[talk-au] nearmap LWG minutes

[Andrew Harvey]

I'm a bit late to the game but the one of the LWG minutes talks about nearmap...

>From part 4 of the LWG minutes
https://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9g3qjp_83gvxm3xgd&pli=1
>- Automated deriving
>
>Nearmap believe that their copyright exists in works derived from their 
>imagery, so this would include the OSM database.  Granting derived works wider 
>than CC-BY-SA/ODbL issue, rights be passed to others, under non-restrict 
>terms. OSM offerering a broad license weakens this claim and is damaging to 
>their business model. As a publicly listed company, they need to think very 
>careful about this.
>They feel that in the near future, a major value of imagery would be the 
>ability to automatically derive features from it.
>LWG pointed out that it is possible for the provider to restrict how imagery 
>was used, for example to human-driven tracing only using only a limited set of 
>approved apps, and that there was a precedent with Yahoo already in place.  
>This might be attractive to NearMap as it totally nder their control.

The free/community license from nearmap lets me run some automated
feature extraction to create vector data and allows me to own that
copyright and release it under a CC-BY-SA license to everyone without
any additional license terms. I am then free to distribute that
derived vector data to a government agency regardless of whether that
agency already has an agreement with nearmap. Hence a goverment agency
that doesn't want to pay nearmap but just wants to run their automated
feature extraction could just take this path, the good thing then is
that if that data ever gets published its CC-BY-SA.

Hopefully nearmap won't try to close this feature off. We wouldn't
want them, for instance, limiting deriving data to human-tracing only
(something that you can't prove anyway), as automated feature
extraction is a potentially helpful tool for OSM contributors. Nor
would I want to see them limiting CC-BY-SA derived works to those only
uploaded to OSM (just like Microsoft is doing).

>- Limited term ...
>
>It was also suggested that if a future license change was made that was 
>undesirable to NearMap they could terminate the right to derive new >data but 
>allow past derivations to remain. Ben responded that this had been actively 
>considered within NearMap but had been felt to be too risky.
>
>In the post meeting summation, Mike pointed out that the key thing to consider 
>is that "vertical IP", i.e. maintaining rights up a chain imagery -> derived 
>vector data -> map making, was very important to NearMap's business model but 
>not necessarily good for OpenStreetMap's objectives.

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Re: [talk-au] Most insanely dissected street ?

[Franc Carter]

On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 10:30 AM, Tim Challis  wrote:
> On 10/06/11 21:45, Franc Carter wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 9:18 PM, Tim Challis  wrote:
>>> Mind you, for sheer municipal perversity, there is a section of Ballina
>>> Road in Lismore that has had at least three numbering schemes applied to
>>> the same houses.
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>>> This is probably in a different category to what you
>>> intended?
>>
>> Yep, I was thinking about things like near where I grew up where there
>> is a 40 foot cliff between one house number and the next. But other
>> road insanity is just as interesting
>>
> Douglas Street in Clovelly does something like that near the Varna
> Street intersection. I used to rent at the other end of the street.
> Presumably result of a land-slip at some stage? Who says the Sydney
> sandstone basin is stable?

Another 'good one' I have found is Como Parade
(http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=-34.00314&lon=151.06853&zoom=16&layers=M),
if you are at the Bindea Street end at the number you are after is at
the Woronora Crescent end then you are going to be a little annoyed.


>
> I can't point to an example offhand, but I have heard several times from
> discussions with professional surveyors of instances where the house
> numbers down a street run out of step with property title boundaries...
> the first number might cover block one and half of the neighbouring
> block, so that as you progress down the street every subsequent house
> number lies across the two adjoining blocks. This situation is
> apparently far more common than is normally recognised!
>

That make sense given another story I heard - the database of house
numbers and the database of land boundaries are completely separate -
hmm

> Outside the urban areas, it is becoming common for street numbers to be
> based upon an approximate odometer reading (odd and even indicate which
> side of road.) E.g. 892 XXX Road  indicates the property whose nearest
> point of intersection with XXX Road lies 8.92km from the end of the road.
>
> The system has several major weaknesses: my parents' farm is split both
> sides of a particular road, and the local council has admitted when they
> assigned the numbers 30 years ago they forgot to reset the odometer!
>
> My own property (a corner block) demonstrates another problem (no, I am
> not assigned zero.)
>
> The third problem is that different councils have adopted different
> conventions for the odd-even split. Mine has even numbers on the right
> travelling away from the datum. The (different) council responsible for
> my aforementioned parents' farm wants to make even numbers indicate the
> left-hand side.
>
> In a final piece of GPS-related insanity, the RTA has been setting up
> those illuminated sign boards around this district (I am aware of at
> least seven) which are flashing various messages appropriate to the
> location, but invariably the alternate blink reads "Ignore GPS"!
> Unfortunately all are located in particularly dangerous locations to
> wander out (or park nearby) to take a picture.
>

I wonder it will ever occur to them that helping people (us ;-) fix
the GPS data is the best way of fixing the problem, given that the
'system' is so bent that I suspect the only way you can find some
things is by knowing where they are in the first place ;-(

cheers

-- 
Franc

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