On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 11:02:54PM -1000, Brian Russo wrote:
> If I'm not mistaken the 256^2 PNG restriction is because that is what the
> WMS-C standard specifies (A flaw in the standard IMO - most of our tiles are
> JPG).
> 
> (Totally not trying to derail this main discussion)
> 
> Overall I think your revised standard looks great though I admit I haven't
> pored over it in detail.
> 
> I did have one question about licensing.
> 
> "Each layer should be marked with the license of its source, including (at a
> minimum) descriptive text for the license, plus flags for public domain,
> attribution, non-commercial, and sharealike licensing. "
> 
> I'm skeptical on the real utility of OAM if these sort of restrictions are
> put in place. My preference would be for including only public domain
> imagery. 

Public domain imagery -- really public domain -- is hard to come by, by
comparison to imagery that will be donated by a governmental organization
that wants only to have credit to their name.

> Anything else and I think we may just end up with a collage of
> differently licensed imagery and you have to jump through hoops to figure
> out what imagery is licensed under what etc.. 

I think that solving this problem will definitely be a neccesity. OAM
originally had a tactic of "Don't upload anything that is more restrictive
than attribution licensed, because we haven't solved that problem yet."
Once you do solve that problem -- which is handled in the proposal by the
'layer groups', you have the option of selecting the 'public domain global'
layer group, the 'attribution-or-public-domain' layer group, etc.

In other words, though I respect the concern, I think that it is something
that can be solved through technical means, and not require an overly
limited set of data in OAM to address a particular case.

> Not to be dramatic, but I'd
> say it diminishes my interest in OAM as a large part of my interest is
> rooted in the problem that right now releasability/licensing issues is
> really the main draw for me.  I.e. we can use the basemap and/or release
> products knowing that other people can use the basemap for "whatever".

I think this is definitely something that we should address, but I think
saying "Only public domain imagery" will hurt the project as a whole.
(Encouraging public domain imagery is obviously a plus.)

> For HADR applications in particular there is often sensitive information
> included in products that are created. If I understand share-alike correctly
> then this means our derived product using OAM would need to be licensed
> under that. Bluntly, that just won't work. An example could be two countries
> that are hostile to each other and let's say you take OAM data and overlay
> airfield or similar sensitive data on it. You would then give a map like
> this to something like ICRC, USAID, etc with the caveat that the information
> cannot be disclosed widely, etc. You can't use sharealike data in that case,
> unless I'm misunderstanding the license.

In which case, you should use the attribution-only layergroup, so that you
don't have sharealike (or non-commercial) data.

> Even attribution can be a problem when you consider things like mobile
> devices where real estate is precious and the tools may not be built with
> this in mind. Priority for adding attribution display capability so we can
> use OAM is.. pretty much nonexistent.

In which case you should use the public-domain only layergroup... and be
aware that, outside the US, you'll basically only have Landsat.

> Anyway, I'm really not trying to be a naysayer or overly dramatic - feel
> free to point out holes in my logic if I'm misunderstanding the CC licenses,
> I just think such a licensing/releasability issue could fundamentally
> undermine the main point of OAM - which (in my eyes) is that it's a big cool
> skin of imagery that you can do whatever you want with. Again, I understand
> my usage case does not match everyone's.

I think that the public-domain only data will be a 'small cool skin' of imagery,
but it should still be there and usable. In addition, if you can deal with other
licenses -- for print works, and many others, Attribution probably works
relatively well -- then you can have access to more imagery.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta

_______________________________________________
talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://openaerialmap.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_openaerialmap.org

Reply via email to