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> Mushkegowuk Council, in northern Ontario, paid him to document the network of ice roads It's immoral, and I hope also illegal, to use public money to donate

> Mushkegowuk Council, in northern Ontario, paid him to document the network of ice roads It's immoral, and I hope also illegal, to use public money to donate exclusive use of a work to a private entity, let alone a for-profit. Whoever is responsible for this should be told about OpenStreetMap and then sued into oblivion if they don't make up by following the open data policy https://open.canada.ca/en/open-data-principles https://open.canada.ca/en/open-data-principles .

hrktb 7y ago
You are right, but I’d see a tipping point where the money is better used by bringing better maps to services people actually use, effectively improving their life. It would be no different from straight paying Google so they map the streets for instance. It could be argued its a pragmatic choice to have the most impact on people’s life.
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  The pragmatic choice for a government is to pay someone to map the roads, and require the output to be open data. That open data benefits citizens is pretty much a given at this point. If the government then wants to work with commercial vendors of maps to integrate that data, then that is fine too. They can use the open data set just like anyone else, or the government could pay them to integrate that data if there is no intrinsic commercial interest in doing so.
- marble-drink 7y ago
  Google can, and does, use open data in their products.
  - Nemo_bis 7y ago
    Indeed. Google Maps is also known to copy OSM without attribution (which is illegal, but not yet proven so clearly that I would be on a lawsuit). So spending money to add roads to Google Maps is just stupid, because if you add them to OSM it's much faster and Google Maps will get them anyway.
    - rmc 7y ago
      > Google Maps is also known to copy OSM without attribution (which is illegal, but not yet proven so clearly that I would be on a lawsuit). Not only would attribution be required, but OSM does (for some use cases) have a share-alike clause. It could result in Google having to release their Google Maps data for OSM to use. So I'd be _really_ surprised if they did that, and I'd assume they'd be strict about making sure it's not imported. If you have evidence, I'm sure the OSM community would be _very_ interested in hearing it.

hrktb 7y ago

You are right, but I’d see a tipping point where the money is better used by bringing better maps to services people actually use, effectively improving their life. It would be no different from straight paying Google so they map the streets for instance. It could be argued its a pragmatic choice to have the most impact on people’s life.

Freak_NL 7y ago
The pragmatic choice for a government is to pay someone to map the roads, and require the output to be open data. That open data benefits citizens is pretty much a given at this point. If the government then wants to work with commercial vendors of maps to integrate that data, then that is fine too. They can use the open data set just like anyone else, or the government could pay them to integrate that data if there is no intrinsic commercial interest in doing so.
marble-drink 7y ago
Google can, and does, use open data in their products.
- Nemo_bis 7y ago
  Indeed. Google Maps is also known to copy OSM without attribution (which is illegal, but not yet proven so clearly that I would be on a lawsuit). So spending money to add roads to Google Maps is just stupid, because if you add them to OSM it's much faster and Google Maps will get them anyway.
  - rmc 7y ago
    > Google Maps is also known to copy OSM without attribution (which is illegal, but not yet proven so clearly that I would be on a lawsuit). Not only would attribution be required, but OSM does (for some use cases) have a share-alike clause. It could result in Google having to release their Google Maps data for OSM to use. So I'd be _really_ surprised if they did that, and I'd assume they'd be strict about making sure it's not imported. If you have evidence, I'm sure the OSM community would be _very_ interested in hearing it.