Consider alternative basemap tile providers

[reyemtm]

See https://gist.github.com/reyemtm/0b57ca5e6535d3f2fe274442a17a782a for an example of the OSM data served by Esri in the Toner style. I also have an OSM basemap style.

[brendan-ward]

What is the advantage of making the switch here? The preview maps are not intended to be full featured map viewers, so we just needed a lightweight, low dependency basemap not gated via accounts / tokens. Meaning: an image rather than vector basemap is not necessarily a problem for preview maps.

Seems like switching to vector tiles introduces the requirement that we also include a style JSON (as per your example). Also - I've had issues using ESRI vector tilesets with Mapbox GL JS, because by default they use indexed rather than flat tilesets (meaning not all tiles are available at all zooms), which breaks the frontend because Mapbox GL JS does not support this approach.

[reyemtm]

I was getting a CORS error on the default Arc tiles, so I looked into alternatives and remembered this style I had. I'm not sure if the tiles are indexed or flat, I will look into that. I just prefer the way vector tiles render alongside other vector data, but that's a minor issue.

Separately I do not think you can use Esri image tiles without your org having an Esri license. I was under the impression that the Esri OSM vector tiles had a more open license, but now after looking again I cannot seem to find anything that states that concretely. If I find something along those lines I will update this issue. It might make sense if the license cannot be figured out to move away from Esri tiles entirely to something with a more permissive license.

[brendan-ward]

I'm onboard with moving to freely available tiles with permissive licenses for use in our preview pages. It looks like the OSM hosted tilesets don't allow this use case (https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/) because it seems similar enough to distributing an app that uses tiles from openstreetmap.org even if the preview pages are definitely not our focus here.

It looks like Stamen maps are the only ones I can find without some sort of a restriction on them. Please feel free to suggest other alternatives.

[reyemtm]

Was going to suggest Stamen as well, the toner style. I did find the original blog post announcing Esri OSM vector tiles. "In fact, it will be freely available to any user or developer that would like to use an OSM vector basemap in their map or app!". That's why I was under the impression their usage was openly licensed. I can't seem to find any actual legal doc that explains this further however. https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/js-api-arcgis/mapping/new-osm-vector-basemap/

…

On Mon, Jun 6, 2022, 5:02 PM Brendan Ward ***@***.***> wrote: I'm onboard with moving to freely available tiles with permissive licenses for use in our preview pages. It looks like the OSM hosted tilesets don't allow this use case (https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/tiles/) because it seems similar enough to distributing an app that uses tiles from openstreetmap.org even if the preview pages are definitely not our focus here. It looks like Stamen maps are the only ones I can find without some sort of a restriction on them. Please feel free to suggest other alternatives. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#147 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABQ2HUMBKAQTBL76KD3QHFDVNZROTANCNFSM5X7BVL2Q> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[reyemtm]

Also it does look like the esri vector basemap tiles are indexed, not sure how big of a deal that is in this scenario however. Still switching to Stamen raster tiles would be the simplest option.

[jleedev]

Carto Positron is pretty good: https://stamen.com/introducing-positron-dark-matter-new-basemap-styles-for-cartodb-d02172610baa/

{
  "tiles": [
    "https://cartodb-basemaps-a.global.ssl.fastly.net/light_all/{z}/{x}/{y}{ratio}.png",
    "https://cartodb-basemaps-b.global.ssl.fastly.net/light_all/{z}/{x}/{y}{ratio}.png",
    "https://cartodb-basemaps-c.global.ssl.fastly.net/light_all/{z}/{x}/{y}{ratio}.png",
    "https://cartodb-basemaps-d.global.ssl.fastly.net/light_all/{z}/{x}/{y}{ratio}.png"
  ],
  "tileSize": 256,
  "attribution": "© <a href=\"http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright\"> OpenStreetMap </a> contributors, © <a href=\"https://carto.com/about-carto/\"> CARTO </a>"
}

(There's also dark_all).

[brendan-ward]

It looks like those are also restricted? Here is what I see from the linked Carto page.

How can I use CARTO basemaps?
Our basemaps can be used for free in applications and visualizations by [CARTO grantees](https://carto.com/grants/)...
For commercial purposes, you will need an Enterprise license to ensure you have the best basemaps available for your project.

Presumably nobody is (or should be) using the preview maps as they are for commercial purposes, but since it is bundled into an app that has an MIT license without non-commercial constraints, we'd probably at least want to note that. (similar issues technically apply for users that don't have an ESRI license with the basemaps we have now...)

[reyemtm]

Stamen maps are now end-of-life. Options could be to use Stadia and require a token in the environment variables? Without a token commercial use is not allowed. Not sure of other options...

[jleedev]

Stadia authenticates requests by referrer (https://docs.stadiamaps.com/authentication/), which is convenient as there's no need to change the URL to add an API key. It also freely responds to localhost up to a rate limit.