On 15 March 2016 at 18:57, Neil Matthews <[email protected]> wrote: > Anyone know whether "definitive maps" are suitable as sources for OSM?
The actual "Definitive Map" will almost certainly be a paper printout of an OS map with Rights of Way drawn on top of it. OS's copyright applies to this, and it's not something that they're likely to give anyone permission to re-use. However, most councils have in recent times created a digitised version of the Rights of Way routes from their definitive map. They'll use this for internal purposes and possibly display the routes on their website on top of an OS base map. The OS base-map will still be owned by OS, so we wouldn't be able to directly use the online maps. (So it's misleading for them to be listed in the OSM wiki.) However, OS are happy for council's to release the raw GIS data for the routes under an open licence -- which we're then able to use if we display them in OSM directly or on top of a base map we do have permission to use. Originally, the licence mandated by OS for the data was their own "OS OpenData Licence" -- this was problematic for OSM use because of its additional attribution clause. OS has now abandoned its separate licence and allows councils to release the data under the standard Open Government Licence v3 -- which is ok for use in OSM. Unfortunately, OS hasn't done much to publicise the licence change, and many councils still have their data under the old OS OpenData Licence. (Most of the datasets on http://www.rowmaps.com/ still say they're under the old OS OpenData Licence.) So if you have the Rights of Way data in the form of a GIS file, AND you have permission from the council to use it under the Open Government Licence, AND you only display the data in an OSM editor or on top of a base map we can make use of, then it's ok. The only two such datasets I'm aware of are for Norfolk and Suffolk, where I had to specifically ask the councils to update their licences. I've started work on a tool to help display and compare the council data with Rights of Way in OSM at http://robert.mathmos.net/osm/prow/progress/ . Hopefully there will be more datasets under the OGL that can be added soon. Robert. -- Robert Whittaker _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
