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Overture Maps Foundation

overturemaps.org

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Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#21

Post by jandrewrogers »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #17
tony_cannistra wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The background here is mostly that these big organizations feel threatened by Google, and issues like the legal/licensure restrictions behind using big open data projects like OpenStreetMap make it hard to commit to using those datasets. They're trying to stay competitive.

What's the licensure/legal restriction in using OpenStreetMap aside from including attribution?

It has a viral license, any data you mix with OSM data becomes open source.

Data sources that people commonly want to blend with mapping data have legal and regulatory restrictions with respect to privacy, data jurisdiction, acceptable use, statutory time limits, contract terms, etc. The OSM license terms are in conflict with legal and regulatory compliance requirements.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#22

Post by tony_cannistra »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #21
tppiotrowski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the licensure/legal restriction in using OpenStreetMap aside from including attribution?

It has a viral license, any data you mix with OSM data becomes open source. Data sources that people commonly want to blend with mapping data have legal and regulatory restrictions with respect to privacy, data jurisdiction, acceptable use, statutory time limits, contract terms, etc. The OSM license terms are in conflict with legal and regulatory compliance requirements.

This is particularly true for governments. I know the United States Geological Survey wanted to use OSM data for portions of their cartography, but can't because it's not public domain (as their products must be).

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#23

Post by PeterCorless »

I looked at this page, and I left mostly confused as to what, precisely, "Overture Maps" actually is (or will be). Is it...

a) A geospatial data revision control system? [Collaborative Map Building]

b) A new way to do geospatial indexing, or some metamanagement layer on top of one or more existing forms of geospatial indexing? [Global Entity Reference System]

c) A quality control process, tool, system or review board/certification standard? [Quality Assurance Processes]

d) Specific SQL or NoSQL reifications for binding to specific datastores? [Structured Data Schema]

You can read into these tea leaves all you want, but at the end of the day, it's all just marketecture with no actual "stuff" behind it. At least as far as you and I as rubes on the Internet are concerned. The page is very, very light on details.

Moreover, I am 100% positive that the $3,000 price tag for individuals to just poke your nose in the tent, or $300,000 to actually to have voting rights is about as anti-open source-y as you can get.

Is it just me? Is this how people expect good open source results and progress to actually occur?

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#24

Post by kevinventullo »

tppiotrowski wrote: post #18
lostfocus wrote: post #11

I'm honestly a bit baffled - what do they actually do?

OpenStreetMap collects data via volunteers entering information about their neighborhoods but there is also government generated data from surveys so I think they aim to automate combining the two in a unified open source format.

Not to mention algorithmically generated data, e.g. ML on satellite imagery, which some folks in the OSM community are vehemently opposed to.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#25

Post by Bedon292 »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #21
tppiotrowski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the licensure/legal restriction in using OpenStreetMap aside from including attribution?

It has a viral license, any data you mix with OSM data becomes open source. Data sources that people commonly want to blend with mapping data have legal and regulatory restrictions with respect to privacy, data jurisdiction, acceptable use, statutory time limits, contract terms, etc. The OSM license terms are in conflict with legal and regulatory compliance requirements.

Not really. Any Derivative Data needs to be licensed under the same or compatible license IF it is Publicly Used [4.4a]. You can internally use it without issues. And you can have a Collective Database which includes it without licensing the entire database under the same license [4.5a].

See: https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#26

Post by Bedon292 »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #5
IIAOPSW wrote: post #2

There's already a ton of open source tools and map community resources. Why should I trust the consortium set up by Meta et al?

The background here is mostly that these big organizations feel threatened by Google, and issues like the legal/licensure restrictions behind using big open data projects like OpenStreetMap make it hard to commit to using those datasets. They're trying to stay competitive.

In the FAQ they state that they will "combine OSM with other sources to produce new open map data sets. Overture data will be available for use by the OSM community under compatible open data licenses."

Anything combined with OSM will be a derivative dataset. So the whole project will have to be released under the ODbL license. Or something compatible with it. I don't think this will really help anyone get away from those issues.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#27

Post by jandrewrogers »

Bedon292 wrote: post #25
jandrewrogers wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a viral license, any data you mix with OSM data becomes open source. Data sources that people commonly want to blend with mapping data have legal and regulatory restrictions with respect to privacy, data jurisdiction, acceptable use, statutory time limits, contract terms, etc. The OSM license terms are in conflict with legal and regulatory compliance requirements.

Not really. Any Derivative Data needs to be licensed under the same or compatible license IF it is Publicly Used [4.4a]. You can internally use it without issues. And you can have a Collective Database which includes it without licensing the entire database under the same license [4.5a]. See: https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/

You may disagree, but the legal departments of every organization I've worked for that has looked into the matter concurs with this opinion. It effectively prohibits many practical applications for which organizations want to use mapping data for more than rendering maps. Companies that do use OSM data have rigid policies that only allow it to be used in narrow contexts.

The loophole that most companies seem to have landed on is using OSM data to do parallel construction of private data, which technically avoids the Derivative Database problem.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#28

Post by 7952 »

solardev wrote: post #10

It's interesting that this is a consortium of second-tier map providers -- all the commercial enterprises that aren't as good as Google or Mapbox on the web. No ESRI participation on the GIS front. No OpenLayers or Leaflet or Maplibre on the open source front. This reminds me of the Micro Four Thirds model, where smaller camera manufacturers teamed up to fight Canon and Nikon. This looks like a bunch of smaller map c…

There are a large number of other datasets beyond the big name ones like OSM. There are governments all over the world uploading thousands of layers to thousands of different open data portals. Dozens of satellite operators selling optical and radar data. Commercial vendors selling information about property, mobile phone reception, demographic information. And it's all in different formats uses different vocabularies and was built to different standards.

And it is not just about maps but as an input to other systems and models. Knowing the location of a customer, machine or business tells you a lot about it and this kind of data unlocks that.

Also, ESRI are quietly putting a lot of effort into data curation and aggregating it in one place. But whatever they build will be slow, buggy, and focused on ESRI and its customers. In fact a lot of government open data providers have been moving their portals to ESRI and access to raw flat files is being lost.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#29

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #22
jandrewrogers wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has a viral license, any data you mix with OSM data becomes open source. Data sources that people commonly want to blend with mapping data have legal and regulatory restrictions with respect to privacy, data jurisdiction, acceptable use, statutory time limits, contract terms, etc. The OSM license terms are in conflict with legal and regulatory compliance requirements.

This is particularly true for governments. I know the United States Geological Survey wanted to use OSM data for portions of their cartography, but can't because it's not public domain (as their products must be).

Though Overture also aren’t proposing public domain; they’re using a (newish, untested) permissive licence, CDLA.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation

#30

Post by SlimyHog »

artonge wrote: post #8

From the FAQ: What is the relationship between Overture and OpenStreetMap? Overture is a data-centric map project, not a community of individual map editors. Therefore, Overture is intended to be complementary to OSM. We combine OSM with other sources to produce new open map data sets. Overture data will be available for use by the OpenStreetMap community under compatible open data licenses. Overture members are enco…

Thank you. This is exactly what I was wondering
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