The Mehozot could be used as admin boundaries.
But if we could get their data as a source, then we could get recognition, and then get lots of other data.
And then the sky is the limit…
A guy from Keren Kayemet LeIsrayel responded with the following.
דמיטרי שלום רב,
קק"ל הינה מוסד לאומי ללא כוונות רווח. אנו קולטים ומעדכנים שכבות מידע בתחומי הייעור, הסביבה והמים.
כגוף לאומי אנו רואים את עצמנו מחויבים לספק מידע לציבור באופן חפשי ופתוח.
באופן עקרוני, נשמח לשתף פעולה ולתת נתונים. עם זאת, כיוון שיש לנושא היבטים שונים, ארצה להיפגש איתכם על מנת לעמוד על אופי הפרוייקט, סוגי המידע, יישומים והשלכות אפשריות. ייתכן ואף ישנם נושאים פוטנציאליים נוספים לשיתוף פעולה עתידי.
בברכה,
ישראל טאובר
מנהל המחלקה לניהול יער מידע וממ"ג
קק"ל
Let’s meet with them. It is better that at least the people from this forum who are best familiar with the project should participate. talkat?
Given enough notice, I can make it almost any day.
KKL are very bike friendly. They’re doing all sorts of stuff in the forests with various communities.
e.g. the TLV JM Bike Route, which we already have mapped here or here or better here
You can send him these links, so he could have an idea…
Excellent job dimka and talkat, I’m also very surprised they are really willing to cooperate, I hope it’s not just stalling (“let’s be positive and buy time to check things up”), you know.
Two questions if I may: 1) what data can we expect? 2) when?
Superware - nothing specific so far. Some of (hopefully, most of) the government organizations have no interest to withhold the data to themselves.
Speaking of which: another organization which expressed interest is Teva (החברה להגנת הטבע). Probably there will be a meeting with them soon. In particular, they produce the well-known hiking maps. And that makes it interesting. For one, they probably regard OSM as a threat. But, I believe it can also be an opportunity. Consider these maps (Mapot Simun Shvilim). Today they take the basic layer from somewhere else (Israel Survey, to be precise), and they add to it the trails layer which is managed by them. Now this has serious limitations. For one, they probably have to pay for the basic layer. Second, they cannot make maps in other languages. By using OSM data and their own map-making technology they would be able to overcome these difficulties. At the price of opening up their data. I think we should convince them that the quality of OSM data will eventually surpass theirs. Therefore, it will be wise for them to start getting into OSM sooner than later.
By the way, how do you think OSM compares to Mapot Simun Shvilim? I think in terms of the number of trails OSM is better, but a lot of metadata is missing (trail color, difficulty etc.)
Maybe we should prepare for the meeting a custom-made map with all the trails colored, including Israel National Trail (some kind of a “state of the art”)? Any particular area in mind?
www.teva.org.il is a registered “voluntary association”, and is not-for-profit. I believe the price of their maps covers the cost of their print and maintenance of the data, but I don’t know for sure.
