Microsoft is smartly asking governmental agencies to publish their satellite and aerial imagery though Virtual Earth.
GoVE supports the data sharing goals of many public sector organizations by providing a free publishing service. Through GoVE, your taxpayer-funded information will be provided on a free, open access web site that benefits taxpayers, government officials, your corporate tax base, state and local governments, etc.
I think the definition of “free, open access” is a little different than most of us would assume it to be. That said, I really don’t have any problem with cities pushing their data into Virtual Earth, Google Earth or any other commercial API.
If there is any problem with it though, it is in the restrictions the API puts on developers and how they can use the data. I would recommend that any government that wants to put their imagery up on the web and be available for everyone to use, take advantage of Google and Microsoft, but also use services such as OpenAerialMap which have licenses that everyone can use and probably more beneficial to the taxpayers as they aren’t paying Microsoft for access to their data. Letting Microsoft and Google have the imagery is nice, but letting the community freely use it as well is just as nice.
Less gatekeepers of aerial imagery is a good thing for the community
Update: Andres writes about Google’s new MapMaker and wonders the same thing about community getting to use such services freely. I mean what is the point about putting effort into these initiatives if you can’t get the data back out. There are organizations that I would freely donate my time to, but Microsoft and Google aren’t them. I’m starting to sound like SteveC…
Update 2: Umibot over at Off the Map (Urban Mapping’s Blog) hits on the point that many are making about the Google:
It isn’t that Google can do neighborhoods ‘better’ than UMI (or anybody else), it’s the idea that Google doesn’t need anybody else to do it for them. In fact, they don’t need to do it themselves–throw it over to a fanatical user base, and watch them diligently work away
At least they could do it though Amazon Mechanical Turk and reward users for taking the effort clean up Google’s maps. Given how much money the Google is making off of these services, at least they could toss everyone a bone or some Google Goo.
29 Comments
Nicely put, James. Will be interesting to see which governments end up taking the GoVE route.
Right on James. Time someone stood up for us GIS professionals. I like how MS and Google say it is up to us to “populate” their “freely” available services, but we can’t use them in return.
Thanks for the OAM plug James. The ‘grand’ idea behind this project is that we setup a distributed tile cache such that govt agencies can publish their imagery in such a way that it can be grabbed by from a central place like OAM.
Also, those of us that actually produce our own imagery in a DIY way would be foolish to simply give it over to MS, Google etc so they can lock it behind their API.
How clueless is Microsoft?
Have we dumbed down giving credit to other people’s work as clutter? Jesus, as a taxpayer I want full credit for my town’s product, especially if Microsoft is going to profit over it.
Giving credit for imagery you are displaying is the correct thing to do, not hide it because it competes with the crazy “Live Maps” logo.
ArcGIS Online rolled this out a few months ago.. http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcgisonline/about/content-sharing.html
At least Microsoft is more open to you using the imagery outside of the Virtual Earth environment though.
If I had to pick between the two evils.. MS is actually the lesser evil.
(And BTW.. I have said for two years or so that governments putting their imagery into GE is a bad idea because it gets locked away from other uses)
can someone fill me in here? what is restrictive about using the VE API? How is it different from any other API that has limitations on what can be done with it?
@Joseph Wallis … Check it out here for yourself http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth/product/terms.html
yes, I know about that EULA, but has anyone actually seen those terms enforced? I know of plenty of sites that break that EULA left and right, but I dont see Microsoft doing anything about it.
From what I’m reading (or how I’m interpretting what I’m reading) it doesn’t look like MS is actually trying to hose people. Sure – tax payer’s pay for all kinds of data to be collected. But then we have a lot of clients that want to share this data back with them [tax payers] and with other agenceis, but can’t due to the cost of hosting, software, setup and admin. etc. Of course – all of these people that they’re trying to share with are all not for profit groups, and can thus make use of the information w/o a problem. Commercial groups still can’t, but then we never could (at least not where I am).
All in all, can’t say that I have a real problem with this. Essentially MS is just becoming another competitor in the IMS hosting business.
jj: OpenAerialMap would host the data for free and you’d be able to use the imagery how you wanted. I can’t license Microsoft imagery for use in my GIS projects (believe me, I’ve tried).
I wouldn’t say MS is trying to do anything wrong, it is their service and if they can get people to give them data so be it. What I’d like to see is people give data to both GYM and OAM.
Win for all…
James: We should be clear that at the moment OAM doesn’t really have the resources to host tera/petabytes of data and serve it up effectively like GE or VE does. But the real idea behind OAM is that we setup a distributed tilecache such that each imagery provider can publish ‘their’ imagery into their own tilecache, but have this aggregated together such that it is accessible from a single place.
To me this seems a far better solution than everyone just offering up their data to the Gods and Microsoft and Google.
The real problem I have with the TOS is the “How We May Change the Contract” Clause. This scares the shit out of me as a developer who is trying to build solutions on top of others frameworks and APIs.
Yea, I didn’t really mean to imply that you could stuff it all in OAM, large providers should be able to serve up data easily within the ecosystem using their existing frameworks. As we all know serving up tiles is much more efficient than trying to serve up ArcIMS/MapServer/etc services that bog down when a couple users are accessing the data.
GYM will host your data, but you lose control over it and the ability to really share it with people who want to get involved with your community.
Take New Orleans for example, so many people want to get involved, but are limited to using Google Map API or Virtual Earth API for mapping because there isn’t any better way to get recent aerial coverage of the city. NOLA would benefit hugely from OAM/OSM support to improve the mapping of their city and track the recovery.
That is kind of the idea behind FreeEarth Foundation when we started that up in ‘05. Provide a place to host imagery and serve it to anyone that wants to use it.
We use the servers to host a lot of the non-nasa imagery in WorldWind (The ZoomIt! layers for one). All the funding to buy the servers and storage space are from adsense ads on WorldWindCentral and donations. I know we did have a deal at one point with Internet Archive to make use of their storage space as well. Not sure what the status of that is.
I hate seeing this stuff sit and not be utilized.. so maybe some kick starting is needed again with it.
The idea that local or state governments would give this data away is strange to me. Our regional planning agency earns plenty of profit from selling their imagery. Maybe that’s just a Texas thing, I don’t know, but there is no way they are going to let Google, MS or anyone but them have their data.
@Roger Hart … This is also a ridiculous attitude. Where do you think the $ comes from that your regional planning agency gives to Sanborn or whoever else to go fly this imagery? I can understand not giving the data up to Google, MS or other companies that do nothing but aggregate data and lock it up under an onerous TOS. But, do tell why you think that GIS professionals in your state or other states should pay twice for the privilege of getting access to this data. This idea that we should pay to have access to this data is what led to Google Earth and Virtual Earth in the first place.
@Roger Hart…We’re finding the exact opposite. I’m in a county that’s seeing a fair amount of growth, yet demand for our data has been declining for years. This is probably due to all of the geospatial applications now available to the average person. I think we’re going to see what we can do to move toward phasing out as many fees as possible. The time and overhead expended on administering distributing data and collecting fees just isn’t worth the two percent of our total revenue that data sales usually generate.
@Jeffrey Johnson…Please don’t be so quick to assume that tax dollars always pay for the development of GIS data in public agencies. Many states have fee-based funding mechanisms that allow agencies to shift the costs of development away from taxpayers and toward those who engage in business that would benefit from GIS data. Our county GIS program has not received and does not receive any tax dollars. Instead, our primary source of funding is a fee on recorded documents. This means that most ordinary citizens in my county only help pay for GIS once or twice, if ever. Things really vary from state to state and agency to agency.
Mr. Johnson: I didn’t necessarily say that GIS professionals “should” pay twice for the privilege of getting access to this data. I said that currently in my area they are.
Every two years the regional planning agency coordinates a region wide aerial survey. The local governments are given the opportunity to “license” this data. Their costs are based on their size. Most sign up. By spreading the costs region-wide they get a pretty good deal.
After transmitting the aerial imagery to the subscribing governments, the regional guys put the imagery on the web for anyone to purchase. An area 3,000 ft. x 2,000 ft. at 6″ resolution runs you $25. It’s pretty convenient. You use your credit card online and in a few hours they send you a password that allows you to download it from their FTP site. However, you are correct, if I purchase a tile in the city where I live and work, I am buying something that my tax dollars helped create. Maybe this is a local thing specific to this particular data or agency, I don’t know. I’ve met several city-employed GIS Professionals both in GIS classes I’ve taken and through my work. They have all been extremely helpful about freely sharing data with me. The one exception is this aerial imagery. They will not share that with anyone not employed by the city. The reason given is the very restrictive licensing agreement they have to sign.
“The reason given is the very restrictive licensing agreement they have to sign.”
This is the key point here. This stuff is expensive! So, by giving it to MS they are simply offloading the infrastructure costs to a corp and then agreeing to be bound by the MS TOS which is subject to be arbitrarily changed at some future date.
Which do you choose?
Or perhaps the regional GIS agency chooses to figure out how to serve up a tilecache where ‘they’ control how the data is used and served to clients of that data … whether as a WMS or tilecache or other web service.
This is perhaps the goal of OAM.
See what crschmidt has done with MassGIS data here http://openaerialmap.org/map/?zoom=10&lat=42.37289&lon=-71.47087&layers=BT
And see the licensing properly specified here … http://openaerialmap.hypercube.telascience.org/datasource/14/
The point is that after the imagery is flown and processed with $ that comes from taxpayers, the data should at that point become freely available to the people that paid for it. Not! the company that was contracted to produce the imagery (Sanborn etc.), nor some other company to host and license the data (MS, Google etc).
@Roger….a fee imposed by a govt agency is still a tax. Granted it’s more targeted and allows people to only particpate if they chose to. Still in the end it’s a “type” of tax, like tariffs are.
KoS
There is an equitable solution. Like here in Indiana, when the 05 imagery was flown. We provided a copy to Google and MS. They can use it how ever they chose to.
However, individuals can still download the raw imagery from IU. Granted it’s not a one-stop-shopping type of set-up. Meaning, links to the download site from VE or GE. But it seems to have worked.
The imagery can be viewed in VE and/or GE. And if anyone has an interest in using the actual imagery outside of those two data browers. They can go to IU’s download portal and get the data.
In this case, the data isn’t locked up once provided to Google and/or MS. Nor could it ever be, given how the funding proposal was written. The data must be available to the public, they are legally entitled to place their greasy hands on it.
KoS
KoS, you are way too sane to comment here anymore.
Ahhh shit. Man, I try a new tack and I get I’m too sane. Guess I’ll go back to the insane route.
KoS
@KoS … Can we get a copy of this Indiana data to load into OAM? If so, what are the restrictions on our use of it in OAM? This is the crux of the issue.
@ Jeffrey…you can download it here, http://gis.iu.edu:8290/website/isds/index.htm and IIRR here too, Indiana Geological Survey site, http://129.79.145.7/arcims/statewide_mxd/index.html
Along with the true color 05 imagery, there are infra-red imagery and elevation data, which were taken and processed from the same flight. Plus there are other Indiana datasets and years.
It was a Homeland Security grant which funded the 05 flights and processing. It specified the 05 data be made freely available to the public and as far as I know, no restrictions on it.
But, I would contact IGIC to make sure. Don’t take my word on it.
http://www.in.gov/igic/ In particular, Jenny Dubeansky at jdubeansky@igic.org. She is the admin assistant to the executive director of the outfit. If she doesn’t know off the top of her head, she definitely can provide or point you in the right direction.
If that doesn’t work out. Let me know. I’ll push some buttons on my end.
KoS
@K0S … I forwarded this info to the OAM list. Is there anyone in your state that can help us with this. Someone with some basic experience with the OSGeo stack? There are plenty of people in the OSGeo community that ‘could’ help, but it’s better to get someone who actually ‘wants’ to help, and use this data in an open way that will make it happen.
I should confess, that I ‘could’ get data from my states wherehouse (CA/CASIL) and put it into OAM … and have seen a bit of this done DOQQ by DOQQ … http://openaerialmap.org/map/?lat=34.0013908093&lon=-119.970668809&zoom=12 by others … but why should ‘I’ take responsibility for doing this in a statewide way? I am an application developer.
The tools and frameworks exist for any state (or other imagery aggregator) to publish their data in an open, accessible and extensible way, and its really ‘their’ responsibility to do it AFAIK. There are plenty of people willing to help, but it can’t be in a piecemeal way … or we get the same old BS about “why is ‘my’ area not high res”.
BTW, I did forward this thread to certain people in my state and they are now realizing that they could have been in the vanguard when this project went live several months ago.
Can we all move beyond discussion and make it happen? The OpenStreetMap crew are doing a great job on their end, and we can do the same with Imagery … just takes enough momentum to get it going.
@K0s … http://wiki.openaerialmap.org/Data_Sources#Indiana
Anyone else care to contribute here?
Jeffrey: How do you view the OAM email list? I’m getting a 403 error when I go to the link on the webpage:
http://openaerialmap.org/pipermail/talk_openaerialmap.org/
@Jeffrey…let me get back to you on your question.
KoS