GeoNames Forum

Hi

I am using the Geonames service to get worldwide peaks, and it's incredibly good! Many of my users also add peaks in case there is a missing one and I check them and add them on OpenStreetMaps.org. Unfortunately, recently I noticed that there were some peaks already available in OpenStreetMaps.org and not in Geonames. If I am right, Geonames fetches the data from OpenStreetMaps and then creates the dumps. Some of the recent entries were already quite old, so it's probably not a time issue.

For example, these entries are missing:
- Rittner Horn, Lat=[46,6147457812217], Lng=[11,461468118351]
- Branderschrofen, Elevation=[1879], Coordinate-Lat=[47,5597601427065], Coordinate-Lng=[10,7867630875759]
- Breitenstein, Elevation=[955], Coordinate-Lat=[48,415672675173], Coordinate-Lng=[14,2727485605209]
- Palanzone, Elevation=[1436], Coordinate-Lat=[45,8621138501439], Coordinate-Lng=[9,20167459430769]

Is it possible to update the Geonames database or am I doing something wrong?

Thank you!

Hi

Openstreetmap is using a closed licence (despite the term 'open' in the project name). GeoNames is therefore not allowed to include any data from openstreetmap.
GeoNames is using a more liberal and open license. Is is allowed to use data from geonames in openstreetmap, but not the other way round. If you want to add missing feature to geonames you can do so directly on the geonames website:
Unfortunately we are not allowed to sync with osm for the abovementioned license restriction.

Regards

Marc

Hi Marc

Thanks for your reply! My mistake, I thought OpenStreetMap was one of the sources. I will add the missing peaks to the Geonames database

Thanks again!

marc wrote:

Openstreetmap is using a closed licence (despite the term 'open' in the project name). GeoNames is therefore not allowed to include any data from openstreetmap.

For the sake of precision: both OSM and GeoNames use a free license; OSM uses a copyleft license (ODbL) and GeoNames does not (CC-BY), so the two licenses are not fully compatible; OSM is open data, while GeoNames isn't because the CC-BY license doesn't waive database rights.