 Re: Underwater map
You do have to remember that there is an awful lot of work that goes into getting the data into formats that you can read it. So you will probably find what you pay for isn't the data its the work that went into it.
Up until recently at work we had to pay license fees to Linz + processing fees to someone like terralink, to use the landbase data for our area, our GIS is practically useless without it. With LINZ's iniative they did that big landonline project, and also changed the data we use from DCDB (digital cadastral database or something) to CRS. CRS had no license fees to pay to LINZ. We thought this was a great idea. Unfortunaltey terralink choose that time to increase their processing costs. So we still pay out the same amount.
But I can't see them ever letting anyone get free topo maps or other such maps, too much work goes into creating them. I don't see why the people that do the work should have to let them be free either. |