[Discuss] OpenStreetMap in Victoria

[David Bronaugh]

Corey Burger wrote:
> On 7/30/07, Murray Strome <wmstrome at shaw.ca> wrote:
>   
>> Corey Burger wrote:
>>     
>>> On 7/29/07, Nick Black <nickblack1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> On 7/29/07, Hristofor Todorov <chris.todorov at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> I guess that's good news because not everyone who would want to help has
>>>>> a gps :) In that case what exactly needs to be done, because from what I
>>>>> read from Nick's original post he said:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, 2007-07-26 at 09:42 +0100, Nick Black wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> We take GPS units and walk, cycle or drive
>>>>>> around all the roads and footpaths we can find, noting their names and
>>>>>> attributes. Once back at the desk, we then upload all the data we
>>>>>> collect to create the maps you see at openstreetmap.org.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>             
>>>> Thats right - we take GPS units to map stuff with, and I will have a
>>>> load of GPS units to lend out to anyone who wants to use them.
>>>>
>>>> Recently Yahoo have allowed us to  work from their aerial imagery,
>>>> which means a lot of the tracing can be done from the comfort of a
>>>> chair.  But, we still need to get the names of the streets - which
>>>> means walking down them.  At a mapping party in London recently, we
>>>> had a lot of success with printing out aerial imagery and noting down
>>>> road names on the maps, and then uploading the data.
>>>>
>>>> Another problem with satellite imagery is that it isn't always current
>>>> - so new developments won't appear, requiring a good old GPS.
>>>>
>>>> Finally, satellite imagery provided by Yahoo is typically only
>>>> available for urban areas.  So mapping downtown Victoria will be no
>>>> problem, but if people want to go out further and map some rural
>>>> areas, a GPS unit could also be required.
>>>>
>>>> So - I'll have some GPS units which will be useful for some stuff.
>>>> Having a laptop will also be helpful, as will print outs of yahoo
>>>> images and OSM maps.
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> The Yahoo aerial imagery covers all of the Saanich Peninsula, running
>>> west all the way until just past Thetis Lake before Goldstream. Thus
>>> we have all of Greater Victoria covered.
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> I must admit that I have not read every posting in this thread, but I
>> wonder if you have looked at this resource:
>>
>> http://www.crd.bc.ca/maps/natural/index.htm
>>
>> It contains a lot of detailed information, including house numbers on
>> individual homes (at least in my neighbourhood). In the aerial photo
>> view, I can even clearly see the 1m satellite dish which was on my roof
>> when the photo was taken.
>>
>> I don't know about the legality of using the information for other
>> projects, but I am very impressed with the quality of the data (in
>> addition to streets, etc. there is a lot of other GIS information that
>> can be displayed).
>>
>> Murray
>>     
>
> So OpenStreetMap is CC by sa 2.0 licensed. As such, we can only use
> data sources that have compatible licenses. Looking at the
> contributors to the atlas:
> http://www.crd.bc.ca/maps/natural/sponsors.htm , I would say that hte
> data is probably not avaiable for us.
>
> For instances, there is a great Canadian data source at
> http://www.geogratis.gc.ca/ that we cannot use because although the
> license is almost compatible, it has a few nasty sections, such as
> termination, etc.
>
> Corey
>   
Why not lobby the gov't to change the nasty and disagreeable sections? 
Our taxpayers dollars created it, why should we not be able to integrate 
it into free products?

David