Hi,
OdbL has this requirement where, if you publish a produced work
based on a derived database, you also have to publish either
(a) the derived database or
(b) a "diff" allowing someone to arrive at the derived database if he
has the original, publicly available database or
(c) an algorithm that does the same.
Is that correct so far?
To use a simple example, let's say I build a WMS that works with OSM
data. To make this perform well at low zooms, I have to combine ways
into longer bits and simplify their geometry. The result is clearly a
derived database that falls under the above, and in practice I would
probably choose the "a" route and simply make a weekly PostGIS dump
available for download and be done with it.
However, I wonder about the permitted ways of doing (c).
I guess it would probably permitted to specify a number of PostGIS
commands that achieve the changes. - Let us assume for a moment that
applying these PostGIS commands would require a machine with 192 GB of
RAM and Quad Quadcore processors and still take two weeks to complete,
putting it out of reach of many users. Would it still be permitted to do
that?
Or, would it be allowable to say: "For simplification, a Douglas-Peucker
algorithm <link to DP wikipedia entry> is used." (leaving open the exact
implementation and parametrisation of DP - bear in mind that with some
algorithms, how they work is easily explained but implementing them in a
way that runs on standard hardware may be a hard task).
Or, would it be allowed to say: "For simplification, just load the data
set into <name of horribly expensive proprietary ESRI program> and hit
Ctrl-S X Y, then choose Export to PostGIS"?
What about: "For simplification, we did the following steps: <detailed
instructions that are easy to follow>. These steps in this sequence are
patented by us, so if you want to follow them, please apply to us for a
license to use our patent."
Bye
Frederik
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