Mapping the World | Hacker News Reader

Mapping the World

nerds.airbnb.com

78 pointsachariam18 comments

Looks nice, but I am disappointed they choose Google Maps over OpenStreetMap for this :)

As far as I can tell, they're only using Google Maps for the display layer, the actual polygons are entirely theirs.

If you draw polygons based on what you see on Google Maps (or any other copyrighted map), your polygons might be found to be a derived work of the original Google Map.

Otherwise, you could just trace all the roads on Google Maps to make your own $BLAH Maps, that's obviously not legal.

I'm surprised they didn't even mention openstreetmap. I know airbnb is a for profit company but most likely neighborhoods and oceans are already mapped. (Europe is particularly well mapped)

OSM's convoluted licensing might expose them to the "risk" of having to contribute back their contributions though, plus (if they try to keep in sync) run the risk of others' changes running roughshod over their finely tuned model. This way they retain full control.

It doesn't seem that they will have to contribute them back, just possibly, use the same license (which is possibly equivalent/just as bad):

> You are free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt our data, as long as you credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors. If you alter or build upon our data, you may distribute the result only under the same licence. The full legal code explains your rights and responsibilities.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

Although IANAL, and it's not clear to me if rendering an independent set of data on top of the unchanged OSM data layer (i.e. effectively render two maps, on with some transparent sections) counts as building on top of the OSM database. So maybe they wouldn't even need to use the ODbL for their own data.

it's not clear to me if rendering an independent set of data on top of the unchanged OSM data layer (i.e. effectively render two maps, on with some transparent sections) counts as building on top of the OSM database

If you render OSM data with a unique map style, and produce an image, then you have made a "Produced Work" and you only have to attribute OSM, and nothing else. You can make it so people can't copy it if you'd like.

If you make a new database by combing OSM with something else, that new DB is ODbL.

Just showing something on top of OSM doesn't mean it's derived from OSM.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ

It doesn't.

The absolute worst the OSM licence would require would be to allow people to download and distribute your dataset under ODbL. You are not required to enter it into the OSM database. At an absolute worst, you can maintain, and fully control the data, in this (ODbL licenced) dataset, without any worry of anyone changing it.

Love it. I hope they're able to publish the data. If only parts of it are generated using Google Maps data (see the 'create' feature in the screenshots) then they wouldn't because it's derived work.

Here is Flickr equivalent http://code.flickr.net/2008/10/30/the-shape-of-alpha/ (downloadable). Foursquare also does similar work.

[edit: sorry, I thought Airbnb was analyzing listing data to find the extends of neighborhoods. They don't seem to do that.]

Zillow provides free neighborhood creative-commons boundaries btw: http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/neighborhood-boundaries.htm

Just using NYC, the Zillow data isn't perfect. But then, the larger point is that no-one even agrees what these different neighbourhoods are anyway, so it's very difficult to come up with a definitive data set.

Has this data made its way into OSM yet?

It looks like it's distributed under a CC-BY-SA licence. OSM actually changed from CC-BY-SA licence to ODbL because it didn't look like that CC licence is suitable for geo databases like OSM ( read more: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License/We_Are_Changing_Th... ).

It would have to be relicenced (which I presume would not be a problem since ODbL is spiritually very similar to CC-BY-SA). But as maxerikson mentions it's not clear that it should be in OSM

Zillow would have to grant additional permission, OpenStreetMap only accepts data under rather liberal terms (because then changing the distribution license does not have to be a debacle).

"Fuzzy" boundaries are also sort of controversial (i.e., there are more than 0 people who will always speak against them).

Nothing particularly special, every travel startup has some internal DB/toolset to (re)create proper geoschema.

Front-end tooling is pretty nice, though; I believe content editors' productivity using AT-AT is much higher than using some of the tools I've written :)

>When you’re exploring new places to experience, Airbnb Neighborhoods combines local editorial content with the handy, need-to-know information alongside professional photos to explore a place without having to leave your chair.

I see a conflict here. How can you explore a place without leaving your chair? (pun-intended)

How about before all this NLP mumbo jumbo they do something useful like simply let users sort by price, like every other hotel site. Or, you know, fix the rampant bugs.

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