[LINK] Google did it!
Kim Holburn
kim at holburn.net
Tue Nov 9 19:13:41 AEDT 2010
This is the Nicaraguan Government. Like all governments they make up the rules about rights and costs of data. If they charge their own defence forces well it would just be silly. On the other hand they themselves might have to buy satellite data from another country who is not necessarily all that friendly and who they have good reasons not to trust.
On the other hand isn't it great to have an excuse like that. Whoops, we weren't invading, really, it was google. (Let's try again when they're not watching!)
On 2010/Nov/09, at 6:49 PM, Alex (Maxious) Sadleir wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 5:25 PM, Ambrose Andrews <ambrose-bulk at vrvl.net> wrote:
>> On 9 November 2010 16:47, Tom Koltai <tomk at unwired.com.au> wrote:
>>>
>>>> But their commander, Eden Pastora, told Costa Rica's largest
>>>> newspaper, La Nacion, that Google Maps was used to
>>>> <http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=U
>>> TF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.nacion.com/2010-11-04/El
>>> Pais/NotasSecundarias/ElPais2577867.aspx>justify
>>> the incursion. Nicaraguan government officials have also blamed a
>>> "bug in Google" for the error.
>>> [article shows two different maps: Google and Bing]
>>>
>>> The reason for the contretemps is obviously that the Nicauraguan
>>> Government has the same cost control on information charges as the
>>> Australian Government for maps.
>>>
>>> In other words, you wanna map? Then pay please.
>>> E,g,:
>>
>>
>> This doesn't necessarily apply to map *data*, however.
>>
>> (I think the GA catalogue referred to physical paper maps)
>>
>> Federal government GIS data is often free:
>>
>> http://www.osdm.gov.au/OSDM/Policies+and+Guidelines/Spatial+Data+Access+and+Pricing/default.aspx
>
> Not free enough. The OSDM Spatial licence has all sorts of gotchas
> especially the termination clause. Compare this to something like the
> Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike 3.0 Australia:
> http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/legalcode
> Still has attribution, liability/warranties and even some more about
> making collections which seems pertinent to geospatial data.
>
> Even with the OSDM licence, it's not widely used; see the
> so-funny-it's-sad case of the National Public Toilet Map which
> contains data so dangerous that it must be protected with it's own
> custom licence: http://data.australia.gov.au/licence?id=610
> And of course, both Geoscience Australia and the ABS saw reason and
> simply licence their data when free under Creative Commons; the ABS
> 2006 suburb boundaries have been priceless when neither Australia Post
> nor all state planning authorities have released similar data
> (Queensland has Local Government and Property boundaries but perhaps
> not suburbs for free, NSW still has "free but personal/non-commercial"
> planning spatial data, Victoria just tells you to use the 2006 ABS
> suburbs)
>
> The closed nature of spatial information has a similar effect on
> Google Maps in Australia; just look at the University of Canberra
> campus which is known to it as a giant park called "Sports Centre"
> https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Sports+Centre&sll=-35.325336,149.09659&sspn=0.303081,0.617294&z=14
> . Yahoo maps just doesn't have coverage for Canberra at all.
>
> To fix these kinds of issues in America, apparently Google used their
> StreetView cars in combination with offering local governments free
> licences for Google Earth in exchange for their closed data.
> http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2009/10/07/google-maps-now-uses-their-own-map-data/
>
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Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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