Frederik Ramm wrote: > Hi, > > (for those on dev; this started out as a discussion on whether or not we > want to put any legal/license restrictions on external users linking to > OSM objects for identification, e.g. a restaurant guide saying "this pub > is OSM node #12345") > > Matt Amos wrote: > >> i would hope so too, as it makes OSM data more attractive for those >> users who don't need to manipulate the data, but need to annotate it >> or reference it. i, for one, would really like to see the next >> beerintheevening or tripadvisor based on OSM data, not just the tiles. >> > > My problem with this is that while I'd gladly allow anybody to do that > from a licensing point of view, I'd rather not have people do that from > a technical point of view (and that's why I'm switching over to dev with > this). > > Personally I view OSM object IDs as quite frail, and subject to change > without notice at any time. I do not think that OSM object IDs should be > used as foreign keys in any application. I even object to all those > lists on the Wiki which point to hard-coded relation IDs - I, for one, > will delete and re-create an object any time without much thought if it > makes sense to me, breaking any such external entry point. > > I fear that if many people treat OSM IDs as permanent, this will have a > restraining influence on us editing our own data ("I wanted to replace > this restaurant node by a building outline for the restaurant but then I > got complaints from users of 15 restaurant guides and Flickr because the > restaurant had suddenly vanished there, and so I reverted my edit"). > > Until now, if someone asked me a question in that direction, I always > said they should make their own ID a foreign key and tag the OSM object > with something like "restaurant_guide_xyz_id:1234". Which is not ideal > from a data access perspective of course, but allows people editing OSM > to properly work with that. > > If we really want to head in a direction where external users refer to > OSM objects, then I think it would be wise to manifest that in the > database somehow, and create some kind of "permanence API" or so, where > you can request a permanent handle for a certain object from the API, > and the API will give you a number, and then if someone deletes and > re-creates an object they will be able to transfer that number to the > new object somehow. > > This is of course something for the future, but letting external users > refer directly to OSM IDs sounds like asking for trouble to me. > > Bye > Frederik > +1
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