[Talk-ca] Powerlines in Canada
As requested, I would like to give an explaining statement on those Canadian powerlines which I have edited so far. Personally, I was driven by the intention to achieve a similar standard of quality for all parts of the world, including Canada. Until 2012, very small pieces of powerline have been gradually imported from CANVEC database. They did not have any towers. They had intersections with other powerlines which would immediately break electrical devices in reality. In 2012, I have merged and realigned some Canadian powerlines according to their logical layout. As one powerline usually connects two substations, it does not make sense to split it into many small pieces. A typical double-circuit powerline (6 cables) usually has three segments: two feeders at the first substation, one long trunk line between both substations and two feeders at the other substation. A single-circuit powerline (3 cables), which is more vulnerable to outages, directly connects two substations without any feeders. Each circuit has its own entrance to the substation in order to enable a quick response in case of breakdown. Circuits are usually arranged according to their voltage, e.g. 230kV circuits on the West side and 120kV circuits on the East side. Within a substation, one or several transformers are connecting these circuits. How can you distinguish single and double circuits? The following photo shows a typical powerline in Toronto, Canada: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Toronto_Power_Line_L14W_Tower_39.JPG This is a double-circuit powerline: on the left (northern) side is circuit L14W, on the right (southern) side is circuit L13W. L indicates a powerline originating in Leaside Substation, W indicates a powerline arriving in Wiltshire Substation. 13 and 14 are line numbers. L13W;L14W ist the reference for the double circuit running through power tower number 39. On the right side, you can see another single-power circuit (3 cables) called L 15W. All towers usually have subsequent numbers, however, within substations they may have additional letters like 37B. ref=37B would be the appropriate tag for this tower. L13W, L14W and L15W are 115kV powerlines, as 230kV powerlines usually have numbers 200 and 500kV powerlines usually have numbers 500. This numbering scheme applies for Ontario only. In Quebec, powerlines usually have a four-digit number where the first digit indicates the voltage. The following construction announcement displays the power network in Québec City: http://www.hydroquebec.com/projets/pdf/charlesbourg_is.pdf You can see single-circuit 735kV powerlines, double-circuit 315kV powerlines and some single-circuit 69kV powerlines. Le Poste des Laurentides has a northern section for 735kV powerlines, a central section for 315kV powerlines and a southern section for 230kV powerlines. There is a small segment where a 230kV powerline (circuit #2369) and a 69kV powerline (circuit #757) are joint by sharing the same towers, so there is a short double-circuit segment. It would make sense to create a relation for those two powerlines Each voltage was considered as an optimal solution in the year of construction: 69kV lines in 1910, 230kV lines in 1940, 735kV lines in 1970. Changing the voltage would require some billion-dollar investments, so power companies are trying to keep their electrical devices as long as possible for economic reasons. However, HydroQuebec is gradually going to replace its old 69kV powerlines with new, more powerful 230kV powerlines. For example, Poste Lemoilou, a new substation in Québec City, is scheduled to open soon. As you can see, construction announcements contain a lot of useful information that is worth being integrated into OSM. http://www.hydroquebec.com/projects/limoilou.html A single piece of powerline is easier to maintain in case of lifecycle update (e.g. decommission). However, I do not object to the reconstruction of merged powerline segments if you are willing to maintain them. You are invited to add or verify tags for Canadian powerlines which I have described above. Each substation has a label with its (bilingual) name, its address, its operator, and many more useful informations. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Toronto_Gerrard_TS.jpg Even substations of underground cables like Lakeshore Jarvis are labelled. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Toronto_Lakeshore_Jarvis_TS.jpg Yours, cordialement and with best regards, FK270673, also known as mapper #42429 P.S.: Je prie les utilsateurs québecois de me pardonner une annonce anglophone même s'il concerne tout le Canada. ___ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
[OSM-legal-talk] A license bot that has produced too many errors
The detrimental license bot now has reached Germany and promptly left a lot of errors here. Let's just look at one city, Göttingen in Northern Germany, where I have contacted some undecided users, so I have some knowledge about pre-bot history. There are so many errors with severe legal implications, so I would like to publish them on the legal-talk list. Their manipulated history is such a heavy infringement of Creative Commons license that even an agreer could easily sue the OSMF if he was willing to waste time and money on a senseless trial. Let me show the examples: - agreeing mapper's node disappeared http://osm.mapki.com/history/node.php?id=60580009 Version 3 of this node (51.5400973, 9.9564636) was last edited by agreeing user Sasude. By removing this precisely located node, an intersection of four streets was destroyed. - street has disappeared completely The southern part of Dahlmannstraße with bus route No. 6 has disappeared completely though it was last edited by agreers. - intersections were cut off - ODbL history ignores agreeing users http://osm.mapki.com/history/way.php?id=8091768 Both intersections were cut off though these nodes were last edited by an agreer. Undediced mapper Hotte Degoe has created an empty line without any tags. All tags were added by agreeing users, all points have been moved by agreeing users as well. Only v1 should be hidden, all other versions by agreeing mappers should be visible. - decliner included in ODbL history http://osm.mapki.com/history/way.php?id=60922724 Lobelt has declined the new contributor terms so far mainly for political reasons, but he still appears in the clean ODbL history because he has removed a senseless tag. Removing a tag does not constitute a copyright, but mentioning him in the history is an infringement of moral rights. v2 should be hidden. - OSMF Redaction Account claims to be the only author http://osm.mapki.com/history/way.php?id=8573909 Since the OSMF Redaction Account did not create any way, he cannot pretend to be the author of any way. This pretense is illegal according to Creative Commons and rude though legal according to new ODbL license. At least some human users should appear in the history. - ODbL history ignores too many agreeing users (2nd example) http://osm.mapki.com/history/way.php?id=8094092 Undediced mapper Hotte Degoe has created an empty line without any tags. All tags were added by agreeing users, all points have been moved by agreeing users as well. Only v1 should be hidden, all other versions by agreeing mappers should be visible. These seven examples are quite simple cases without any complications. I am sure that some of you will be able to find many more examples where the bot has made severe errors. Finally, let me give two suggestions for a clean and transparent transition: - OSMI should not ignore bot deletions Streets destroyed by the bot (e.g. Dahlmannstraße in Göttingen) disappear on OSMI, so there is no chance to check what the bot has destroyed, and why he did so. Human users usually deliberate before they delete an object, the bot did not deliberate at all. Please allow local users to check where the bot has completely destroyed a street. - Please make bot deletions transparent For a transitional period of several weeks, invisible versions of history should be visible with RED letters so that everybody can check whether the bot has hidden too much information. Hiding versions may be considered as breech of Creative Commons license, displaying them in RED letters until the final cut is definitely legal. As there are a lot of errors in the bot-generated history, it will still take some weeks or months until a clean license change can happen. 2008-2010 It took two years to write the license 2010-2012 It took two years to convince the community 2012-2014 It may take up to two years to achieve a clear license change Yours, with best regards OSM user #42429 ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Questions from a Journalist
Could someone explain exactly what will be happening on April 1? Currently, the license change procedure is just known by a few regular mailing-list readers, not even by many mappers and obviously not by the broad public as a simple google research reveals. However, there is a journalist who has seen the BADMAP and said: Wow, that's a very interesting story: A community that secretly destroys much of is own data suddenly on April 1st! As no media has published anything about the license change until now, he would be the first one to investigate this story. [1] However, it would take him about one week to write this article and he would like to ask some questions before writing his article: 1. Does the license change include the creation of a new experimental planetfile just for testing purposes or the final destruction of data? 2. Is the BADMAP / CLEANMAP a reliable source for the areas that are deleted after April 1st? Or is it just an experimental tool for visualizing areas that need to be remapped during months before the license change? 3. Is there any navigation website that will prove the detrimental effects of license change after April 1st? Maybe even a BADNAVIGATION website? 4. Is April 1st a fixed date secretly decided by the board or will it be subject to a public decision of all mappers? 5. Why didn't OSMF publish a comprehensive press release until now, just 20 days before the license change? Is it an internal communication failure or a secret conspiration to surprise the broad public on April 1st? 6. Does OSMF have any timetable to publish a comprehensive press release within the next few months? Is OSMF going to publish its press release before or AFTER the license change OR the publication of this article, whatever comes first? Does OSMF intend to translate its press releases into foreign languages? 7. Do active mappers get a copy of OSMF's press releases or do they get their information by the media? 8. Are you going to answer the messages sent by decliners as mentioned in the minutes? 9. How big is the probability that an agreement with UMP will be signed before April 1st? Otherwise he would need to take screenshots from other cities - Bangkok, Santo Domingo, Sydney. 10. Who is the man who is going to destroy almost 2 million ways? Is there a photo of him available? 11. Who is willing to give a public statement for / against the sudden license change on April 1st? Preferably with photo or video statement? 12. Is it possible to quote statements from this mailing-list? 13. Is there anybody willing to start a lawsuit on disputed issues, e.g. on split ways? 14. Who is going to inform the survivors of deceased mappers? Does OSMF itself contact them or do they want a journalist to inform them? 15. Is the low number of explicitly clean objects a result of failed communication to active mappers or rather a boycott by the active mapping community? 16. Why did only 20,000 mappers reacted to OSMF messages whereas more than 40,000 mappers have gradually accepted or just reacted to personal messages from other mappers? 17. Would any of the active board members resign if many thousand protest mails arrived just before or just AFTER April 1st? Personally, I didn't want to answer these questions because a wrong answer would destroy OSM's reputation forever. Board members have the option to resign after a wave of protest, but active mappers would do hard to repair destroyed trust caused by tremendous data deletion. BTW, he is also very interested in quoting insults and threats, either from public or from personal messages. Cheers FK270673 [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenStreetMap_in_the_media -- NEU: FreePhone 3-fach-Flat mit kostenlosem Smartphone! Jetzt informieren: http://mobile.1und1.de/?ac=OM.PW.PW003K20328T7073a ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-t...@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] Copyright of large-scale imports vs. small edits
Andrzej Zaborowski wrote: Are you serious? Around where I map I estimate there are 500k to a couple millions OSM objects who's authors have never agreed to ODbL or OpenStreetMap CT, but which show green on the license change maps. These nodes have been imported from UMP, a Polish sister project. They are compatible with the current license, but not with the new ODbL license unless the original UMP contributors agree. We should try to identify these UMP imports before making any decision on license change. Unfortunately, these imports are mixed with personal contributions. It would make sense to create a separate account for each import also for existing contributions in order to get a survey on imports. these people already feel like they've been cheated and have no say over how their work is being used. I can understand if their work exceeds a substantial amount. However, I have written about 100 personal messages to local mappers with 100-2000 edits, but only 50% of them have accepted so far. Among small editors, interest in licencing issues doesn't exist, and I think it would be best to assume that non-responding mappers with less than 100 nodes should be considered as acceptors. In Germany, 97% of those 4,000 mappers who created MORE than 2,000 nodes have agreed so far. Among those mappers who created LESS than 2,000 nodes, only 75% have agreed. In Niedersachsen, there are 100,000 nodes created by 2,000 small contributors with LESS than 1,000 edits which will be lost if every node must go. That's far more work than a single mapper can do. Some decliners have declined BECAUSE they don't want the work of small mappers being deleted. The risk of being sued by a non-responding 50-node mapper is rather zero as the cost of a small lawsuit in Great Britain is about £200 which is too high for a non-responding mapper. Copyright was invented to protect economic interests, but I cannot see the economic interest of a 50-node mapper who does not react to personal messages. Cheers -- Feel free - 10 GB Mailbox, 100 FreeSMS/Monat ... Jetzt GMX TopMail testen: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/topmail ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] There is no copyright on way tags like street names
Tomorrow, I am planning to walk along streets which have been marked in red on the OSM Inspector. Mainly for exercise, not only for legal reasons. These streets exist for about 100 years and everybody who walks there needs to add the same tags: highway=residential name=Parkallee maxspeed=30 oneway=yes surface=cobblestone lit=yes There is no creativity in that, just the luck of being the first editor. In 2007, an anonymous editor was the lucky first one who noticed a street sign that has existed for almost 100 years now. In 2011, I have added some tags to v3. If I created (produced) a new way with a new number, but the same tags, it would be considered CLEAN. If I kept the old way for honouring history without legal obligation (as its tags are not covered by copyright), the same way with the same tags and the same last editor would be considered DIRTY. There is no legal obligation to give credit to first-time fact collectors, but there is also no legal requirement not to do it. Copyright only exists on fictional or very creative tags, not on facts like street names. The only logical argumentation how a way can be affected by copyright is to declare it fictional or supposed to be fictional or unsure to be factual. However, I would be surprised if anybody was really able to find a fictional way among 2.8 million ways uploaded by decliners. I would like to tag these ways with odbl=fact in order to indicate that there is no other possibility to tag them than with their actual name and their actual road condition. The LWG may decide whether to abridge history or not, but there is absolutely no reason to remove tags describing the factual road condition. Before a license change happens, IMHO the LWG and all participants should try to avoid unfitting terms like tag creator for those who have just added a well-known street name. Tag attestor would be more appropriate to describe that mappers are just copying facts from reality. First-time attestors do not have priority over late attestors and they cannot claim any copyright on facts copied from reality. Quality would increase if each mapper was able to confirm that a way uploaded by other mappers exactly fits reality. Famous places like Broadway in New York or Leicester Square in London could have thousands of attestors while local paths may have just one or two attestors. Of course, ways with many attestors should not be deleted even if they were attested first by a anonymous or deceased mapper. It takes some time to implement these ATTEST or CONFIRM buttons, but I would be happy if they were implemented long before a detrimental data loss happens. Cheers, FK270673 -- NEU: FreePhone - 0ct/min Handyspartarif mit Geld-zurück-Garantie! Jetzt informieren: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freephone ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
[OSM-legal-talk] A gradual transition to ODbL
Even if some people do consider me as grumbler, I would like to suggest a gradual transition procedure that might be accepted by all sides. It should be called three-step transition because it consists of three steps: 1. The first-step transition is a software bot that transfers all benign nodes, ways and relations into the new ODbl database just for the mappers' convienience. Data is considered fine for automatic first-step transition if all nodes, tags and members are considered clean. No way or relation will be abridged or mutilated as mutilation is considered as copyright infringement. Only clean data is automatically transferred by the bot. All other data is flagged with odbl=unsure in order to facilitate retrieving them in JOSM. The OSMF says sorry for not being able to transfer this data automatically and asks users to check it manually. The OSMF states that bot execution is not a legal statement about license compatibility. 2. The second-step transition is a manual process. Data is still stored in and downloaded from the old, complete CC-database until it is manually edited by a user as users are asked to improve this data manually. When uploading data, the editor checks whether any node or tag contains original data (e.g. the original node position) from a declining or non-responding user. If so, the user is asked to repair these nodes and ways. Nodes are considered clean if they are moved, they always get a new ID after moving as required by Open Data Definition (which considers a multiple attribution of moved nodes as onerous attribution (§ 5) not compatible with Open Data Definition). Tags originally entered by decliners or non-responders are considered clean if a mapper changes the tag (where necessary) or clicks a checkbox to confirm that this information is fact. A mass flagging of unchanged, but unflagged nodes would be discovered by the editor, e.g. when it exceeds a certain threshold. An abuse of this checkbox cannot be prevented, but I would definitely prefer that only local mappers with local knowledge should be encouraged to use this checkbox. Really. Benign data will be transferred to the ODbL database (and temporarily to the CC database in order to keep it consistent), tainted data will be stored in the CC database only until somebody works on it. Monitoring occasional CC-only-tainted edits gives active mappers an indication where active remapping would make sense. As the second-step transition is a gradual process, the LWG can gradually monitor and correct individual mistakes. During this gradual second-step transition, the LWG will have to deal with one or two complaints per week instead of dealing with 10,000 complaints on April 5th. Mappers should have enough time to resurvey an area flagged with odbl=unsure, so the second step should allow some months. Urging mappers to remap an area within three months just in order to get it clean for a vandalizing and mutilating script creates a discomfortable pressure on them instead of allowing them to remap in time. We are told not to tag for the renderer and we should not be forced to remap from doubtful sources just in order to bypass the script in time. Some decliners might be willing to agree if they watch a continuous map improvement instead of an abrupt transition and a tremendous data loss. If the OSMF gives mappers the opportunity to remap their area in time, it will come out of fireline. The responsability for the second-step would be transferred to the mappers who decide how much they want to remap, whether 0.01% or 0.1% or 0.5% per month. 3. The third-step transition includes the final termination of CC database as download source if the ODbL database has reached a specific threshold, e.g. 99.5% of all data and at least 98% in every country on earth. Unchanged data flagged with the tag odbl=unsure for more than 12 months will not be transferred to the final ODbL database. That's enough time for local mappers to verify and for decliners to rethink. After 12 months, all declining and non-responding mappers get a final chance to agree when the transition is obviously appearing successfully. The third stage might be done earlier if the threshold is reached earlier. Doing all three steps in one night creates discomfort and resistance among mappers. Personally, I would prefer a smooth and peaceful transition with a minimum data loss in April 2013 rather than an abrupt cut with a tremendous data loss in April 2012. Furthermore, I am convinced that LWG and OSMF board would enjoy such a smooth and peaceful transition with only one complaint per week (instead of 10,000 complaints at once) as well. Benefits: - a continuous growth in both databases with ODbL database finally reaching equal content - remapping and verifying activity instead of meta-discussions - many happy mappers - some additional acceptors over time - about 98% of all problems might be solved until April
[OSM-legal-talk] The detrimental effects of database
Sorry, I have accidentally pressed the enter button before writing my text. That's the technical disadvantage of an old-fashioned mailing list! Currently, the LWG intends to delete all nodes ever created by decliners or non-responders. This would be detrimental for long routes, as I have calculated for some selected routes: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Data_Loss There is no contributor who has ever contributed even a 50% majority of nodes on these routes. However, they would be destroyed by deleting those nodes which have been created by decliners or non-responders. It would make sense to consider the whole route or even the whole network (e.g. rail network) as an entity (joint work as described in German and many other copyright laws) which should not be destroyed by granting an intellectual property right on each node! -- NEU: FreePhone - 0ct/min Handyspartarif mit Geld-zurück-Garantie! Jetzt informieren: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freephone ___ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
