Hi imports, Earlier last year I downloaded the Chicago building footprints shapefile [0] from the Chicago data portal, chopped it into manageable bits and started importing it into OSM. Halfway through the process of merging and uploading this data I read the data portal's license [1] closer, discovering a clause that makes the datasets offered there incompatible with OSM. The troublesome clause allows the City of Chicago to require removal of any City data at any point in the future:
"The City may require a user of this data to terminate any and all display, distribution or other use of any or all of the data provided at this website for any reason including, without limitation, violation of these Terms of Use or other terms as defined by City agencies or departments contributing data to this website." When I noticed this I immediately stopped uploading data and began a conversation with the city's data team to discuss ways OSM could move forward with using the datasets listed on the portal. After several months of phone calls, meetings, and waiting, I'm pleased to announce that the City of Chicago has started to release some of its datasets under the MIT license on GitHub: [2]. As a result of this new license, I will be able to continue importing the excellent buildings and address data into OSM (more on that later) and businesses will be able to use this data in their apps and tools without worrying about an untested license. I'm pretty excited about this, as Chicago is seen as a leader in municipal data and other OSM/Open Data folks can point to this as proof that open licensing is a very important part of open data. -Ian [0] https://data.cityofchicago.org/Buildings/Building-Footprints/w2v3-isjw [1] http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/narr/foia/data_disclaimer.html [2] https://github.com/chicago/
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