2009/1/30 Tom Lancaster <tom at grubbyconsulting.com>: > Hey, that's my site! > > I think I should explain why we decided to use OSM as it's relevant to > this list. For a couple of years we had been using the google > satellite map with our own hand-drawn layers showing streets and > street names. We thought it would only be a matter of time before > Google published a great map of Hanoi. What happened instead was that > Google has an unfinished map of Hanoi and, I'm guessing because the > Hanoi market is not important enough, they decided to enlist "the > community " to finish it for them. That, for us, was the last straw - > a giant corporation asking the public to contribute their labor to > building Google's Intellectual Property stash. Any effort that we > would have put into completing the Gmap would have belonged to Google. > By contrast OSM belongs to everyone, being licensed according to a > Creative Commons license. > > Since we decided to use OSM we've invested a lot of time in bringing > the Hanoi map up to a usable standard, by adding street names and > streets (using the satellite view in the OSM editor) and by riding > around Hanoi with GPS devices making traces that we used to add new > ways (streets). > > We have GPS data on Sapa which we will convert to OSM soon, too. > > The missing "elephant in the room" is the Saigon map. Being based in > Hanoi it's difficult for us to work on this, so I encourage anyone who > spends time there to work on it, for the benefit of everyone. > > I just launched a new feature, btw, which allows you to search by > location - you can search near to pre-defined points, or define your > own search points (like "my house," "my office," etc.). You can see it > at http://newhanoian.xemzi.com/entity/advanced_search > > Our database is far from complete, but anyone can add to it if they > find missing places, at http://newhanoian.xemzi.com/venue/add > > Yes, any data you enter will belong to us, but you will always be > credited for entering it, and you will gain influence in the new > hanoian community by entering stuff. > >> >> Anyway, the reason of this email is to encourage the people that has already >> participated editing the Maps of OSM to get a free GPS device from them. >> Is very easy, just go to this site and apply. >> http://foundation.openstreetmap.org/gpstogo/ > > Interesting, thanks Ivan. > > Regards, > > Tom
They seem to be very interesting, editing is easy and quick to learn too. I will spread this site around on some tech oriented forum like Voz and handheldvn. Phuong
