On 21/08/2010 10:46 AM, JOHN SMART wrote:
G'Day Australian Mapper
Perhaps someone from Natural Resources Canada (the Federal mapping
agency) could give a better answer, but my understanding is:
- CanVec originated from the NTDB (National Topographic Database)
which is essentially the same data as is used for the (sometimes quite
out of date) 1:50 000 scale National Topographic Series maps. That is
all Federal data.
- GeoBase is an initiative which aims to reduce duplication of work /
costs by having Provinces (equivalent to Aus. states) or other
entities supply "best" data to the Feds.
Thus GeoBase would actually be an example of the left hand working in
partnership with the right hand.
So it seems like CanVec is a top down approach (originally built on
national scale acquisition approaches) and GeoBase is a bottom up
approach (originally built from local government property tax / parcel
surveying approaches)?
I believe CanVec is being updated with any better sources as they
become available, e.g. National Roads Network (NRN) gets migrated into
new editions of CanVec.
I believe there are many data themes that are in CanVec which are not
in GeoBase, and presumably never will be in GeoBase unless the
initiative is extended to include agreements for those themes.
So perhaps I can adopt a "try GeoBase first, CanVec second" approach?
If I have misunderstood anything I'd be delighted to be corrected.
Now, what is "CommonMap"? I had never heard of that until now. A quick
web search gets me here:
http://commonmap.info/w/index.php/Main_Page
It looks to me like it is a very similar concept to OSM, apart from
licensing perhaps. So it makes me wonder if we have a "left hand -
right hand" situation there?
We're a bunch of people (now incorporated) dissatisfied with the OSMF
licence change, to the point where we realised the Share Alike provision
actually isn't a good fit for us at all. (There is also a different
fork in the works for those who believe in -SA but are happy with
today's OSM licence.) From my own perspective I don't mind having my
contributions used anywhere, and I want to build roundtripping
opportunties with traditional mapping agencies. Both of which OSM is
limiting by design.
Mind you, one hand (CommonMap) will be able to talk to the other hand
(OpenStreetMap) because our CC BY / PD licence is compatible with CC
BY-SA. It's just that the other direction is not allowed by the -SA
provision.
Brendan
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