Simon et al -
First of all, hello! I started a few months ago as in-house counsel at
Mapbox. I come from the U.S. gov (FCC) where I did a lot of work, among
other things, on opening FCC geodata to the public. I've had to focus on
other things in my first few months, but am looking forward to finally
being able to turn more of my attention to working with this group.
As Tom mentioned, several of us at Mapbox have been digging into the
specifics of the Metadata guideline and I think something like this could
be useful in clarifying and opening up important use cases. (This is true
independently of the broader threads going on around geocoding.)
I've offered specific suggestions below, with explanatory notes.
Thanks for pushing this along Simon (and others),
-Michael
-
> = Metadata Guideline =
> == Background ==
> Many users of OpenStreetMap data are concerned about the share alike
> implications of the ODbL when using OpenStreetMap derived data together
with
> proprietary data, even with such data that is clearly outside the scope of
> the OpenStreetMap project.
> This guideline attempts to better define usage of OpenStreetMap data that
> the OSMF and the community views as acceptable without invoking the share
> alike clauses of the ODbL. This does not imply, as with all community
> guidelines, that this is the only legal way to do so, just legal usage we
> consider in line with the goals of the project.
> The ODbL defines two ways OpenStreetMap data can be utilized with third
> party data: as part of a “Collective Database” or as a “Derivative
> Database”.
> Use in a “Collective Database” does not invoke share alike, the ODbL
> requires that the individual component databases of the collective
database
> are “independent” however does not further define what that means.
> ~~While it would seem to be simple to define “independent” as having no
> ~~reference to OpenStreetMap data, every geographic dataset can be linked
> ~~just by virtue of its location information and further it is a trivial
> ~~exercise to link two datasets isolating OpenStreetMap derived data and
> ~~references to the other dataset in just one of them, so that is likely
not
> ~~a useful criteria.~~
I'd recommend deleting the paragraph above: it's unnecessary
and a bit confusing--the first two grafs amply explain why the guidance
is needed.
> == The Guideline ==
> A database containing one or more datasets derived from OpenStreetMap data
> and other sources is considered an ODbL collective database if one of the
> following conditions are fulfilled by the database elements from other
> sources:
> * the elements do not contain references to OpenStreetMap original or
> derived elements
> * the elements that contain references to OpenStreetMap elements do not
> replace or modify existing attributes or geometry of the referenced
> OpenStreetMap elements.
> For the purpose of this guideline
> * a reference can be a primary or composite database key or any other
method
> of identifying a specific OpenStreetMap derived element.
> * adding additional attributes by means of such a reference is not
> considered modifying the existing attributes of the referenced
> OpenStreetMap element.
> * referring from an OpenStreetMap derived element to an element from
another
> source in the database is considered equivalent to a reference in the
other
> direction.
I'd add an additional bullet akin to the following:
> * technical implementations that are functionally equivalent to a primary
or
> composite key reference but facilitate performance improvements -- for
> example a join of tables by a primary ID for purposes of a production
> database -- are equivalent to a reference.
> == Examples ==
> The following examples will demonstrate this further.
> === Examples of where you DO NOT need to share your non-OpenStreetMap data
> * You collect restaurant reviews and reference the restaurants in your
> database by OSM object id.__[^1]__ ~~(note this is technically
> defective)~~. Your restaurant reviews are not subject to sharealike.
As indicated above, I think it would be clearer to move the technical point
to a footnote, where we'd briefly explain *why* it's technically defective
to use OSM
ID as a database key.
> * You generate traffic data from in-car GPS information and use the
location
> information to identify roads in OSM to weight them differently in your
> routing application.
> ~~=== Examples of where you DO need to share your non-OpenStreetMap data
> ~~* you own a database of restaurant star ratings, you publish a product
> ~~that provides one dataset that uses ratings from OSM when you don’t have
> ~~it in your database and otherwise your data. The data that you publish
> ~~is subject to sharealike. Note: if you don’t use the relevant OSM
> ~~attributes and just your data, your data is not subject to sharealike as
> ~~defined in the “Horizontal Layers” guideline. Note this is a
> ~~hypothetical use case and not an
