I’m sorry that you had that experience.

NE2 said:

“I invite anyone who thinks it’s a straight movement to come visit me and drive it together. Because looking at it on the ground it’s definitely a left turn into the rightmost lane.”

Okay. :-) I look forward to meeting you, talking about OpenStreetMap and doing a little mapping. When and where?

Let’s arrange a mappy hour as well!

Well, you can't be expected to understand the slang of baseball immediately, Harry. This is Ph.D. level idiom. The Big Baseball Project 2011 has been wonderful, Harry; congratulations.

The final game has not yet been played though. Game 6 was originally scheduled for 26 October and was postponed due to rain. Game 6 was played on 27 October, and St. Louis won in the 11th inning bringing the series to a 3-3 tie. Game seven is scheduled for 28 October. Weather permitting. :-)

I suggest that, taking inspiration from the World Series, we go into "extra innings" as well. Keep counting until the last out, or until you wake up following your World Series Champions' celebration.

You are granting OSMF permission to publish under CC-By-SA and / or ODbL, so your contributions must be compatible with *both*, not just CC-By-SA.

The CT provisions for another Free and Open license mean that you should be explicit about other sources where they would have an impact on other potential license changes down the road.

Welcome back after your vacation! ;-)

Hi DocSeppi,

I don't know what MOBAC is, and you haven't linked to it, so my response is very generic. I can't possibly discriminate against MOBAC; I don't understand it. ;-)

I'm also not an OSM sysadmin, nor a member of the OSMF board, nor someone who is "in charge" of anything beyond my own little tile server. So, I'm probably not your intended audience.

Now, bulk tile downloads, I do understand. Mappers who are editing consume a few tiles while they edit, and that helps them to do a better job of editing. Tiles are a tool to further improve the map. Tiles are wonderful and that's why OSMF will always[1] provide tiles to mappers. Resources are required to create these tiles, bandwidth, processing, administration, etc.

Bulk tile downloads are also interesting. Having good tiles while off-line really helps the tile-user to have access to maps when bandwidth is inconvenient, unavailable or too expensive. Bulk tile downloads allow the tile-consumer to manage their resources, while consuming resources of the tile provider.

The problem is this. Bulk tile downloads consume more tiles than a typical mapper. Sometimes a bulk downloader consumes 100s of times more tiles than a mapper, other time, much more. That is a problem. Each bulk downloader, is consuming resources that would otherwise support 100s of mappers. And that just doesn't scale.

The sysadmins don't block every bulk tile consumer. They currently only block bulk tile consumers who they notice. And to be noticed they have to stick out like a nailhead sticking out of a hardwood floor.

OSM also provides a method for you, or anybody, to consume tiles in any quantity you choose, without unfairly consuming the resources of mappers; Build your own tile server.

So that is my suggestion for a solution to you. Provide your own tile server for your audience. If your audience is "mappers who hike and want off-line tiles", render awesome tiles for hikers, at the zoom levels that interest them. And provide enough bandwidth that they can download all the tiles they need.

OpenStreetMap _does_ want hikers to contribute. OpenStreetMap _does_ want hikers to use OSM data and tiles to do cool things, even if they aren't contributing new data right at that moment. But OSM is entirely volunteer-run and donation-funded. Nobody should be permitted to consume OSM resources in a way that hurts other potential OSM contributors.

So, how can we help you build your tile server? ;-)

Best regards,
Richard Weait.

[1] Remember, I'm in charge of NOTHING. All of this is my best guess.

Hi Sam,

As individuals, every OpenStreetMap contributor is empowered to edit the database without prior approval from others.

Special interest groups and individuals are able to analyse and consume OpenStreetMap data whether they can afford access to commercially-licensed data bases or not. The reduced reliance on capital for access to data empowers them to direct their financial resources to solutions suggested by their analysis rather than merely performing the analysis.

Would you please not use the Bing aerial imagery until the legal terms have been proposed by Bing and ACCEPTED by the OpenStreetMap community?

Welcome!

Some folks from Microsoft participated in a couple of License Working Group telephone calls earlier this year. They had some specific questions about using OpenStreetMap and the licenses. You can find their questions on the wiki under the community guidelines under trivial transformations, metadata layers and indexing.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Data_License/Community_Guidelines

I'd like to see more feedback and participation from the community on all of the community guidelines.

Do Microsoft have a history of aggression towards Free Software, the GPL, Open Source, Open Standards, small business, etc? Yes. Does Microsoft spread FUD regarding software patents? Yes.

Is past behaviour an indication of future behaviour? It can be.

But what about welcoming new participants to OpenStreetMap? OpenStreetMap even has open in the name. The best open projects do not discriminate based on field of endeavour or use. We expect all OSM participants to abide by the OSM licenses. And we even presume good faith when contacting mappers who make edits we don't understand.

Is Microsoft consuming and displaying OSM data? Yes. Are they doing this for their own purposes? Yes.

Doesn't that describe the actions of every consumer of OSM data? Yes.

Is Microsoft fulfilling their obligations under the OpenStreetMap license? If so, what more permission do they need?

Awareness is good. Discrimination is bad. We each have to find our own balance between awareness and um, defensive preconceptions.

I see no grant of rights.

A copyright statement is not required for copyright protection on a work created since 1989, so copyright protection is automatic. In the absence of an explicit grant of rights, no rights are granted. Leaving only Fair use / Fair dealing rights to the data.

Is there a grant of rights elsewhere? It should really be in the license. They should really publish under PDDL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright