<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Falk and list,<br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 11:55 AM Falk Huettmann <<a href="mailto:fhuettmann@alaska.edu">fhuettmann@alaska.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>Dear Chris et al,</div><div><br></div>...by using certain specific/clumsy formats -poorly documented ones - you can virtually exclude<div>people from data and from Remote Sensing data and GPS etc.</div><div>Google Earth as a classic example, and GARMIN as another, or ESRI files, certainly NetCDF or many R packages even.</div><div><br></div><div>In reality, you will see that all what is shiny and new - in demand- is to be sold, and usually not well publically shared.</div><div>It takes many steps to get around it, if even that.</div><div><br></div><div>While I have used OpenStreet maps, it was very clumsy; more bad examples exist, e.g. lack of metadata.</div><div>Whatever companies tell ya, they want to sell more stuff (sell PR, or might face bankruptcy otherwise).</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I get your point about commercial interests. But I think you're missing three very important details here.</div><div><br></div><div>First, OpenStreetMap is provided by the OpenStreetMap Foundation see <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/about">https://www.openstreetmap.org/about</a> which is not a company trying to sell stuff.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Second, from the OpenStreetMap website <a href="https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/51.500/-0.100">https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/51.500/-0.100</a></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>OpenStreetMap data is licensed under the <a href="https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/">Open Data Commons Open Database License</a> (ODbL).</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>preamble to which is:</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Database while maintaining this same freedom for others. Many databases are covered by copyright, and therefore this document licenses these rights. Some jurisdictions, mainly in the European Union, have specific rights that cover databases, and so the ODbL addresses these rights, too. Finally, the ODbL is also an agreement in contract for users of this Database to act in certain ways in return for accessing this Database.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>So it's open by definition.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>And it is my hope that with QGIS we get to open access and open source,</div><div>of these data, and any other.</div><div><br></div><div>My format of choice is plain and simple ASCII text files for those reasons, perhaps using the </div><div>Virtual Machine as a platform forever (well, as long as that is reasonable, but not commercially driven).</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div><br></div><div>Third, OpenStreetMap data is easily downloaded in well-documented XML format. It's readable and easily parsed by any number of open source XML parsers in Python, Java, etc. There is a lot of useful metadata incorporated in it.</div><div><br></div><div>It loads directly into QGIS without fuss (I just confirmed this by downloading some data from the OpenStreetMap site and loading into my QGIS 3.12 running on my desktop).<br></div><div><br></div><div>It's better than plain and simple ASCII text because, well, a few reasons I can think of:</div><div><ol><li>it's UTF-8 not ASCII, so we get more than 128 or 256 characters</li><li>its structure is documented</li><li>it's well-known by other software out there (e.g. QGIS)</li><li>it's readable<br></li></ol></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>Keep me posted please; very best & thanks</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Maybe you should take another look at OpenStreetMap.</div><div> <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div> Falk Huettmann</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 10:19 AM chris hermansen <<a href="mailto:clhermansen@gmail.com" target="_blank">clhermansen@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Falk and list;<br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 10:48 AM Falk Huettmann <<a href="mailto:fhuettmann@alaska.edu" target="_blank">fhuettmann@alaska.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Dear List,<div>I think these GPS high resolution suggestions are great; </div><div>thanks.</div><div><br></div><div>But my real interest/question here is, how can we bring it home to QGIS ?</div><div><br></div><div>I see GARMIN essentially trying to sell and impose on us their GIS system,</div><div>same applies to OpenStreet Maps etc etc. So they try to privatize geography and public space and information, </div><div>which I am mostly opposed to.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>How is OpenStreetMap (I assume when you say "OpenStreet Maps" you mean "OpenStreetMap") trying "to privatize geography and public space and information"? Not trying to start an argument here; this just seems completely contrary to what I know of OpenStreetMap, whose data is licensed under <a href="https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/" target="_blank">https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/</a></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>Instead, I wonder how we can use QGIS and release the commercial</div><div>data into Open Source and public use ?</div><div>That's for HIGH RESOLUTION data discussed here.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for such questions and solutions.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>[stuff deleted] <br></div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com<br><br>C'est ma façon de parler.</div></div></div>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com<br><br>C'est ma façon de parler.</div></div></div>