Hi Bruno,
Although there are many more European datasets listed in the catalogue,
many of them are very small, covering only a city, province, etc. In
North America there are a few, but very large datasets which have been
imported or are in the process of being imported. Examples in the US are
the Tiger dataset (imported in 2007/2008) and the NHD dataset
(waterways). In Canada there are of course Canvec and previously
Geobase. So, the amount of imported data in North America is larger than
in Europe. And of course, in Europe the situation differs by country.
For instance, in the Netherlands there is a lot of imported data as well
(roads, landuse, buildings), as well as in France (landuse, buildings).
On the other hand, Germany and the UK have relatively small amounts of
imported data.
Referring back to your earlier question: there is open data, and there
is open data. The degree of openness is varying. The "most" open
datasets are the public domain datasets (PD, CC-0). Federal Canadian and
US datasets are examples of that, like Canvec. Any license attached to
the "open data" in fact restricts its usage. Each restriction needs to
be evaluated carefully. Before importing any "open" dataset, one must
make sure that those restrictions can be honored to. So, a license like
CC-BY-SA imposes that the author should be attributed (BY-clause), and
that the data can only be shared under a similar license (SA-clause). It
is difficult for OSM to do the attribution part, because the objects
themselves can easily be edited. Sharing alike is out of the question
with the ODbL, as this is a completely different license (although with
similar clausess). And of course other guidelines are that it should not
replace user-contributed data (unless widely agreed upon), that it is
maintainable, etc.
Of course there is a "way out" when the license seems to be
incompatible, namely contacting the author, and ask if they are prepared
to grant you a license to have it incorporated under the OSM-license
(ODbL). They own the copyright to the data, so they have the authority
to decide on that. You can see the (too restrictive) license as an
invitation for negotiations for the data owner to open up a bit more ;)
This is the way how a lot of the listed datasets in the catalog ended up
being imported in OSM. Of course, when you receive authorization, it
should be listed on the wiki page describing the import as well, so it
can be referred to later as well. This is also the place where the
original author can be attributed to.
When it comes to the question whether imported data is good or not:
there is no clear cut answer to it. Sometimes it can be good, but all
too often it ends up badly. Those kinds of imports are the main reason
why imports in general have not a good name. See for example
http://worstofosm.tumblr.com/ . Have a laugh about it :) BUT, if you
intend to import data, make sure your import doesn't end up at that place!
I hope this clears up some of your concerns.
Cheers,
Frank
On 31-7-2012 19:04, Bruno Remy wrote:
2012/7/31 Richard Weait <rich...@weait.com <mailto:rich...@weait.com>>
2012/7/31 Bruno Remy <bremy.qc...@gmail.com
<mailto:bremy.qc...@gmail.com>>:
> Thanks Richard for your considerations.
>
> While reading your comments, I'm carried to believe that :
> wheras Canadian municipalities produce "scrap data" versus
europenan ones
I don't believe this.
> Canadian citizen are less confident in theyr gouvernement's IT
stuff than
> European does.
I don't believe this either.
OSM in Europe has grown more effectively than in North America,
because there are more _OSM contributors_ in Europe. Not because
there is more Open Data in Europe. Much less data has been imported
in Europe than in North America.
I totally agree with you about the number of contributors in Europe
versus in North America.
But I don't see clear correlation between number of contributors and
number of data (ways, nodes.....) because only 38% of contributors
doesn't edit data, and only 19% make recuring edits.
(source = http://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/1/2/146)
In the facts, most of main ways (coastlines, cities, roads,
administrative boundaries....) provides from Datasets mentionned here
(http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Catalogue) But if you take
the time to analyse this import catalog
<http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Catalogue>, it's clear that
*mostly all datasets are provided by European* organisations (*only
14%* from North-America).
So, YES Europe has more date but MOSTLY because of import of dataset.
*For sure, contributors maintained and enhanced acuracy of these
data*... but nobody can imagine that every single house and every
single road has been "handmade" by volunteered geographic information
(VGI):
In this context, if I "introduce new mappers to OpenStreetMap" as you
said, *by telling them drawing manualy every single boundary
administrative of* 36 % of Canadian municipalities in province of
Quebec (n = 1 348) :
* 300 hamlets
* 728 rural cities
* 295 urban cities
* 30 urbain agglomérations
Wheather is good, sun is shining.... I'm not sure they will spend so
much time by in fornt of theyr computer, clicking on their mouse to
add so much nodes.... I'm not sure this is a "winner scenario" ....
Well... all those figures strengthen my feeling that North-America
doesn't like OpenData (14%) whereas Europe is very generous and
"open-minded".
Best regards,
_______________________________________________
Talk-ca mailing list
Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
_______________________________________________
Talk-ca mailing list
Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
