> So there too, is a potential win for OSM. We could rely on current, highly > accurate public domain boundry data and use that for rendering, geolocation > and other places, while keeping it out of the OSM dataset.
Please expand on this. There are already communities around Disaster Relief, etc., and good etiquette would dictate that I wouldn't go in and edit their data. Conceptually, there is already a convention in place for a separate user account for a mass import, would it really be too much of a stretch that there be a separate access for changing that data ( for instance boundaries)? Also, there are warning bells in Potlatch when I deleted a duplicate object - if the object concerned was one of these boundaries, maybe something similar occurs, if not a full stop? Just at the Federal Level <http://www.data.gov/whats-store-geospatial-data>, they have already dumped > 400,000 geospatial datasets, and many states and counties are following suit with Open Data initiatives. Of course tree bettles and stuff aren't candidates for the OSM cartography, but some of those will enhance the end map for OSM (and derivative projects) users. It also fundamentally applies to who you consider to be in that crowd of source contributors? There are already armchair mappers using Bing (not surveying on the ground), Similarly, I would venture to say there are other potential members of a crowd that don't use handheld GPSs, but synthesize useful OSM data. Michael Patrick PS: "Land ownership changes frequently" - just out of curiosity would you care to back up that assertion with some real data analysis of statistics from the US Census Home Ownership Tenure Tables, the GAO (Government Accounting Office) on federal land acquisitions and transfers, NASS<http://www.nass.usda.gov/Surveys/Guide_to_NASS_Surveys/Agricultural_Economics_and_Land_Ownership/index.asp>, or any other source? :-) Even if title changes, jurisdictional constraints dictate that usually the personal name changes, not the property lines.
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