Re: [OSM-legal-talk] When should ODbL apply to geocoding

[Randy Meech]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2015 at 2:01 AM Frederik Ramm <frede...@remote.org> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 09/23/2015 04:49 AM, Randy Meech wrote:
> > I used the MapQuest Nominatim
> > service to geocode and/or reverse geocode all the global tide stations
> > used in the app. What would the community have me do?
>
> As a step one, and before we discuss the potential licensing
> consequences, would you agree that
>
> 1. What you have created to power your app is a database.
>

Yes


> 2. The database you have created is partly derived from a non-OSM source
> (as far as the "there is a tide station at this address" is concerned).
>

Yes, most of the data is from non-OSM sources. Just the results of reverse
geocodes are from Nominatim/OSM.


> 3. The database you have created is partly derived from OSM (as far as
> "this address is at location lon=x, lat=y" is concerned).
>

Actually I mis-spoke a bit (sorry, it was several years ago). The lat/lngs
are actually from state agencies, although I did reverse geocoding with
Nominatim and store the results in the database.


> Is there any doubt about any of these three statements either on your
> side or anyone else's?
>

So again, I don't really care about publishing this under ODbL, but to
argue the point, I'm not sure I agree with the third statement. If I had
taken raw OSM data and derived something from it, I would agree with this.
But -- to Alex's overall point -- the geocoding results seem like a
produced work to me. I believe that I am decorating other open data with
the results of a geocoder that contains sufficient art to make it not
derived, but produced.

Curious about others' thoughts here -- I do think this is an important
topic to figure out and I'm happy to be a guinea pig for this.

-Randy
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] When should ODbL apply to geocoding

[Randy Meech]

On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 9:43 PM Tom Lee  wrote:

> If more people can run geocoding services built on OSM data, more people
> will have an incentive to improve the map in order to improve their
> results. I'm not merely speculating: I spend most of my time working on the
> Mapbox geocoder these days. If, when a user reports a missing small town
> boundary for a reverse geocode, I could fix the problem by adding the
> boundary to OSM, I would be delighted.
>

Totally agreed on this. When we set up the free Nominatim service at
MapQuest years ago, part of the thesis (besides utilizing spare compute
power freed up by declining AOL dial-up customers ;) was to create a large
group of developers who would use the services and improve the data, an
effort that I believe was successful. I've heard many anecdotes of
individuals and teams doing just as Tom suggests -- fixing the data to
improve their geocoding results.

We talk of OSM as a community of individuals, but some of those individuals
are in companies and working on projects that need geocoding -- they can
improve the data in non-automated ways just like anyone else & should be
encouraged by clarity on the license.

We never worried about what people did with our Nominatim service, we
passed along the license and let people do what they wanted. I wonder how
many companies are in a licensing grey area now as a result, and I also
wonder how much it really matters in the end.

For example -- I have a side project I built years ago called Tides Near
Me. It's the most popular tides app in the iTunes & Google Play stores, and
also has a decent web presence. I used the MapQuest Nominatim service to
geocode and/or reverse geocode all the global tide stations used in the
app. What would the community have me do? I'm actually curious, let's use
this as a litmus test, what should I do with this database? What do we
want? Personally, because I haven't improved any OSM-relevant data that I'm
not sharing back, I don't see how it would benefit anyone to open this (but
I also wouldn't really care about opening it). What do you think I should
do and why?

-Randy
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Updated geocoding community guideline proposal

[Randy Meech]

On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 1:19 AM, Eric Gundersen e...@mapbox.com wrote:
 Let's not kid ourselves here. The overwhelming number of commercial OSM
 users are not driven by a motivation to help us, but by a motivation to
 save money (or perhaps a motivation to escape a monopolist's clutch but
 that boils down to the same).

 Frederik, saving money is not the point, it's all about having great data
 that is supported by a community. Every day I'm talking to commercial
 companies interested in _paying_ Mapbox because they truly believe we have
 the best map (power by OpenStreetMap), and the people at these companies
 believe in a future of open data where the map continues to grow thanks to
 being open. Mapbox is working with companies from foursquare to Pinterest to
 the Financial Times to VK.com (https://www.mapbox.com/showcase). These few
 sites alone are used by hundreds of millions of people looking at beautiful
 OpenStreetMap data, and location and thus the map, is critical for each app.
 Accuracy is what matters, not skimping on a few $. We have dozens of large
 companies like this that would love to more tightly integrate their internal
 data with OSM via goecoding, but because of unclear guidelines are blocked.

+1

Any company I'm aware of interested in OSM is not trying to save
money, they're interested in the promise of better quality that you
get from a community (of individuals and companies if they're
welcome). In fact many companies with plenty of money are hurting for
the lack of a truly global geocoder. There is no single source for
this, especially outside the US. Try to find one and pay them: you
can't.

To be clear: OSM is far from ready to provide a high-quality global
geocoder. It works pretty well in NYC and I was glad to see how well
it worked in Karlsruhe :) but there's a serious lack of address data
globally.

So the problem is not that it's a great source of geocoding data that
we're prevented from using because of licensing. The problem is that
there's about to be a lot of resources, effort, and attention focused
on this problem, and it would be great to do this within OSM. There
are alternatives though such as OpenAddresses. Back to my original
comment, if it we're 2010 and I had significant resources to invest in
this problem, where would I best do it?

Again -- it's fine if it's not OSM, should just come out with a strong
statement from the board either way.

-Randy

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Updated geocoding community guideline proposal

[Randy Meech]

On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 5:03 PM, Alex Barth a...@mapbox.com wrote:
 Forward and reverse geocoding existing records is such a huge potential use
 case for OSM, helping us drive contributions. At the same time it's _the_
 use case of OSM where we collide heads on with the realities and messiness
 of data licensing: Do we really want to make a legal review the hurdle of
 entry for using OSM for geocoding? Or limit using OSM for geocoding in areas
 where no one's ever going to sue? How can we get on the same page on how
 we want geocoding to work and then trace back on how we can fit this into
 the ODbL? Geocoding should just be possible and frictionless with OSM, no?
 Shouldn't there be a way to open up OSM to geocoding while maintaining share
 alike on the whole database?

These are the key questions  I support open geocoding with share
alike applied to the whole database. How can we get clarity on this
either way? Because not clarifying this is effectively saying no
which I believe loses high-quality contributions.

Clarifying with a no or not clarifying at all will direct a lot of
effort elsewhere -- this is a shame.

In a previous role I directed a lot of resources specifically toward
OSM. With this continued lack of clarity, today I would direct them
elsewhere. That's also a shame.

 (and yes, when I'm saying geocoding I'm referring to permanent geocoding
 here, where the geocoding result winds up being stored in someone else's db)

To not support this is essentially saying that OSM is not to be used
for geocoding in the majority of desired cases. But it comes down to
what people want for the project, and where address-level effort will
go.

-Randy

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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Updated geocoding community guideline proposal

[Randy Meech]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2014 at 7:26 AM, Mikel Maron mikel.ma...@gmail.com wrote:
 This is a solid proposal and has my support.

+1

This is a great effort to clarify something that causes a lot of
confusion, and does so within the context of the current license. Very
productive!

 As long as the purpose of a geocoder is geocoding, and not reverse
 engineering OSM,
 then it sensibly fits within the notions of an ODbL produced work.

The biggest problem I've seen is companies wanting to geocode their
proprietary address databases with Nominatim or similar, but are
worried that storing the lat/lng results with trigger the ODbL. Having
built a geocoder, I think sufficient art goes into it that the results
should be considered a produced work. Of course a reverse engineered
OSM is different from geocoding your own address database and should
be prevented.

Adopting clear guidelines in support of geocoding over OSM data will
improve OSM, as a large number of developers would have the incentive
to clean up data. There is huge demand for permissive geocoders in the
development community.

 What I wonder is how we will move to decision making on the proposal? What's
 the OSMF process?

Having a decision one way or the other is important, either yes or no.
Because this work is certainly going to move forward somewhere, and it
would be a shame for it not to improve OSM.

-Randy

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