editing existing osm data

I’ve been playing with josm for a while now, and feel pretty confident about being ready to submit modifications. I have a shapefile cd from the Franklin county auditors dept. and plan on using Gpsbabel to convert the files to gpx format. But how do I go about importing the changes?

Platform: Linux (Fedora 11)
Software: Gpsbabel, GpsDrive, GpsMan, and of course Josm.

Thx for any and all help.

Gimp25
Columbus, Ohio
USA
NW Columbus area.

There are several issues here:
(1) is the data truly ‘free’ as we define it?
(2) you can’t just mass replace, since that eliminates any improvements others have made.
Assuming (1) is yes, I don’t know how to deal with (2).

Have a look at the import guidelines: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Guidelines
As NE2 says, first check its a suitably free license. And discuss it with local mappers, to see how it would affect anything already mapped etc.

As for the actual import, I think you would be best converting from shapefile to OSM format, there’s some details of software for that here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Import/Shapefile
You can then upload the osm files using JOSM, or various upload scripts etc.

Good question on the “free” issue. They do charge one whole dollar for the DVD and envelope. See: http://franklincountyoh.metacama.com/perlSvc.jsp?opt=D . And, they’re a government entity and I’ve yet to see any Copyright notice on any of the material. One exception, the Franklin County Engineers office does put out maps that are copyrighted, but we’re not talking about that agency. Also, check out the online info on properties from the auditors office at: http://franklincountyoh.metacama.com/altIndex.jsp . You can search by parcel #, location on map, and address. I’m going to e-mail the office and ask them about usage. I’ll post when I find out.

As far as the shapefile conversion, I’ve already seen that page and I’m going to try GpsBabel first seeing as how I’ve used that particular program before.

Looks like you need to find out whether they consider the data to be copyrighted, and maybe get something in writing to forward to OSM (??)
Since 1989 (U.S.) anything copyrightable has been copyrighted on its creation, whether or not a copyright notice is present. You’d need a clear statement that the county either does not and never will claim any copyright on the data (and that they created it; i.e. this isn’t repackaged third party data), or that they are releasing it under a free license (someone else can expand on that).