The api keys have been invalidated and new ones haven’t been distributed yet.
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See Maxar imagery not working (was "Maxar is blurred in ID" and other similar topics) - #7 by SimonPoole
As an editor who likes to work on remote areas, this is quite a massive hit.
Maxar was my go-to most of the time.
I’m not quite active here and mostly read the weeklyOSM news, so not sure if I missed something, but is there some effort from the Foundation or community to obtain reliable imagery for those remote areas?
I’m sure that this is not cheap, but maybe we can get some kind of fundraiser if there is a deal?
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This is going to cause plenty of problems in Zambia, it is the go to imagery there as it is the most up to date by a long way. I fear new contributors to HOT projects will start to delete items mapped previously using Maxar that do not appear in other imagery. This is particularly so around large towns and cities where development is fairly rapid.
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Maxar imagery is a great resource that many mappers appreciate. It is useful in many places; crucial in some.
We’ve been in regular touch with them about API key rotation and other security mitigation efforts. We understand their concerns that a small number of people are using the OpenStreetMap API key to steal imagery for use for non-OpenStreetMap usage.
We have not heard much from Maxar on the current situation, but are trying to connect and resolve the issue.
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I have seen pricing of about 10 $ / square kilometer. And license of imagery data would be anyway incompatible with OSM and would be impossible to use it for mapping.
No idea how much they would charge for commercial access on special rules allowing use for OSM mapping. And data storage rules required by commercial entities paying for it are quite strong, to the point that each mapper would likely need to pay for own access.
So about 10 $ / square kilometer for each mapper?
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Alright…so no fundraiser…
Is there someone we could ask nicely?
Maybe Bing for some updates? Do they even have updated data on the unprofitable parts of the world?
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There are attempts, see:
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I wouldn’t mind having to do an Oauth login and copy paste a unique API key into JOSM, but that seems like it would just lead to an increase in the number of bogus OpenStreetMap accounts.
I’m assuming any solution based on per-user keys would be a bit more user friendly. While not a panacea it would make misuse of keys at least trackable.
Just as a hint to avoid misuse:
In Osmand you get free map downloads when having contributed to OSM considerably in the last weeks.
I wouldn’t mind if I would have to undergo some procedures to have access to Maxar imagery.
In some regions these were definitely the most actual images.
That might work if we robustly checked every edit by new users, but we don’t. For a small niche thing like Osmand you can get away with it but I think for something like satellite imagery we might find the Canadian wilderness getting filled with bogus but plausible trees to ge the edit number up. That’s if the scrapers care enough about the map to at least try to avoid harmful edits, which I doubt they would unless they’re overlaying OSM.
Edit: the requirement to be a pre-existing editor is also unfriendly to new mappers, which might be harmful long term.
With OsmAnd’s “bitcoin” scheme, OSM saw a few people trying to game the system by trying to move nodes back and forth. The mapping wasn’t really “incorrect”, just “unnecessary”.
The idea of tying imagery access to contributions reminds me of a Wikimedia Foundation program called The Wikipedia Library. It offers Wikimedians institutional access to premium subscription databases such as JSTOR, Newspapers.com, and Gale Cengage. Access to most of the resources is based on the number of contributions, age of the account, and recent activity; some resources like Newspapers.com have a separate manually reviewed application process. Participants agree to cite their sources when using TWL. On a technical level, TWL endorses individual logins or provides OAuth-style integration using the databases’ existing authentication schemes.
To my knowledge, this program hasn’t resulted in any significant nonsense editing on Wikipedia, but if that ever happens, blocking the user from Wikipedia would also block the user from TWL. The main downside of this approach is that it depends on volunteers to (minimally) vet applicants to one of the sources that don’t provide automatic access.
Even so, I agree that Maxar is currently such a basic resource that putting it behind a bureaucratic process could impact the project’s growth in some regions. This is a wake-up call for some regions to work to further diversify the available imagery resources in ELI, to the extent that this is possible.
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One of the quirks in this mini-drama is that it is quite unclear if Maxar is still being paid to provide the imagery or not. As some may remember this all goes back to a backroom deal in the aftermath of Facebooks chaotic attempts at adding ML generated data to OSM. See New aerial imagery from Digital Globe? - OSM Help
The last time (as I recall) the problem started half december 2019 and was fixed half february 2020.
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This doesn’t feel like a “mini-drama” to me.
We’re currently in a spot where APIs are being heavily priced (see Twitter, Reddit) and we might lose a very good source for imagery in regions of this planet where alternatives are very bad or not there at all.
It might be not relevant for people who map in 1st and 2nd world countries where there are national alternatives or other providers like Bing give a good enough experience but for most parts of this planet, this is not the case (at least from my personal experience).
I hope it becomes a “mini-drama” when we get some kind of deal soon though…
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Maxar is not under the slightest obligation to provide us access to the imagery in question as far as we know, so you are just going to have to live with the situation, organise an alternative or map without imagery support.
All are completely possible.
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I never said they are obliged to provide us with something.
I just didn’t want the loss to be played down.
How am I supposed to “organise an alternative”? How do one organise such a thing?
Mapping without imagery support in remote areas of this planet is impossible…
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