The non-commercial use and other restrictive terms make the data not useful for open, collaborative projects like OpenStreetMap.

Data needs to pass the "cake test"... If I want a special cake made that shows some map data as a decoration, then it needs to be allowed to freely share it (with the baker) who reuses it for profit (making a cake) and redistributes it.

It's also important to be able to mix data sources (city's data), with crowdsourced data from projects like OpenStreetMap or other sources. But, then as data gets mixed and redistributed downstream, it's impossible to accept "fully responsible for any consequences resulting from any use of the Data"

Examples of good terms of use include NRCAN's GeoGratis site:

http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/geogratis/en/licence.jsp

Seattle's Open Data site's terms of use are very simple (though the attribution text is onerous):

http://data.seattle.gov/data-policy

The current data files are offered in static, compressed formats. This means that to use them, they have to be downloaded and decompressed before being integrated into an application. This limits a number of possibilities for web and mobile application development, and means that apps will not necessarily maintain up to date information as the static data files go stale (even if the City updates them in the Catalog).

For static files, please make available formats that can be externally referenced (along with fixed, permanent, URLs).

For data that may change over time, or be added to, or such, please provide dynamic APIs that can be programmatically linked to. Ideally, this would include sub-set searching and sorting abilities (especially once larger data sets start to be dealt with).

I’d be happy to discuss this in detail if you have any questions or want further clarifications.

Twitter: @grant

The map (and other path/object) data in the catalog is being supplied mostly in file formats that require specialized tools. Although there are open source tools available for some of the formats, those tools remain relatively specialized and require some specific domain knowledge to be able to use at all.

SVG is a graphic/object format that is supported directly by most current web browsers (including mobile devices). As an XML-compatible format, there are a lot of existing code libraries that can be used to work with it. It can also be used directly by JavaScript in browsers (and can be combined with the lastest CSS effects for some powerful visualizations), reducing the need for data format readers/translators when building dynamic web applications.