Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[John Smith]

2009/11/3 Anthony :
> True.  I should have said "a non-copyleft license" rather than "public
> domain".  CC-BY would probably be easier to implement than public
> domain, actually.

Actually that's a good point, with CC-BY-SA it's obvious where it came
from, public domain can take a lot of effort to prove it's public
domain.

> It's geodata.  The binary is the source.

It's data, not source code, however that wasn't my point, my point was
GPL requires you distribute the source code if you distribute
binaries, CC-BY-SA doesn't require any such thing, you can convert the
data into raster format and still not be required to distribute the
modified data, although it is encouraged.

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Re: [OSM-talk] fonts feature for josm and potlach

[Andrew Errington]

On Tue, November 3, 2009 12:38, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
> hi,
>
> apart from the supported languages, there is no way at present to see
> what is entered when using, for example, Indian scripts to enter names of
> features in JOSM. All we can see is little boxes. I have tried out other
> java applications, and by selecting the correct font, I am able to see the
> output. If JOSM had a feature whereby one can select the font for input,
> it would be a great help.


It sounds like there is something not quite right on your machine, or
perhaps the way Java is set up.  I run JOSM on Linux and I have Korean
fonts and a Korean text input method.  I can view Korean strings, and
enter and edit them with no problem whatsoever.  I can enter English and
Korean on the same line, even.

I suggest you look at what fonts you have installed.  Clearly you have one
that includes Indian characters.  Perhaps JOSM's font selector is using a
font that does not have Indian characters.

Since I haven't had this problem I'm not sure what causes it, or the
solution, but that's where I would start.

HTH,

Andrew


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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Anthony]

2009/11/2 John Smith :
> 2009/11/3 Anthony :
>> No.  I was going to say "not unless OSM abandons CC-BY-SA in favor of
>> public domain", but that's not going to ever happen either, so no.
>
> Google has no problem with saying where the data comes from, they
> already do this by commercial companies.

True.  I should have said "a non-copyleft license" rather than "public
domain".  CC-BY would probably be easier to implement than public
domain, actually.

> This isn't the same thing as something like GPL where if you
> distribute a binary you have to distribute the source code too.

It's geodata.  The binary is the source.

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[OSM-talk] fonts feature for josm and potlach

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

hi,

apart from the supported languages, there is no way at present to see what is 
entered when using, for example, Indian scripts to enter names of features in 
JOSM. All we can see is little boxes. I have tried out other java 
applications, and by selecting the correct font, I am able to see the output. 
If JOSM had a feature whereby one can select the font for input, it would be a 
great help. I am also translating JOSM into indian languages, but given that 
there are 4000 strings and highly technical ones too, this is going to take 
some time. Of course one can always open the osm file in a text editor and 
check the input - but that is very roundabout. (The same feature would be nice 
in potlatch too where we face the same problem)
-- 
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves
Senior Project Officer
NRC-FOSS
http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/

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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[John Smith]

2009/11/3 Anthony :
> No.  I was going to say "not unless OSM abandons CC-BY-SA in favor of
> public domain", but that's not going to ever happen either, so no.

Google has no problem with saying where the data comes from, they
already do this by commercial companies.

This isn't the same thing as something like GPL where if you
distribute a binary you have to distribute the source code too.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Anthony]

2009/11/2 Bráulio Bezerra da Silva :
> With OSM data getting more and more quality, I guess it will be a logical
> move to Google (and others) to use it for its needs (for example in cities
> where they have NOTHING mapped). Though, I've never seen anyone discuss
> that. Thinking about this, some questions arise.
>
> Will it ever happen?

No.  I was going to say "not unless OSM abandons CC-BY-SA in favor of
public domain", but that's not going to ever happen either, so no.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[John Smith]

2009/11/3 Michael Barabanov :
> Also, a free-hand drawing mode (e.g. press-down left mouse button and
> drag) in JOSM would go a long way towards faster tracing. Clicking to
> add one point at a time is pretty slow.

+1

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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Ian Dees]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Kai Krueger  wrote:

> Sam Vekemans wrote:
> > Once the Open Database Licence is sorted out at our end.
> >
> > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License
> >
> > I think that they will :)
>
> Unfortunately I am not so sure and I would interpret Googles recent
> activity as making it less likely for them to use OSM anytime soon. With
> the move to drop TeleAtlas as map provider in the US and switch to use
> their own map data including a "report a problem" feature, as well as
> their increased activity with Google Mapmaker in many other countries it
> seems Google is trying to enter the map data owner business with all
> their might. Google has thus turned in my opinion from a potential
> future user of OSM data into a major competitor. Google might even turn
> into a tougher competitor for OSM than Navteq or TeleAtlas, as they are
> using some of the same advantages as OSM, crowd sourcing and providing
> mapping data for free,


I know you prefaced this phrase with "might," but Google is almost certainly
not going to give away the map data they built up for free. This is the
difference between Google and OSM. Google's business model is based on the
work they do collecting the world's data and making it easily searchable.
There is definitely room in the world for OSM -- where we ask for
crowd-sourced data and give it back, too.


> On the other hand, google has given a significant contribution towards
> the new server fund back in April, sponsored SoTM in the past and
> sponsored OSM projects through GSoC. So who knows what Google is
> planning. I for sure don't have a clue and just thought I'd share by
> uninformed 0.02$ ;-)
>

There are two things I've repeatedly heard from several Google employees
(not speaking officially, of course):
1. OSM is interesting and should not give up simply because Google is
pushing into the Geo space. They are emphatic about this. I've heard it from
managers and engineers both.
2. Since so much of their business is based on open source software, Google
supports open source software itself as much as possible. They spend
millions of dollars and hours to support open source.
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Re: [OSM-talk] Mountain Passes - Display Issue

[Ulf Lamping]

Patrick Kilian schrieb:
> Hi all,
> 
>>> Just to bring to the group's notice. I added a few mountain passes a 
>>> couple of days ago along with the hiking trails and waypoints
>>>
>>> When I now check on OSM, while the trails are there along with the 
>>> waypoints, the passes are missing. However, when I download data from 
>>> OSM using JOSM, I can see the passes along with the elevations.
>>>
>>> Any clue whats the reason for not displaying on the renderer?
>> Except for JOSM, I currently don't know any renderer that displays 
>> mountain_pass=yes at all (if there's any, please let us know :-)
> 
> As of revision 18423 osmarender (the renderer used by ti...@home) does
> too. It even renders name and ele(vation) if available.

Ah, sounds reeaaallly col ;-)

Any idea when this will appear on the main OSM maps?

>> Problem here: JOSM simply displays a bridge like icon, but doesn't care 
>> about the direction (north, south, ...).
> Osmarender does the same for single nodes...

To my knowledge, most of the mountain_pass=yes are connected to some (at 
  least highway=path) ways.

>> A "correct renderer" should display a mountain pass somehow like a 
>> bridge usually is displayed, following the direction of the way.
> ... but aligns the icon along the way if the way is tagged with a track
> or highway tag. This is implemented with a wayMarker rule as mentioned
> by Dodi and uses a symbol very similar to the one mentioned by Ulfl.

Sounds cool. Do you have an example on the map, where it already is 
rendered this way?

>> As the mountain_pass is tagged as a node, it's unfortunately not that 
>> easy to get that direction, so renderers simply tend to ignore this tag 
>> completely :-(
> Once a significant amount of the nodes without a way attached have a tag
> indicating direction I can add that to osmarender as well.

My observation is that almost any mountain_pass=yes node is connected to 
some kind of way, so I don't think this is very urgent.

Regards, ULFL


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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Liz]

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009, Kai Krueger wrote:
>  Google might even turn
> into a tougher competitor for OSM than Navteq or TeleAtlas, as they are
> using some of the same advantages as OSM, crowd sourcing and providing
> mapping data for free,


We need competition
We should be thrilled that we are also providing competition

Remember that we are all trying to improve, and we are seeing ourselves taken 
being taken very seriously by a competitor. When mapping starts in earnest in 
a third world country on the OSM map, then google thinks they have potential 
mappers and opens mapmaker for that area.
This competition should improve both maps.



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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Kai Krueger]

Sam Vekemans wrote:
> Once the Open Database Licence is sorted out at our end.
> 
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License
> 
> I think that they will :)

Unfortunately I am not so sure and I would interpret Googles recent 
activity as making it less likely for them to use OSM anytime soon. With 
the move to drop TeleAtlas as map provider in the US and switch to use 
their own map data including a "report a problem" feature, as well as 
their increased activity with Google Mapmaker in many other countries it 
seems Google is trying to enter the map data owner business with all 
their might. Google has thus turned in my opinion from a potential 
future user of OSM data into a major competitor. Google might even turn 
into a tougher competitor for OSM than Navteq or TeleAtlas, as they are 
using some of the same advantages as OSM, crowd sourcing and providing 
mapping data for free, plus the added advantage of nearly limitless 
marketing power and resources. I obviously still think that OSM is going 
to succeed in becoming the most complete map data and has major 
advantages over google's data which is the free as in freedom aspect of 
the maps which google doesn't seem to have any intention in following 
looking at the rather reluctant opening of the mapmaker data. However it 
will make OSMs life more interesting having to focus even more on the 
free as in freedom rather than free as in beer aspects to highlight the 
benefits of OSM over Google to new contributors. So my guess would be 
that OSM is not going to get much help from Google until it is 
inevitable that OSM is unstoppable. I think it is much more likely that 
one of the other mayor players like Yahoo, Microsoft or perhaps even 
Garmin or Navigon embrace OSM, to fend of Google. So Google's move could 
even turn out to be an advantage to OSM.

On the other hand, google has given a significant contribution towards 
the new server fund back in April, sponsored SoTM in the past and 
sponsored OSM projects through GSoC. So who knows what Google is 
planning. I for sure don't have a clue and just thought I'd share by 
uninformed 0.02$ ;-)

Kai

> 
> Cheers,
> Sam
> 
> 2009/11/2 Jonathan Bennett  >
> 
> Bráulio Bezerra da Silva wrote:
>  > Will it ever happen?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> --
> Jonathan (Jonobennett)
> 
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> 


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[OSM-talk] Turn Restrictions Editor

[Ian Dees]

Has anyone attempted to write a turn restriction editor? I suppose it would
be best suited as a JOSM plugin, but I suppose it would also work as a web
app or something via OAuth.

It would be nice to show a GUI where intersecting ways are shown up close
with an editor to describe the lanes, where each one goes, the directions
you can turn, etc. and then have the editor create the tag/relation
structure out of those inputs automatically.

Just a thought I had as I was driving home from work tonight.
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[OSM-talk] traffic lights

[SteveC]

Is anyone interested in pushing through this set of ideas for modeling  
multiple traffic lights?


http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Talk:Proposed_features/Set_of_Traffic_Signals

The last discussion seems to be about a year ago.

Yours &c.

Steve


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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Liz]

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote:
> Just a pedantic remark:
>
> Databases are not copyrightable, 'cause copyright law doesn't apply to
> databases. *Sui generis database law* applies to databases (such law is
> based on the EU DB directive).
In Australia, the conclusion of one case (Ice Tv vs Channel 9) in the High 
Court did allow that a database could be copyright, although this was not 
contested in the Court. Channel 9's database was not afforded copyright 
because the Court based its interpretation of "substantial" on "originality"



Title: IceTV Pty Limited v Nine Network Australia Pty Limited [2009] HCA 14 
(22 April 2009)
 URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/high_ct/2009/14.html

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Michael Barabanov]

Also, a free-hand drawing mode (e.g. press-down left mouse button and
drag) in JOSM would go a long way towards faster tracing. Clicking to
add one point at a time is pretty slow.

Michael.

On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 01:18:46PM +0530, Shalabh (shalab...@gmail.com) wrote:
> Hi Nop, thanks for your email. I take your point, it would be difficult to
> delete and then we would be purely depending on the mapper's diligence. So
> yeah, I think I would rather use the suggestions given by Dan than advocate
> an auto track feature.
> 
> Regards,
> Shalabh
> 
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 1:15 PM, Nop  wrote:
> 
> >
> > Hi!
> >
> > Shalabh schrieb:
> >
> >  Given my limited understanding of mapping and even more limited
> >> understanding of computing, I think it would be better if JOSM assumed the
> >> trails to be correct and drew nodes on it on its own.
> >>
> >
> > This is possible combining several features. However, it is a bad idea,
> > most ways added this way are in horrible state and need correction.
> >
> > - way too many nodes. The API does not return more than 5 nodes in one
> > request, so many tracks with 1500 nodes each quickly make it impossible to
> > download a sizable area
> > - the GPs is inaccurate. If you just stupidly add the track, all the
> > mismeasurements are added to the DB. While drawing the way, you can smooth
> > out the obvious zigzags of errors and deviations of known bad reception.
> > Also, as the distance of nodes (usually 1m) is way smaller than the basic
> > error of the GPS, it makes no sense to add this sort of misleading
> > pseudo-accuracy
> > - those ways are then unconnected to all other ways. It is very difficult
> > and tedious to create the proper connections
> > - most people who take this "easy way" don't connect and simplify the way
> > properly, you will often find ways that are simply created over existing,
> > manually edited versions of the same way.
> >
> > So in practice this doesn't work out. If you process your track properly,
> > it is quite some work either way, but using the track directly encourages
> > quick and sloppy adding of bad geometry.
> >
> > It has been suggested several times, that the possibility to do this
> > indirectly be removed from JOSM altogether and having corrected many bad
> > direct uploads I am rather in favour of this.
> >
> > bye
> >Nop
> >

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Anthony]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 2:36 AM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> Anthony wrote:
>
>> "Unless you have received prior written authorization from Google (or,
>> as applicable, from the provider of particular Content), you must
>> not:"  "(b) copy, translate, modify, or make derivative works of the
>> Content or any part thereof;"
>
> Yes. It is quite clear that tracing aerial imagery is not
> copying/translating/modifying/making derivative works of the Content.
> Read the case law or, if you don't have time, the blog posting.

What case law?  It's a contract dispute.  It has nothing to do with
copyright law.

Tracing is copying.  It may not be a copyright infringement, because
the part that is being copied may not be copyrightable, but it's
definitely copying.

If I trace a picture of Donald Duck, is that copying?  Of course it
is.  Tracing is copying, and Google's ToS says you can't copy the
Content or any part thereof.  Even if the work is not copyrightable,
you wouldn't be in breach of copyright law (which is irrelevant to
Google since Google doesn't own the copyright anyway), but you'd be in
breach of the terms of service.

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:33 AM, Peteris Krisjanis  wrote:
> Yahoo is another matter. They have stated several times - and probably
> are asked questions about this all the time - if it is right. I think
> public statements from Yahoo about this already protects you in case
> if someone in Yahoo goes high-wire and wants everyone to sue about it.

The concern would be that someone from i-Cubed, who whatever company
owns the copyright on the image itself, decides to sue.

There are two separate issues.  There's the copyright issue, which is
a legitimate concern because once copyright is infringed it has the
potential to taint everything else that touches it.  And there's the
ToS issue, which is fairly irrelevant - worst case scenario you remove
the contributions of the particular user that got caught.  A ToS
violation likely doesn't even taint the contribution itself - it
certainly doesn't taint everything that touches it.

With Yahoo, the ToS issue is well resolved.  The copyright issue is
completely unresolved.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Anthony]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Anthony  wrote:
> The public domain satellite imagery available for the
> places I map is as good or better than the Yahoo imagery provided in
> Potlatch, though.
>

Satellite -> aerial.  I'm not sure if it's satellite or not.  It's at
0.3 meter resolution.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Anthony]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:58 AM, Pieren  wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:53 AM, John Smith  wrote:
>> 2009/11/2 Anthony :
>>>  In France you can copyright a building
>>> and anyone who takes a picture of the building and uses it for
>>> commercial purposes without permission is committing copyright
>>> infringement.
>
> False but also not completely false. As usual, they are some special
> circumstances where a building can be protected but these are special
> cases and can't be generalized as paranoids do  (otherwise StreetView
> wouldn't exist in France).

Sloppy phrasing.  Change "a building" to "some buildings".  I realized
it didn't apply to all buildings, but I should have made that clear.

> Richard is convinced that the content of the photos is not protected
> and I agree on that point. But he just decides to ignore all the
> investments spent to rectify and georeference these photos on which
> his derivative work is based. And this investment and work is
> protected.

What if you download the image and then position it into place
yourself?  I understand that some jurisdictions have "sweat of the
brow", but taken to its logical conclusion you can't do anything.
What about all the work Google spent writing a search engine?  Are all
the websites I find through Google's search engine thereby copyright
by Google?

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:33 AM, Peteris Krisjanis  wrote:
> 2009/11/1 Anthony :
>> I'm hesitant to push that issue, but hey, if OSM decides to stop
>> helping people trace from Yahoo maybe someone else will come along
>> with less silly rules.
>
> No one will. Geo photos are expensive matter and if they are not
> goverment sponsored, it is usually bread and butter for company who
> makes them.

I meant someone other than OSM would just be less "copyright
paranoid".  The public domain satellite imagery available for the
places I map is as good or better than the Yahoo imagery provided in
Potlatch, though.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM: simplify with gpsbabel

[Bernd Vogelgesang]

> You can already convert a GPX layer to a OSM layer and then upload the
> results, just right click on the layer, however it can be very tedious
> to remove points if they are once a second and all points are imported
> etc.
Though i never used a gpx layer directly before (simply forgot about
it), i experimented on pretreatment for gpx tracks with gpsbabel.

I learned, that simplifying the track to 1/4 of the original amount of
points gave me a perfect result. I don't know what the gpsbabel
algorithm does (maybe someone can explain), but with my material of one
point per second, i got perfectly detailed curves while unnecessary
points on straight parts got removed.
So my strategy would be:
- Take the track and get the amount of points (that was the hardest part
for me with my gpsmouse ;) )
- Simplify it with gpsbabel to 1/4 of the original amount of points.
- Use it in JOSM and do corrections there with much less points.


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[OSM-talk] Fwd: [OAM-talk] The once and future OpenAerialMap

[Richard Fairhurst]

For interest - an attempt to restart OpenAerialMap which might chime 
with various discussions people have been having about aerial imagery in 
OSM recently. The OAM mailing list is at 
http://openaerialmap.org/pipermail/talk_openaerialmap.org/ .

cheers
Richard

 Original Message 
Subject: [OAM-talk] The once and future OpenAerialMap
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:08:45 -0500
From: Schuyler Erle 
To: t...@openaerialmap.org

Recently there's been a surge of interest in OpenAerialMap in the
context of humanitarian crisis response, but most of the discussion in
the last couple months has been over private emails and conversations.
I'd like to take the opportunity to try to restart the public discussion
in the hopes of moving forward.

This will be a long email, but I have a lot of thoughts I want to get
out. Please forgive the extent to which this missive covers ground that
has already been trod upon on this list.



OpenAerialMap is meant, to my understanding, to provide a Free and Open
archive of aerial and satellite imagery for general use.

The four main challenges behind OAM, as I see them, are as follows:

   1. Community interest
   2. Imagery cataloging
   3. Reliable storage
   4. Low-latency delivery

Community interest
--
Bona-fide community interest has been the main sticking point to date.
I've been agitating for an OAM-like service for nearly five years, but
OAM is going to continue to be merely an unfinished prototype and a nice
idea until we have a critical mass of interested parties to keep the
project going. Based on the private discussions around its utility for
crisis response, I think we now have a real use case that the community
can develop around.

The next question is one of organizing. If/when we have a sufficient
critical mass, perhaps we should constitute a project organizing
committee under a community governance model akin to Apache, OpenLayers,
etc., so that someone is empowered to make executive decisions on behalf
of the community. This would mean that, once this list begins to reach
consensus, we have someone to take responsibility for moving the ball
forward, rather than us all staring at each other and wondering what
happens next.

Cataloging
--
After talking with Christopher Schmidt last week, I'm convinced that the
imagery catalog is the key point on the critical path to a working
OpenAerialMap. Basically, ground imagery can be delivered *to* OAM in
two forms:

(1) hosted elsewhere and exposed via WMS, etc. MassGIS and Landsat-7 are
good examples.

(2) delivered in bulk (on DVD, hard drive, via upload) from a third
party, whether it's from a government or NGO mapping bureau, or a
homebrew UAV enthusiast.

Both of these data sources need to be cataloged appropriately in OAM, so
that they can be mosaicked into a single ground imagery layer at each
zoom level. The WMS-delivered datasets are easier to deal with in the
sense that they're already online and OAM can simply reproject, proxy,
and cache requests. The bulk-delivered datasets are a little more
complex because they require hosting somewhere, but once they're online,
they too can be exposed via WMS and cached in OAM by the same means.

Christopher has already written a very basic imagery catalog for OAM
using Django. IIRC, this catalog app generates a MapServer configuration
that performs the reprojection and mosaic. I would submit that we should
start with the existing OAM catalog code and look critically at how we
can extend it to be more comprehensive and robust, versus adopting
something else (GeoNetwork?) or starting from scratch.

There are questions of crowdsourcing versus curating the effort of
building the catalog that are out of scope at the moment, but we should
think about some model of allowing anyone to submit WMS URLs or offer to
upload imagery, with some data curators empowered by the PSC to vet and
manage the "official" catalog itself.

The nice thing about starting by focusing on the catalog is that it
allows us to build a usable prototype by simply caching the mosaic in
RAM on some single machine for now, without having to commit to a
long-term storage plan first.

Reliable storage

OAM in its most recent conception didn't really get far enough to look
at solving this problem. One issue is that we're looking at scaling up
to dozens or 100s of TB of imagery, but let's assume that at least one
organization has a sufficient need and sufficient goodwill to step up
and offer to provide this to the community for free.

Such an offer will beg the other issue, which is that no one will want
to invest the effort in (re)building OAM on a single hosting provider,
if there's any risk that that host might lose interest (perhaps because
the project's liason gets a new job elsewhere), drop the project, go
offline without warning, or experience significant downtime. I think we
have seen this with well-intentioned efforts in the past to offer our
community hosti

Re: [OSM-talk] Mountain Passes - Display Issue

[Patrick Kilian]

Hi all,

>> Just to bring to the group's notice. I added a few mountain passes a 
>> couple of days ago along with the hiking trails and waypoints
>>
>> When I now check on OSM, while the trails are there along with the 
>> waypoints, the passes are missing. However, when I download data from 
>> OSM using JOSM, I can see the passes along with the elevations.
>>
>> Any clue whats the reason for not displaying on the renderer?
> 
> Except for JOSM, I currently don't know any renderer that displays 
> mountain_pass=yes at all (if there's any, please let us know :-)

As of revision 18423 osmarender (the renderer used by ti...@home) does
too. It even renders name and ele(vation) if available.


> Problem here: JOSM simply displays a bridge like icon, but doesn't care 
> about the direction (north, south, ...).
Osmarender does the same for single nodes...


> A "correct renderer" should display a mountain pass somehow like a 
> bridge usually is displayed, following the direction of the way.
... but aligns the icon along the way if the way is tagged with a track
or highway tag. This is implemented with a wayMarker rule as mentioned
by Dodi and uses a symbol very similar to the one mentioned by Ulfl.


> As the mountain_pass is tagged as a node, it's unfortunately not that 
> easy to get that direction, so renderers simply tend to ignore this tag 
> completely :-(
Once a significant amount of the nodes without a way attached have a tag
indicating direction I can add that to osmarender as well.


HTH,



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Re: [OSM-talk] Garmin eTrex Vista Hcx

[Paul Houle]

John F. Eldredge wrote:
> The GPS in my car is a Garmin (I don't recall the exact model at the moment). 
>  It appears to be much more accurate when the car is in motion than when the 
> car is stationary.  If I power the GPS up with the car stationary, the 
> location given can be inaccurate by 100 meters or more.  Once the car starts 
> to move, the GPS can locate the car within 3 or 4 meters.
>
>   
In automotive applications,  GPS Units often use a 'snap to road' 
that makes them look a lot more accurate.

My eTrex Vista HCX has two modes of computing headings:  one of them 
is to (i) look at the direction your track is going in and the other is 
a (ii) built-in magnetic compass.  If I'm moving,  either in a vehicle 
or on foot,  I find (i) more satisfying than (ii).

The most obnoxious thing about altitude on my eTrex is that I don't 
see how to get it to use GPS altitude instead of barometric altitude.  
(I know how to pop up a dialog box to ~view~ GPS altitude,  but that's 
it.)  Barometric altitude is totally useless if you're inside a 
pressurized airplane.  ;-)

In most situations repeatability is pretty good for me;  I use 
tracks for "breadcrumb navigation" all of the time on foot and rarely 
see anomalies that cause practical problems.  I circumnavigated the BWI 
airport during a layover the other day and got at the the terminal 
within 3 minutes of when I thought I would,  using GPS data as the major 
input to my mental calculation.

Now,  I did get lost in the tunnels of the Library of Congress the 
day before that...  I just need an inertial guidance system for 
situations like that.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

2009/11/2 Celso González :
> Instead using this workflow maybe its better to use the editgpx plugin
>
> 1. Import the GPX track
> 2. Use the editgpx plugin to clean it up
> 3. convert egpx to gpx
> 4. convert it to OSM
> and continue in
> 6. Merge to main datalayer

Editgpx is a very bad general purpose GPX editor. It can only delete
trackpoints which you can do just as well using normal editing tools
once you convert the GPX layer to OSM using the standard editing
tools.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Sam Vekemans]

Once the Open Database Licence is sorted out at our end.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Database_License

I think that they will :)

Cheers,
Sam

2009/11/2 Jonathan Bennett 

> Bráulio Bezerra da Silva wrote:
> > Will it ever happen?
>
> Yes.
>
> --
> Jonathan (Jonobennett)
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

2009/11/2 Bráulio Bezerra da Silva :
> Hmm, an update: some GSoC OSM projects [1] were already accepted.
>
> [1] http://socghop.appspot.com/org/home/google/gsoc2009/openstreetmap

This doesn't mean that Google is plotting to use OSM data in the
future, just that someone submitted a well-formed GSOC proposal that
was accepted.

Google sponsors lots of things through GSOC that they probably won't
use anytime soon, or ever.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Russ Nelson]

Pieren writes:
 > Richard is convinced that the content of the photos is not protected
 > and I agree on that point. But he just decides to ignore all the
 > investments spent to rectify and georeference these photos on which
 > his derivative work is based. And this investment and work is
 > protected.

Richard isn't ignoring this.  The law ignores it.  Or do you think
there's case law which he hasn't cited?

-- 
--my blog is athttp://blog.russnelson.com
Crynwr supports open source software
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315-323-1241
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | Sheepdog   

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Re: [OSM-talk] Planet.openstreetmap.org

[Grant Slater]

2009/11/2 Jeremy Adams :
> The site http://planet.openstreetmap.org seems to be down.  It's returning
> 403: Forbidden for about the last hour.
>
> Can someone have a look?
>

Fixed. Thx for the report.

We having hardware problems with that machine today so it might be up and down.

/ Grant

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Celso González]

On Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 01:59:10PM +, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
 
> I have nothing against good UI design which would make this sort of
> thing easy. Doing this in JOSM currently is much harder than it should
> be. What I usually do when I want to do this is:
> 
>  1. Import the GPX track
>  2. Convert it to OSM
>  3. Split up the bit I need & select it
>  4. Search for "-selected" to invert selection
>  5. Delete (nukes all the bits I don't want
>  6. Merge to main datalayer
>  7. Manually connect the track to other roads
>  8. Manually clean it up (e.g. getting rid of self-intersections)
>  9. Maybe simplify it. But sometimes the automatic utilsplugin
> simplify process sucks so I'd rather do it myself

Instead using this workflow maybe its better to use the editgpx plugin

1. Import the GPX track
2. Use the editgpx plugin to clean it up
3. convert egpx to gpx 
4. convert it to OSM
and continue in
6. Merge to main datalayer

-- 
Celso González (PerroVerd)
http://mitago.net

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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Jonathan Bennett]

Bráulio Bezerra da Silva wrote:
> Will it ever happen?

Yes.

-- 
Jonathan (Jonobennett)

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> 1-8 should be made easy, but I disagree with you that JOSM should
> force some simplification process. I've already cited an example where
> this did more harm than good.

Sure - you're spot on there and I can't argue with any of that. Probably 
"provide a strong default" would have been a better word than "force". :)

cheers
Richard

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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/11/2 Bráulio Bezerra da Silva 

> With OSM data getting more and more quality, I guess it will be a logical
> move to Google (and others) to use it for its needs (for example in cities
> where they have NOTHING mapped). Though, I've never seen anyone discuss
> that.



on the German ML this is indeed a topic (or was some time ago). Yes, we're
hoping they will use our data, why not?

Cheers,
Martin
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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/11/2 Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 

> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Richard Fairhurst 
> wrote:
> > I would commend this forced simplification to the JOSM devs. Ways are
> > automatically split after an interval of n seconds.
>
> Unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool. It shouldn't force you to do anything.
>
>
wait for potlatch 2.0 ;-)



> Recently I traced a zigzag road in Greece from a GPX track in JOSM 
> by...
> I tried to simplify the track using the utilsplugin but that made the
> road way more inaccurate than my trace was. What was previously a
> smooth curve around a bend turned into a few crude points that would
> have looked bad on the map.
>
>
+1, the main issue is that no piece of software but just you know where
there was a curve, which line was straight and where it was really
ondulated. I personally care about those details, and while I would like to
represent a straight line with just 2 points (and not 3 or 4), I would also
like to have quite a lot of points in curves to represent them well.


> We would do well to remember that not everyone wants to spend an hour
> to perfectly trace some way in the middle of nowhere.


perfectly true for the middle of nowhere but horrible in densly builtup
areas.


> Sometimes
> importing an almost raw GPX track is quick, good enough and perfectly
> appropriate.
>
> We can always fix the data later.
>

true, but what I sometimes face is the opposite: traced for some time very
precisely some road/footway till someone thinks: hey, it would be enough to
have this represented by 8 nodes, and applies some algo-magic to it.

cheers,
Martin
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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Richard Fairhurst
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> I would commend this forced simplification to the JOSM devs. Ways are
>>> automatically split after an interval of n seconds.
>>
>> Unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool. It shouldn't force you to do
>> anything.
>
> ...is a very high-minded principle which nonetheless leads to some lousy
> edits in the database.
>
> I would have a bit more sympathy had I not, once again, spent a good while
> last night clearing up some ways, badly traced in JOSM with 45-degree angles
> all over the place. Had the mapper used a good "GPX->simplified way"
> function, he would have created a road which was much closer to reality yet
> nonetheless took him much less effort.
>
> It's the responsibility of the tool developer to lead the user to the right
> choice. Glib phrases like "unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool" (I note JOSM
> #67 is still open :p ) don't absolve responsibility for UI design. By all
> means offer the choice, but make the 90% case the default.

I have nothing against good UI design which would make this sort of
thing easy. Doing this in JOSM currently is much harder than it should
be. What I usually do when I want to do this is:

 1. Import the GPX track
 2. Convert it to OSM
 3. Split up the bit I need & select it
 4. Search for "-selected" to invert selection
 5. Delete (nukes all the bits I don't want
 6. Merge to main datalayer
 7. Manually connect the track to other roads
 8. Manually clean it up (e.g. getting rid of self-intersections)
 9. Maybe simplify it. But sometimes the automatic utilsplugin
simplify process sucks so I'd rather do it myself

1-8 should be made easy, but I disagree with you that JOSM should
force some simplification process. I've already cited an example where
this did more harm than good.

Perhaps the utilsplugin can be improved to use a better algorithm or
have a way to configure the amount of simplification that it does, but
there will always be cases where the software does stupid things and
I'd rather not have to edit the source code for my editor & recompile
it because someone thought his algorithm was so smart that it knew
better than its users in all cases.

That is all.

>> We would do well to remember that not everyone wants to spend an hour
>> to perfectly trace some way in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes
>> importing an almost raw GPX track is quick, good enough and perfectly
>> appropriate.
>
> Yep. Exactly my point. The challenge for the developer is to balance "not
> everyone wants to spend an hour" and "_almost_ raw" (my emphasis), and in
> this area I think Potlatch gets it about right. Though I
> would say that, wouldn't I?

I certainly agree that for this case Potlatch's UI is way superior for
the common case.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Peteris Krisjanis]

2009/11/2 Martin Koppenhoefer :
> 2009/11/2 Peteris Krisjanis 
>>
>> You can do whatever you want, buy it or not. Again, OSM project's
>> consensus is that you can trace Yahoo, but you can't from Google
>> products. Because first one said yes, you can, and second said no.
>> Several times.
>
> that's all true AFAIK besides that Google didn't say no, they simply never
> replied...
>

As far as I heard, they did, no?

Cheers,
Peteris.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

El Lunes, 2 de Noviembre de 2009, David Earl escribió:
> > Heck, a single aerial image *is* a database of pixels :-D
>
> By analogy then, so is this email a database of words and characters,
> but that's a perverse interpretation, not what most people would call a
> database, and certainly not for the purposes of EU database copyright
> where a database is "a collection of independent works, data or other
> materials which: (a) are arranged in a systematic or methodical way; and
> (b) are individually accessible by electronic or other means", the key
> word being "independent".

Oh, the wording of the spanish law is a bit funnier, because it 
replaces "other materials" with "other items".

That means that the way I arrange the cups in my kitchen cabinet is a database 
too :-D


So, yes, laws are blurry and subject to interpretation. News at 11.


El Lunes, 2 de Noviembre de 2009, Peteris Krisjanis escribió:
> If I am not mistaken, one definition what I heard from people with
> insight in this field is that sat/ort photos are databases of the facts. 
> Fact isn't copyrightable, but database of them - is.

Just a pedantic remark:

Databases are not copyrightable, 'cause copyright law doesn't apply to 
databases. *Sui generis database law* applies to databases (such law is based 
on the EU DB directive). 


Cheers,
-- 
--
Iván Sánchez Ortega 

http://ivan.sanchezortega.es
MSN:i_eat_s_p_a_m_for_breakf...@hotmail.com
Jabber:ivansanc...@jabber.org ; ivansanc...@kdetalk.net
IRC: ivansanchez @ OFTC & freenode


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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Martin Koppenhoefer]

2009/11/2 Peteris Krisjanis 

> You can do whatever you want, buy it or not. Again, OSM project's
> consensus is that you can trace Yahoo, but you can't from Google
> products. Because first one said yes, you can, and second said no.
> Several times.
>

that's all true AFAIK besides that Google didn't say no, they simply never
replied...

cheers,
Martin
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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Peteris Krisjanis]

2009/11/2 David Earl :
> On 02/11/2009 13:11, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote:
>> El Domingo, 1 de Noviembre de 2009, Anthony escribió:
>>> Yes, a collection of aerial images is a database.  But a single aerial
>>> image is probably not.
>>
>> Heck, a single aerial image *is* a database of pixels :-D
>
> By analogy then, so is this email a database of words and characters,
> but that's a perverse interpretation, not what most people would call a
> database, and certainly not for the purposes of EU database copyright
> where a database is "a collection of independent works, data or other
> materials which: (a) are arranged in a systematic or methodical way; and
> (b) are individually accessible by electronic or other means", the key
> word being "independent".
>

If I am not mistaken, one definition what I heard from people with
insight in this field is that
sat/ort photos are databases of the facts. Fact isn't copyrightable,
but database of them - is.

Anyway, unless we have some rich guy who are willing to take this to
at least several courts in several countries, it is better to assume
the worst.

Cheers,
Peter.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Peteris Krisjanis]

2009/11/1 Anthony :
> On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Peteris Krisjanis  wrote:
>> Anyway, to resume all this discussion - PLEASE don't trace from photo
>> without permission for OSM, whatever your temptations are.
>
> Permission from whom, and in what form?  Supposedly the Yahoo images
> are okay, but 1) Yahoo didn't take the pictures in the first place,
> and 2) I haven't verified that Yahoo even gave permission (who signed
> the waiver?  what indication do we have that they were authorized to
> do so?  can I see a copy of the waiver?  what exactly are the terms?).

For example, I bought orthographical photos for my town and I got
permission to trace them for OSM. Written in paper, signed by me and
seller.

Yahoo is another matter. They have stated several times - and probably
are asked questions about this all the time - if it is right. I think
public statements from Yahoo about this already protects you in case
if someone in Yahoo goes high-wire and wants everyone to sue about it.

You can do whatever you want, buy it or not. Again, OSM project's
consensus is that you can trace Yahoo, but you can't from Google
products. Because first one said yes, you can, and second said no.
Several times.

> I'm hesitant to push that issue, but hey, if OSM decides to stop
> helping people trace from Yahoo maybe someone else will come along
> with less silly rules.

No one will. Geo photos are expensive matter and if they are not
goverment sponsored, it is usually bread and butter for company who
makes them.

Cheers,
Peter.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[David Earl]

On 02/11/2009 13:11, Iván Sánchez Ortega wrote:
> El Domingo, 1 de Noviembre de 2009, Anthony escribió:
>> Yes, a collection of aerial images is a database.  But a single aerial
>> image is probably not.
> 
> Heck, a single aerial image *is* a database of pixels :-D

By analogy then, so is this email a database of words and characters, 
but that's a perverse interpretation, not what most people would call a 
database, and certainly not for the purposes of EU database copyright 
where a database is "a collection of independent works, data or other 
materials which: (a) are arranged in a systematic or methodical way; and 
(b) are individually accessible by electronic or other means", the key 
word being "independent".

David


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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Peteris Krisjanis]

2009/11/2 Russ Nelson :
> Ulf Lamping writes:
>  > Russ Nelson schrieb:
>  > > Peteris Krisjanis writes:
>  > >  > Anyway, to resume all this discussion - PLEASE don't trace from photo
>  > >  > without permission for OSM, whatever your temptations are.
>  > >
>  > > E, no.  The USGS Digital Ortho Quads are in the public domain; no
>  > > permission necessary to trace off of them.
>  >
>  > If the material is "licensed as public domain", this *is* one of the
>  > possible permissions Peteris is talking about.
>  >
>  > Is this really that hard to get?
>
> Seemingly, since you don't understand that when something is in the
> public domain, there is no copyright owner to get permission from.  It
> sounds like your conflating a public domain work which is free of
> copyright with a copyrighted work licensed "as if" it were public
> domain.
>

PD is permission from government to do whatever you want with subject,
they don't protect it with copyright law.

If you really think that PD is some natural right given by Nature/God,
you are strongly mistaken.

Cheers,
Peter.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Planet.openstreetmap.org

[Jeremy Adams]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:14 AM, Joseph Reeves  wrote:

> Working fine from the UK...
>
>
>
> 2009/11/2 Jeremy Adams :
> > Hello all,
> >
> > The site http://planet.openstreetmap.org seems to be down.  It's
> returning
> > 403: Forbidden for about the last hour.
> >
> > Can someone have a look?
> >
> > -Jeremy
>

It is now here too.  Thanks to whoever (or whatever) fixed it and made me
look like an idiot.  :)

-Jeremy
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Re: [OSM-talk] Planet.openstreetmap.org

[Joseph Reeves]

Working fine from the UK...



2009/11/2 Jeremy Adams :
> Hello all,
>
> The site http://planet.openstreetmap.org seems to be down.  It's returning
> 403: Forbidden for about the last hour.
>
> Can someone have a look?
>
> -Jeremy
>
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>
>

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

El Domingo, 1 de Noviembre de 2009, Anthony escribió:
> Yes, a collection of aerial images is a database.  But a single aerial
> image is probably not.

Heck, a single aerial image *is* a database of pixels :-D

-- 
--
Iván Sánchez Ortega 

Microprocesador: Juez Bajito...


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[OSM-talk] Planet.openstreetmap.org

[Jeremy Adams]

Hello all,

The site http://planet.openstreetmap.org seems to be down.  It's returning
403: Forbidden for about the last hour.

Can someone have a look?

-Jeremy
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Re: [OSM-legal-talk] Extent of share alike?

[Matt Amos]

On 11/2/09, Frederik Ramm  wrote:
> Matt Amos wrote:
>> the CC BY-SA portion would imply that the screenshot
>> would be CC BY-SA, but the license on the "other layer" of the image
>> wouldn't allow that.
>
> Correct. I think that CC-BY-SA creates an incentive for the secretive
> data provider to, instead of combining his own data and CC-BY-SA data
> server-side and delivering it to the customer, furnish the customer with
> a bit of software and feed him CC-BY-SA and proprietary data through
> separate channels. That way, the data is combined on the users'
> computer, leaving him user with a dead-end undistributable (but usable!)
> lump of data.

isn't that a bug in any "share-alike" license which uses
redistribution as the trigger?

all this complexity - it's enough to make someone want to PD everything ;-)

cheers,

matt

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Shalabh]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 6:18 PM, Richard Fairhurst wrote:

I would have a bit more sympathy had I not, once again, spent a good
while last night clearing up some ways, badly traced in JOSM with
45-degree angles all over the place. Had the mapper used a good
"GPX->simplified way" function, he would have created a road which was
much closer to reality yet nonetheless took him much less effort.

Thanks for this one Richard, a point I completely missed while raising this
issue with JOSM. I have been mapping mountain roads for the last 3 months
now. While I dont draw 45 degree angles, I dont think that with the
'creating nodes' option, I do a great job. The road ofcourse looks slightly
angular. I am actually talking about roads which take a U-curve every 50
metres or so in the Himalayas. The GPS trail is a perfect U but I cant say
the same of all the curves I end up drawing. Anyway, to get them even
slightly accurate, I end up drawing at very high resolution, which means
spending hours just drawing the track already drawn by the GPS.

Regards,
Shalabh

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Richard Fairhurst
>  wrote:
> >> I would commend this forced simplification to the JOSM devs. Ways are
> >> automatically split after an interval of n seconds.
> >
> > Unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool. It shouldn't force you to do
> anything.
>
> ...is a very high-minded principle which nonetheless leads to some lousy
> edits in the database.
>
> I would have a bit more sympathy had I not, once again, spent a good
> while last night clearing up some ways, badly traced in JOSM with
> 45-degree angles all over the place. Had the mapper used a good
> "GPX->simplified way" function, he would have created a road which was
> much closer to reality yet nonetheless took him much less effort.
>
> It's the responsibility of the tool developer to lead the user to the
> right choice. Glib phrases like "unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool" (I
> note JOSM #67 is still open :p ) don't absolve responsibility for UI
> design. By all means offer the choice, but make the 90% case the default.
>
>  > We would do well to remember that not everyone wants to spend an hour
>  > to perfectly trace some way in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes
>  > importing an almost raw GPX track is quick, good enough and perfectly
>  > appropriate.
>
> Yep. Exactly my point. The challenge for the developer is to balance
> "not everyone wants to spend an hour" and "_almost_ raw" (my emphasis),
> and in this area I think Potlatch gets it about right.  rice-davies>Though I would say that, wouldn't I?
>
> cheers
> Richard
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Bráulio Bezerra da Silva]

Hmm, an update: some GSoC OSM projects [1] were already accepted.

[1] http://socghop.appspot.com/org/home/google/gsoc2009/openstreetmap

2009/11/2 Bráulio Bezerra da Silva 

> With OSM data getting more and more quality, I guess it will be a logical
> move to Google (and others) to use it for its needs (for example in cities
> where they have NOTHING mapped). Though, I've never seen anyone discuss
> that. Thinking about this, some questions arise.
>
> Will it ever happen?
>
> Will this be a good thing for people who use routing services?
>
> Will this be a good thing for OSM?
>
> All of that happening, will Google get more involved and help OSM (for
> example, with Google Summer of Code, etc)?
>
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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Richard Fairhurst]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Richard Fairhurst  
> wrote:
>> I would commend this forced simplification to the JOSM devs. Ways are
>> automatically split after an interval of n seconds.
>
> Unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool. It shouldn't force you to do anything.

...is a very high-minded principle which nonetheless leads to some lousy 
edits in the database.

I would have a bit more sympathy had I not, once again, spent a good 
while last night clearing up some ways, badly traced in JOSM with 
45-degree angles all over the place. Had the mapper used a good 
"GPX->simplified way" function, he would have created a road which was 
much closer to reality yet nonetheless took him much less effort.

It's the responsibility of the tool developer to lead the user to the 
right choice. Glib phrases like "unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool" (I 
note JOSM #67 is still open :p ) don't absolve responsibility for UI 
design. By all means offer the choice, but make the 90% case the default.

 > We would do well to remember that not everyone wants to spend an hour
 > to perfectly trace some way in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes
 > importing an almost raw GPX track is quick, good enough and perfectly
 > appropriate.

Yep. Exactly my point. The challenge for the developer is to balance 
"not everyone wants to spend an hour" and "_almost_ raw" (my emphasis), 
and in this area I think Potlatch gets it about right. Though I would say that, wouldn't I?

cheers
Richard

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[OSM-talk] Will Google ever use OSM data?

[Bráulio Bezerra da Silva]

With OSM data getting more and more quality, I guess it will be a logical
move to Google (and others) to use it for its needs (for example in cities
where they have NOTHING mapped). Though, I've never seen anyone discuss
that. Thinking about this, some questions arise.

Will it ever happen?

Will this be a good thing for people who use routing services?

Will this be a good thing for OSM?

All of that happening, will Google get more involved and help OSM (for
example, with Google Summer of Code, etc)?
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Re: [OSM-talk] [OSM-legal-talk] Illegal activity

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
> I'm not particularly au fait with national copyright law in mainland 
> Europe. Doubtless you can answer on France: I can't see anything in 
> German law that would give protection. 

I have lost thread of what kind of protection exactly you are talking 
about, but German copyright law stipulates that photos - and this is 
commonly read as "including photos taken from the air through automated 
means", have 50 years of copyright protection during which any use (!) 
of the photos requires permission from the copyright holder:

http://dejure.org/gesetze/UrhG/72.html

Some lawyers say that because German copyright requires a person as the 
rights owner, any kind of automated photography cannot be copyrighted. 
Others, and they seem to form the majority, say that the person who 
"conditions" the machinery used to take the photos becomes the rights 
owner. There is some German-language discussion of this here: 
http://www.schmunzelkunst.de/saq2.htm#luftbild

Bye
Frederik



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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Richard Fairhurst  wrote:
> I would commend this forced simplification to the JOSM devs. Ways are
> automatically split after an interval of n seconds.

Unlike Potlatch JOSM is a powertool. It shouldn't force you to do anything.

Recently I traced a zigzag road in Greece from a GPX track in JOSM by
converting the GPX to OSM, cleaning it up by deleting a few point
clouds and then merging it into the main layer & uploading:

   http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/40783985/history

I tried to simplify the track using the utilsplugin but that made the
road way more inaccurate than my trace was. What was previously a
smooth curve around a bend turned into a few crude points that would
have looked bad on the map.

I could have manually traced or fixed the whole thing but that would
have taken me at least an hour instead of the 2-5 minutes it took by
using the GPX->OSM->fix method.

We would do well to remember that not everyone wants to spend an hour
to perfectly trace some way in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes
importing an almost raw GPX track is quick, good enough and perfectly
appropriate.

We can always fix the data later.

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Richard Fairhurst]

Pieren wrote:
> It's not the question about laws in France, Germany or US vs England.
> It's the question to know if OSM database can survive if it contains
> data from illegal sources, independently of the country.
>
> Richard is convinced that the content of the photos is not protected
> and I agree on that point. But he just decides to ignore all the
> investments spent to rectify and georeference these photos on which
> his derivative work is based. And this investment and work is
> protected.

Heh. I haven't decided to ignore it. I'm just not 100% convinced as yet 
that it alters the clear lead set out by Bauman v Fussell.

US law is unambiguous: the doctrine of idea-expression merger means that 
rectification doesn't make any difference. UK law is not clear, and you 
have to interpret sweat-of-the-brow in the light of Bauman v Fussell and 
Antiquesportfolio v Fitch. Canada is very interesting: Weetman v Baldwin 
(heard in a fairly junior court) cites "accuracy not previously attained 
by other mapmakers of the region in question... facilitated by a 
particular process pioneered by a mapmaker" which can be interpreted in 
wild and exciting ways.

I'm not particularly au fait with national copyright law in mainland 
Europe. Doubtless you can answer on France: I can't see anything in 
German law that would give protection. It's been suggested that EU 
database right could also give some protection to rectification. I can't 
yet see it myself (particularly in light of BHB vs William Hill), but 
then, database right is really the modern day equivalent of the 
Schleswig-Holstein Question:

"Only three people," said Palmerston, "have ever really understood the 
Schleswig-Holstein business: the Prince Consort, who is dead; a German 
professor, who has gone mad; and I, who have forgotten all about it."

Follow-ups to legal-talk.

cheers
Richard

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Re: [OSM-talk] Illegal activity

[Pieren]

On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:53 AM, John Smith  wrote:
> 2009/11/2 Anthony :
>>  In France you can copyright a building
>> and anyone who takes a picture of the building and uses it for
>> commercial purposes without permission is committing copyright
>> infringement.

False but also not completely false. As usual, they are some special
circumstances where a building can be protected but these are special
cases and can't be generalized as paranoids do  (otherwise StreetView
wouldn't exist in France).

> it's irrelevent what laws exist
> in France as far as this thread is concerned.

It's not the question about laws in France, Germany or US vs England.
It's the question to know if OSM database can survive if it contains
data from illegal sources, independently of the country.

Richard is convinced that the content of the photos is not protected
and I agree on that point. But he just decides to ignore all the
investments spent to rectify and georeference these photos on which
his derivative work is based. And this investment and work is
protected.

Pieren

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Richard Fairhurst]

Nop wrote:
> It is good that simplification is forced. But of course, it will still
> stupidly add a large zig-zag caused by bad reception to the map. (I
> have seen beginners manually add such zig-zags before they learn that
> GPS isn't perfect, but at least they usually learn)
>
> How does it take care of crossing other ways without a junction point?

It doesn't - well, not explicitly. I did wonder about automatically  
creating crossing nodes, but then you'd have all sorts of palaver  
about "well, if this is a river then it should intersect with other  
rivers, but if it's a road it shouldn't - well, unless there's a ford,  
but...".

Rather, it creates the way as a "locked" way; it explicitly won't be  
uploaded, even when you click Save, until you've unlocked it. This is  
indicated with a bright red drawing rather than any other styling. The  
docs then duly explain that you should tidy the way by tagging, adding  
intersections, removing zigzags etc. before unlocking and uploading.  
If you don't read the docs, you won't know how to unlock the way  
anyway. ;)

cheers
Richard


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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[SLXViper]

John Smith wrote:
> 2009/11/2 Dan Homerick :
>   
>> Once the GPX layer is converted to an OSM layer, you can run
>> "Simplify Way"
>> on it to reduce the number of points to a reasonable number and frequency.
>> It's available via the Tools menu once you have installed the 'utilsplugin'
>> plugin.
>> 
>
> It isn't aggresive enough to cope with most GPX files I've tried it on...
>   

This can be solved by adjusting the setting "simplify-way.max-error".

regards

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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Mike Harris]

Why not (a) convert the GPX layer to a data layer and then (b) use the
simplify way tool from the JOSM plugin?

Mike Harris
 

> -Original Message-
> From: John Smith [mailto:deltafoxtrot...@gmail.com] 
> Sent: 02 November 2009 06:57
> To: Shalabh
> Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM
> 
> 2009/11/2 Shalabh :
> > I will leave this open to discussion but I thought it 
> better to bring 
> > this to everybody's notice, so JOSM can be made more user friendly.
> 
> You can already convert a GPX layer to a OSM layer and then 
> upload the results, just right click on the layer, however it 
> can be very tedious to remove points if they are once a 
> second and all points are imported etc.
> 
> 
> 


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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Nop]

Hi!

Richard Fairhurst schrieb:
 > Potlatch enables you to convert a GPS track to a way by clicking
 > "Edit" beside the track (in the "GPS Traces" listing), then selecting
 > "Convert track to ways" when Potlatch loads. There is no option _not_
 > to simplify the track on import; it runs Douglas-Peucker over it, and
 > I would commend this forced simplification to the JOSM devs. Ways are
 > automatically split after an interval of n seconds.

It is good that simplification is forced. But of course, it will still 
stupidly add a large zig-zag caused by bad reception to the map. (I have 
seen beginners manually add such zig-zags before they learn that GPS 
isn't perfect, but at least they usually learn)

How does it take care of crossing other ways without a junction point?

bye
Nop


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Re: [OSM-talk] Suggestion for JOSM

[Richard Fairhurst]

Nop wrote:
> It has been suggested several times, that the possibility to do this  
> indirectly be removed from JOSM altogether and having corrected many  
> bad direct uploads I am rather in favour of this.

Potlatch enables you to convert a GPS track to a way by clicking  
"Edit" beside the track (in the "GPS Traces" listing), then selecting  
"Convert track to ways" when Potlatch loads. There is no option _not_  
to simplify the track on import; it runs Douglas-Peucker over it, and  
I would commend this forced simplification to the JOSM devs. Ways are  
automatically split after an interval of n seconds.

I find it works very well for long country roads where manual tracing  
of a 50-mile sinuous course would be both exasperating and (for most  
mappers) low resolution. One of the reasons I added it is that I was  
fed up of seeing people trace lovely bendy rural roads with 45-degree  
angles.

But, yes, you'd be insane to use it in urban areas.

cheers
Richard


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