Add info about open data and restrictions to services vignette

[dpprdan]

We are currently relatively silent on whether the geocoding services utilize open or proprietary data. That's like - as someone put it - comparing R to Stata without mentioning that R is open source and Stata is not. I think it would be good to add an "open data" column to the table in the services vignette.

Some proprietary services (Google, HERE, ...) have some pretty strong restrictions on the use of the geocoding results, e.g. storing or displaying them on a map other than their own is prohibited. Maybe we should mention this in the highlights as well.

[jessecambon]

I think this is a good idea, but I'm curious where we should draw the line and how we should categorize services.

I did a brief search on a few services and found that MapBox requires attribution and Geocodio seems to have a permissive license, but may require attribution in some cases:

Some of our data providers have licenses that may require attribution. You understand that while Geocodio does not impose our own attribution requirements, some of our underlying data providers may. You'll use the Source information we return with all results to determine for youself whether attribution is required for a particular result and will comply where required.

Should we draw the line at if the service (or underlying data sources) requires attribution? And if so would we classify both Geocodio and Mapbox as proprietary even though many of Geocodio's data sources are under open source licenses?

[freyfogle]

commenting as someone who often has people ask about this kind of thing the main thing people seem to be interested in

• is attribution required?
• can the data be stored permanently? (most proprietary geocoders like Google, Mapbox, etc do NOT allow this)
• is the data open?
• is the datasource editable (for example OpenStreetMap can be edited by anyone to make fixes. Some government data is open but only government people can make corrections)?
• can the data be displayed on any map? (Google for example does NOT allow this)

there are other fine grain distinctions but I think this would cover 99% of questions