Cartography and open source

The laws on the tutelano copyright the cartographic works and second preview the payment of royalties the dispositions of their authors. Between the most complete surveys of the Italian territory the papers of Military Navy and situated of Italian Atlas (the official reference of the national cartography re-enter). The material is available free of charge for Public Administration, and to payment for the citizens.

In the United States the national cartography is not covered from copyright and that has favorite the spread of the interactive maps with services which maps.google.com and earth.google.com. The sevizio of google it is subject to payment for I use it of the paper beyond a sure level of zoom, in order to visualize enterprises or other agencies.

A free cartography has been able to extend also to areas of the territory that do not correspond to large agglomerate city or tourist zones to you, places for which little customers would use the consultation service.

In Europe, a cartography "owner" is not material usable for distributions open source that they must trace one new cartography without to use the existing material. They exist software (in particular applet java) in a position to acquiring a geographic paper in jpeg and supplying base services as interactive navigation and the calculation of the optimal distance. However, a private use therefore as a public distribution of these services is subject to the law of the copyright.

In the surveys it still lacks a standard formattazione of the cartography for which they are used you form you of vectorial diagram or forms to you raster; between those of vectorial diagram the extension jpeg on which is diffused mainly is estimated and traced the optimal distances. Less diffuse they are other you form you of vectorial diagram that concurs also to define metadati with which the customer can personalize the papers with important information for he. The software of conversion between the several one often forms to you is programs to payment.

Between the greater plans of a software open source for navigation to satellitare (alternative to the diffuse Tom Tom and others), it is from noticing that the Roadster plan concurs to define of the metadati ones regarding the GPS_Drive plan.