Speaking of Canadaan data, I am in need of income data by postal code. Is there 
any free WMS server where this is stored? 

Thanks 

Tony 



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brendan Morley" <[email protected]> 
To: [email protected], [email protected], 
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected] 
Cc: "Sam Vekemans" <[email protected]>, "Baden" <[email protected]> 
Sent: Monday, March 14, 2011 3:26:21 AM 
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] CommonMap in Canada 


Hi all, 

I just wanted to let you know that the CommonMap initiative is still alive, as 
am I. 

To recap, CommonMap will be a collaboration and repository of 
liberally-licensed geodata (without share-alike) - accessible though an 
OpenStreetMap-style interface. We will accept Creative Commons Attribution, CC0 
and public domain geodata contributions, depending on your jurisdiction. We 
expect it will find fresh acceptance in the "Gov 2.0" movement, since it allows 
governments to redistribute contributions from the community. We also are quite 
happy to accept OpenStreetMap contributors who find themselves dissatisfied 
with its default licence. 

We want to focus on a particular country at first, which is Canada. Why? 

* It has quite a comprehensive open data catalogue; 
* It appears to have a compatible licence; 
* It also has a rigorous "foreign key" model, which bodes well for 
roundtripping back to government; 
* It's the home of Refractions Research, the custodian of PostGIS which is a 
good friend of mine; 
* Finally, it helps that Sam Vekemans is our enthusiastic man on the ground 
over there. 

We want to get as much of Natural Resources Canada's GeoBase and Canvec 
publications into the CommonMap database as we can, and use Canada as a 
showcase country for what CommonMap can uniquely do. 

The "proof of concept" API instance is currently at 
http://api.development.i386.commonmap.org/ 
It is hosting an overlay of: 

* Natural Earth Data; 
* Some sample Geobase National Road Network, National Hydro Network and Land 
Cover datasets. 

(Hint: look up Victoria, British Columbia[1] for an example of all 3 datasets 
together.) 


Next comes the challenge of ramping up to a public launch. The core of 
CommonMap is a web-facing API and its "one true" database, a download site for 
XML full copies of that database, and a map tile server with its optimised 
database. To run this at public scale will demand about 8-10 CPU cores and 
associated storage, or about US $10,000 per year. 

Let's face it, we will require a higher rate of donations to do this. If you 
believe in the idea of CommonMap, a good way to show your support is to donate 
to CommonMap Inc. (CommonMap Inc is the non profit body that operates the 
CommonMap internet resources.) 

Potential donors, please head this way: 
http://www.commonmap.org/page/donate 

Even if you can't spare the cash, perhaps you can spare your skills or tools, 
whether they be in geodesy, obtaining or converting geodata imports, running up 
database or tile servers, or developing applications? Let us know. 


Please feel free to forward this news to whoever you wish. 

I welcome all comments: You can make further enquires by return email, the 
commonmap.org website, or "CommonMap" at LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. Sam 
Vekemans also has a group blog for CommonMap set up at Posterous. 


Thanks, 
Brendan 

[1] 
http://api.development.i386.commonmap.org/?lat=48.821&lon=-123.574&zoom=9&layers=B0000FTF
 


-- 
Brendan Morley 
President, CommonMap Inc. 
[email protected] 
http://commonmap.org/ 
Queensland Incorporated Association 37762 
Also find us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn 
-- 


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