In case public domain is impossible use to large GIS imports, a local database should be hosted separately under their particular license. I admit, integrating them together for large scale maps would be technically problematic. I think technical problems are preferable to legal problems which are almost inevitable with any share-alike license. TimSC PS. http://www.sciencecommons.org/projects/publishing/open-access-data-protocol/ ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
Richard Fairhurst wrote: But in five years, we have never been able to obtain clear agreement for this. I assume this is based on gatherings of OSM members, mailing list discussions, IRC, etc. But I have never been directly asked by OSMF what the future license should be. I suspect that the majority of mappers will go with the flow, with a small number of vocal supporters on both sides. But without polling the members who can't know what the consensus is, so perhaps this is something OSMF should do? Until then, the level support for PD and ODbL among mappers is pretty much speculation. We might regret losing the share-alike people, but we may gain new PD only fans. Again, this is an unknown variable. OSMF has chosen to follow c) and has managed it, thus far, with a surprising amount of consensus given our fractious community. I guess I differ with OSMF as I have not seen a viable share-alike database license. I know many knowledgable people think ODbL is it. I am inclined to agree with the Creative Commons comments on the situation: share-alike is not appropriate for databases. Basically option (c) is ruled out in my mind, as I agree with CC on this issue. I think they've done well and am grateful to them, and LWG in particular, for the thankless hours they have put in. True, they do a job that would have made me go crazy. Thanks to all in the LWG! But most mappers I talk to regarding ODbL only can say I trust OSMF is doing a good job, so I assume ODbL is OK. People would probably go along with anything they propose. But we can't assume the resulting license is suitable just because they tried their best. (And I believe they are trying their best!) I suspect many people would support you; nonetheless, past mailing lists suggest that, if OSMF were to do so, it would almost certainly result in the implosion of the Foundation. I don't see it as an either/or choice, OSMF can do both. I think SteveC mentioned that might be a possibility of hosting both in parallel (or did I imagine that)? Did that thought go anywhere? The bin I suspect... oh well. Another possibility is to have a list of approved licenses that more or less interoperate (mainly BY type licenses) and put attribution in the metadata. Any rendering of the map would then be responsible of display of attribution based on the metadata tags. This idea probably won't work for SA licenses as they tend not to interoperate. That would be my preferred option. Or hosting that with a parallel ODbL database might work. Thing is it is hard to get a PD organisation independent of OSMF because OSMF is meant to reflect the interests of the mappers. If a good chunk of mappers want PD, OSMF should respect that. (Admittedly we don't know how many mappers want PD, since OSMF didn't ask us.) I think your characterisation of ODbL as bloated and confusing is grossly unfair. I was trying to support my point about ODbL being bloated based on this thread discussion so far. I would be interested in your (Richard's) and Grant's opinion (and anyone else's opinion) on my question regarding attribution and can it be stripped off a public domain produced work? My interpretation is attribution is not necessarily preserved in PD works, therefore that paragraph is bloat (and I would welcome any comments on that view). The accusation of it being confusing is mainly a subjective view from my layman reading of the ODbL. I don't really understand contract law, so I am not particularly surprised. I am relatively comfortable reading the CC licenses (which are of course not appropriate to databases). But the difficulty of the full ODbL text being understood is an obstacle. Creative Commons also has this view of ODbL. This is only partly mitigated by the human readable summary. Grant Slater wrote: Nice simple ODbL summary: http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/summary/ (Created by Matt) / Grant Did you notice my point that the human readable summary seems to be at variance with my interpretation of paragraph 4.3? If the human readable summary differs from the legal meaning of the full license, that would be a problem. (See the second last paragraph of http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-April/003294.html ) Does anyone in the LWG have a view on that issue? Regards, TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] viral attribution and ODbL
Hi all, I am back to trying to get my head around ODbL. I am now wondering about attribution and the viral nature of it. Apologies if this has been raised before. Many licenses have a term stating the copyright notice must be preserved (ignoring for a moment that copyright is probably not approprate for databases). Examples include the X11 license and the CC-BY license (term 4b in http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode). From memory, CC-BY-SA also has this condition, but I am not certain. Ok, so we might create a produced work and release it under the public domain. I could foresee a scenario: 1) Create a produced work under ODbL term 4.3 with proper attribution 2) Release produced work as public domain with proper attribution 3) Strip off legal notices and attribution (which I think is allowed, almost by definition, for public domain works) 4) Republish as public domain or any other license, without attribution My question: where is the term that copyright notices must be preserved done the chain of derived works? ODbL term 4.3 only protects us as far as step 1 in the above example. And if we must insist on attribution being retained, are we saying we can't release ODbL produced works into the public domain? The use case touches on this issue but mainly with respect to trying to reverse engineer the database. I think attribution is a separate issue. The comment in the use case document pretty much implies that this could be an issue. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Use_Cases#Using_OSM_data_in_a_raster_map_for_a_book.2C_newsletter.2C_website.2C_blog_or_similar_work Second issue, which is probably the flip side of the same coin: people might be inclined to use works that use some sort of attribution license and incorperate them into OSM (this almost certainly has already happened, OS opendata, etc). The attribution must be included in any derived works. Now this seems incompatible with the contributor terms, which grants OSMF an unlimited license. So, I can't add any viral attribution data via the contributor terms, as OSMF might one day try to change its attribution terms, since it is not bound to only use ODbL. It would seem to be that the contributor terms would at least put the viral attribution condition on the OSMF. The worst case scenario is the contributor terms cannot accept any data with an attribution condition. Hopefully that is not the case! Is that interpretation any way valid, interesting, cross eyed? If the answer is already out there, just link to it. Thanks! TimSC ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[Talk-GB] building shapes from OS Street View
Hi again, thanks for the comments. How well would this scale up to the whole country? (!! Not automatically importing the results of course !!) I'm thinking about tile/batch sizes, tile boundary issues, I was thinking about using a sliding window approach, by loading in an extra margin from surrounding tiles, selection pixels by colour, create edge fragments as before. But in this case, the step that creating polygons should only use the central region of the image for the starting point of the polygon. This should avoid any buildings getting cut in half at the tile edge. any necessity for porting parts to c++ for speed etc. Converting edge fragments to polygons is the slow step at the moment - about 15 minutes a tile. I am using the approach describe in the link below. Fortunately, I know a bit of Boost.Python and C++ if we need the speed. I suspect a better algorithm in python could improve the speed issue rather than resorting to C++. http://losingfight.com/blog/2007/08/28/how-to-implement-a-magic-wand-tool/ I am also seeing the limitations of my approach. Problems arise from the lack of image resolution and the anti-aliasing of the colours in the image. Since I am using a binary classification by colour for selecting pixels, it tends to result in rounded corners (due to the colour blending into the backgound). The polygon simplification then has to descriminate between a rounded corner due to anti-aliasing and corner which is real. Given the resolution, a straight edge might only be 2 or 3 pixels long, and a rounded corner has a radius of about... 2 or 3 pixels. But then, these building shapes are also a total nightmare to manually survey. Example attached (you will probably need to zoom in): http://timsc.dev.openstreetmap.org/dev/hard-building-shapes.png I have some ideas for a better algorithm (based on active contour models), but that is pretty complex. I will give that some thought. Basically, we need to segment the shape but not by simply binary selecting pixels inside or outside the shape (and it can try to be orthogonal, if possible). The code I have does provide a good initialisation of the model, so it is hardly wasted effort. If anyone has any better ideas, you can have a copy of my python code to try things. Regards, TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
[Talk-GB] building shapes from OS Street View
Hi again, I have been working on auto tracing buildings and I'm making progress. I was slightly encouraged by Ed Avis's comments. I think one underlying difference is peoples attitude to omissions in map data. Many people think they are a good thing, particularly since they encourage the community to do high quality surveying. But I think omissions are bad in terms of actually using the map. I don't think we should be using the main map to gauge our progress. I suspect what we need is good meta data - how and when data is sourced. Anyway enough rambling... Tracing buildings. I have been using the original images, since image transformations tend to introduce degradation of quality. I use colour to select building pixels, then form edge fragments, then form polygons, then simplify the polygons using the Douglas-Peucker algorithm, then group them so we get inner and outer edges, then tranform image coordinates to GBOS then to WGS84 via OSTN02 (I ported the perl code to python), then save as OSM format and load back into JOSM. Screenshot: http://timsc.dev.openstreetmap.org/dev/josm-building-outlines.png The next steps are to improve the quality of the polygon shapes, possibly by checking if the edges are nearly orthogonal, and if so making them completely orthogonal. Also I need to write a filter to check for buildings in the area, to avoid importing duplicate buildings. I need to look at the simplification, as sometimes an extra node is added to a polygon (the initial node used as the start of the algorithm). I am also considering detecting roads that overlap buildings in the source images, since this is probably the biggest loss of quality. The result I am getting is already more spatially detailed than my own survey of the University of Surrey campus (although not as rich in information). In the medium term, I will import some buildings once I have the quality I want. I want to minimise manual work in JOSM but I don't rule it out. I will only be working in the Guildford area - it's my data to gamble around there :) TimSC ___ Talk-GB mailing list Talk-GB@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
