Talk:Microsoft Building Footprint Data
Missing reference / web link to Microsoft's announcement?
I am slightly surprised not to see any reference to an announcement by Microsoft about the availability and licensing of this data.
I can't imagine Microsoft just making this available without any official announcement. Is there really none that can be linked from this article?
If there is none, and this data was made available after direct contact between Microsoft and the OSMF board or so, I think this should be explained on the page to help judge and explain the legal status of all of this.--Mboeringa (talk) 10:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
This was announced on the talk-us mailing list, including the licencing. Glassman (talk) 14:26, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I saw that announcement after reading the OSM Weekly, but even that announcement doesn't contain any link to an official source. The person who announced out, Clifford Snow, also doesn't list himself as a Microsoft employee or so, or what the source of this arrangement was he announces.
Don't misunderstand me, it's probably all OK, but I really think the status of all this, including a link to a more official announcement by Microsoft, should be added to this page to avoid confusion.--Mboeringa (talk) 14:48, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
There is not going to be anything more official from Microsoft on the data release in the near future. The release was approved by our legal team and this wiki was the fastest way to get it out. Any more official would require going though marketing and a whole other set of hoops.
"Our legal team"=Microsoft? Well, I guess so based on the writing. I am just amazed not even a simple Blog article accompanies the release of probably thousands of hours of work... I am probably not the only one who tried to Google for something like that. --Mboeringa (talk) 19:44, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
- I don't know about the 2017 release, but the 2018 release was announced here https://blogs.bing.com/maps/2018-06/microsoft-releases-125-million-building-footprints-in-the-us-as-open-data --Rassilon (talk) 21:59, 19 March 2019 (UTC)