I recently used RapidEditor and noticed that one of the data sources is ML-derived building footprints from Microsoft and Google Open Buildings. There’s even a message stating that “These datasets have been provided as open data by various organizations.” I added some buildings based on that data source, and a licensing message appeared when I saved the changeset. Since I verified that the license was Creative Commons, I ignored the message and saved the elements. However, Level 2 messages appeared in Osmose issues stating “object contains Google as source.” I was confused. Should we or shouldn’t we use these sources? I did some searching on this forum and didn’t find anything about it.
Google Open Buildings is shared under the CC BY-4.0 and ODbL licenses [1]. OpenStreetMap is licensed under ODbL as well. I’m sure the Rapid maintainer also makes sure that all the datasets available in Rapid are ODbL compliant. Osmose likely just flags every object that has the string Google in its source tag.
So yes, you can use this data. But if you do so please do make sure to adjust the geometry before uploading! Microsoft and Google building footprints are shoddy at best and generally shouldn’t be uploaded without adjusting them first. Or, even better, draw the buildings manually without using Microsoft/Google footprints as a base. It usually achieves the best results
