[Geodata] Re: [Aust-NZ] NZ geodata on OSGEO?

[Richard Fairhurst]

Christopher Schmidt wrote:

> OSM has taken the approach that providing attribution to data sources
> used is an unacceptable requirement to be placed on the users of OSM
> data.

I think the position is a bit more refined than that.

OSM has broadly taken the approach that attribution can be delivered  
via the medium of the OSM website, but that expecting a long list of  
credits on every single derived work is unreasonable and therefore not  
to be encouraged. (This is consensus rather than formal statement thus  
far, but if the latter were useful I expect it could be arranged.)

Of course, this isn't an issue unique to OSM. Everyone aggregating  
attribution-only datasets will have to form their own position, so it  
helps to have clarity from the providers. Simply rehosting the data is  
useful and a valuable technical testbed, but the more that people are  
also encouraged to _use_ it, the better.

> [...]
> I believe that given OSM's aversion to "attribution-required" data,
> there are likely many cases where data which would otherwise be freely
> reusable are seen as not allowable within the OSM project. Despite many
> efforts by people to resolve this question, I have seen no evidence that
> OSM's position is likely to change, so a joint effort here seems
> unlikely to be helpful to the community at large.

No, I disagree.

As far as most state geodata organisations are concerned, both OSGEO  
and OSM are probably a bunch of weird hippies who all use that strange  
Linux thing that isn't as good as Windows; and frankly they don't see  
a big RoI in differentiating between one bunch of hippies and another.  
If OSM approaches first, followed by OSGEO, you could understand an  
exasperated "*rolleyes* we've _already_ sorted this, haven't we?". Or  
vice versa.

A co-ordinated approach is more likely to yield a result beneficial to  
both purposes, rather than to the organisation that gets there first.  
(Of course, Robin may already have spoken to them. I don't know the  
specifics.)

cheers
Richard
some hippy tendencies but not a Linux user