Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 4/11/2011 11:41 AM, Ian Dees wrote: When Google turns Google MapMaker on in the US and Europe*, it will become much harder to recruit new mappers to our community (that is already quite small). Being passive about this issue means that OSM and its more-open data will eventually be drowned out by Google's much greater marketing might. http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20055063-250.html ...Google won't take input from other community map sources, like Open Street Map or Waze. There are two reasons for this, one of which I got from Google, the other unstated. First, the user approval system was created for this project and isn't even used by other Google services. Adapting it to other user systems is just not on the project plan at the moment. The unstated reason: Google's data licensing is incompatible with other community maps. OpenStreetMap, for example, uses Creative Commons. Google does not: What you put on Google, Google owns ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
So here it begins, Google Map Maker now available in the US: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/add-your-local-knowledge-to-map-with.html http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/mapmaker/ -Josh On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 7:02 AM, Mike N nice...@att.net wrote: On 4/11/2011 11:41 AM, Ian Dees wrote: When Google turns Google MapMaker on in the US and Europe*, it will become much harder to recruit new mappers to our community (that is already quite small). Being passive about this issue means that OSM and its more-open data will eventually be drowned out by Google's much greater marketing might. http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-20055063-250.html ...Google won't take input from other community map sources, like Open Street Map or Waze. There are two reasons for this, one of which I got from Google, the other unstated. First, the user approval system was created for this project and isn't even used by other Google services. Adapting it to other user systems is just not on the project plan at the moment. The unstated reason: Google's data licensing is incompatible with other community maps. OpenStreetMap, for example, uses Creative Commons. Google does not: What you put on Google, Google owns ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Mikel, On 04/11/2011 05:27 PM, Mikel Maron wrote: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/04/11/1635 In the following message, all quotes are from your blog post. I've given this matter some thought and I think while your concerns are legitimate, you are perhaps overreacting a bit. OpenStreetMap and Google have always been friendly competitors. We have profited a lot from Google. They have invented many things that we could copy (e.g. the slippy map); they have blazed a trail that we could follow, they have made online maps into the commodity they are, they have established the product and created the market. How often have I had it easy to OSM to someone because I could say: This is just like Google Maps, just that list differences. Google have also supported us directly. Ed Parsons being present at a number of State of the Map conferences has given us a credibility boost in the eyes of many (when they could also have sent a low-ranking minion for information gathering). Google gave us cash for a new server at a time when money wasn't flowing like it is today; and they have given our project Summer of Code stipends even though it would have been perfectly in their right to say no, we don't want to support the competition. On top of all this, they have patiently accepted that we are bashing their product nearly every time we market OSM: We are like Google Maps, only better! Google’s strategy is to build market in Africa by appropriating the appearance of open data community methodologies, yet maintaining corporate control of what should rightfully be a common resource. I share your sentiment, but I have long given up fighting this. I stand aghast at someone waving their iPhone, asking them why on earth they willfully submit to Apple's dictate over what they can and cannot do on this little machine that, for many, quickly becomes an integral part of their life. Their answer: It just works! - I see people uploading half their lifes to Twitter, geocaching.com, Facebook, and I say don't you know these are closed platforms operated by commercial entities with the aim of maintaining corporate control? - and they go but everyone does it, and it works so well, it doesn't cost a thing, and anyway it's not really closed, look it even has an API! And what works for the individual also works for large organisations - whole universities training their geography students in ESRI software because ESRI made this great offer where the academic license was almost free and comes with premium support - when one could argue that this provides them quite a bit of corporate control over education. What you lament for countries in Africa has happended to cities in Germany in very similar fashion - the city had their own geodata but no printed street map; a publishing house came along and offered to print free street maps for everyone if they get an exclusive license to using the data in print; the city said great, win-win situation and signed the contract; now they're stuck with second-rate printed maps and don't even control their own resources. It happens all over the world, all the time - commercial entities making offers that are too good to refuse, just sign away a tiny little part of your sovereignty here and we'll give you all this for free. (Thing exploration of natural resources!) I, too, find a lot to be criticised here, but I think it is unfair to single out Google. What bothers me so much is how they have blatantly copied OpenStreetMap. First their MapMaker product is directly modelled on OSM, but with a restrictive data license, where you can not use the data as you see fit. Second, they have stolen the idea of Mapping Parties, a unique concept and name we developed. Third, they’re even copying initiatives to map impoverished informal settlements, like Map Kibera. I think blatantly copy and steal are not the right words to describe the situation. Could we have patented the ideas of OSM and of mapping parties if we had wanted to? I doubt it. It is ok for others to be inspired by the success of OSM - just as we have been inspired by what Google offers their users in online mapping. I think we have to admit that free and open is a luxury thing. First you want a working computer, and then you can think about whether it's free and open. If Microsoft offers to install a Windows PC in every school in your impoverished city, you will not say no just because it's a proprietary operating system. And while some might bash Microsoft for exploiting the weakness of the other side in this situation, I don't think that's fair - they make an offer and the other side is free to accept or reject. Which brings us back to Google offering, as you say free maps to impoverished countries in return for, I assume, commercial exploitation rights to the geodata that has been collected. Yes, you could say they're exploiting the weakness of the other side - but then
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 1:06 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, Bernhard Zwischenbrugger wrote: Where can I access the OSM data? I know it is possible to download the hole planet, setup a database,... but that's not an easy task. Not easy, but possible, and done by literally hundreds of people all over the world. I would place downloading the planet on the same level as compiling a kernel. Not really hard, but something most Ubuntu users are scared of doing. /Erik ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:58:05 +0200, Erik Johansson wrote: On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 1:06 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Hi, Bernhard Zwischenbrugger wrote: Where can I access the OSM data? I know it is possible to download the hole planet, setup a database,... but that's not an easy task. Not easy, but possible, and done by literally hundreds of people all over the world. I would place downloading the planet on the same level as compiling a kernel. Not really hard, but something most Ubuntu users are scared of doing. Downloading is the easy part (if you have reasonably fast connection), but making actually some use to it is the worse part - you need lot of disk space depending on what you want to do (tens of GB with OSM3S, hundreds of GBs for importing into postgres, etc ...) and lot of CPU time (probably over a day) to convert/import the planet into something that can be further used. And if you get lucky, the import process gets killed at 85% by OOM killer or some other fault and you can start again. But it is same for wikipedia - merely reading it on web is simple, but if you want an offline copy, you'll start with 6.7GB compressed XML dump and after spending some time with attempts to import this into local database, soon you'll find out that you need to download some .sql files to speed up the import (so wikimedia won't need to recalculate all the links between articles) and you need to somehow download all the images that are used (you need to write some script for that or perhaps check the net to find if someone already did that). Not exactly easy either. But unlike wikipedia, in OSM there are extracts, which have usually some reasonable size (you can pick a continent of interest, or just the country, or for some large countries like france and germany, extracts for regions are also available). Cutting smaller parts like entire city from the extract with osmosis is then quite easy and fast (several minutes, perhaps an hour at maximum) Martin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 12 April 2011 09:58, Erik Johansson e...@kth.se wrote: I would place downloading the planet on the same level as compiling a kernel. Not really hard, but something most Ubuntu users are scared of doing. Agreed, but then again do you expect everyone every Ubuntu users to start compiling kernels? Technical OSM has a learning curve but then again GIS has also a high learning curve. I guess that as soon as you get technical it limits the number of people who can do it, but at least you are not limiting who can do it as opposed to be part of the closed source. Emilie Laffray ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
[OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/04/11/1635 == Mikel Maron == +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 11 Apr 2011, at 16:27, Mikel Maron wrote: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/04/11/1635 Meh – the great thing about being open is that you get to take the moral high ground because you're not stopping other people doing what they like. Why spoil that by trying to stop google doing what they like? Bob ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:33 AM, Thomas Davie tom.da...@gmail.com wrote: On 11 Apr 2011, at 16:27, Mikel Maron wrote: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/04/11/1635 Meh – the great thing about being open is that you get to take the moral high ground because you're not stopping other people doing what they like. Why spoil that by trying to stop google doing what they like? When Google turns Google MapMaker on in the US and Europe*, it will become much harder to recruit new mappers to our community (that is already quite small). Being passive about this issue means that OSM and its more-open data will eventually be drowned out by Google's much greater marketing might. -Ian * At Google's MapMaker User's summit last week someone said that this would happen (at least in the US) soon. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Meh – the great thing about being open is that you get to take the moral high ground because you're not stopping other people doing what they like. Why spoil that by trying to stop google doing what they like? Sorry, no time for moral relativism right now. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 11 Apr 2011, at 16:43, Mikel Maron wrote: Meh – the great thing about being open is that you get to take the moral high ground because you're not stopping other people doing what they like. Why spoil that by trying to stop google doing what they like? Sorry, no time for moral relativism right now. If you don't mind about being open, why are you not just using Google's data already?___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 11 April 2011 16:48, Thomas Davie tom.da...@gmail.com wrote: If you don't mind about being open, why are you not just using Google's data already? Hello, thank you for your insightful comment, I will move immediately to Google and start using their data directly. Can you point out to me where I can access their data so I can make an efficient use of them? Emilie Laffray ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 11 Apr 2011, at 17:16, Emilie Laffray wrote: On 11 April 2011 16:48, Thomas Davie tom.da...@gmail.com wrote: If you don't mind about being open, why are you not just using Google's data already? Hello, thank you for your insightful comment, I will move immediately to Google and start using their data directly. Can you point out to me where I can access their data so I can make an efficient use of them? Congratulations, I believe a whoosh is in order. The original post is essentially suggesting that we should paint ourselves as black as google already is – he's suggesting that letting google work with our ideas and data is a bad thing... How is this in any way better than google saying that us working with their ideas and data is bad? Tom Davie___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Could we perhaps work together with Google by organizing joint mapping parties where the resulting data is added to both maps? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and as with other pseudo-free map projects like People's Map, we should take this as a vindication of the OSM approach. I can appreciate that it really sucks when they copy ideas and claim the credit for them. -- Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 4/11/2011 12:50 PM, Ed Avis wrote: Could we perhaps work together with Google by organizing joint mapping parties where the resulting data is added to both maps? LOL, that's what I was thinking; let them organize the party, attend and enter wherever I wish. It's doubtful that they would have an attendance requirement that the results can only be entered in MM. Much like the store owner who sees the flyer from his new competitor that says Grand opening sale Saturday under the big balloon. The store owner just needs to rent a bigger balloon for Saturday, and he can benefit from their advertising! ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
This was *directly* proposed to Google for a specific country (details have to remain private for now). It was even proposed to collect data into a neutral database and 'publish' it into both MM and OSM ... they said flat out they were not interested. It occurs to me that they simply want to own the data if they are going to participate in this kind of thing. So, 'sharing' is a non-starter. Jeff On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:50 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Could we perhaps work together with Google by organizing joint mapping parties where the resulting data is added to both maps? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and as with other pseudo-free map projects like People's Map, we should take this as a vindication of the OSM approach. I can appreciate that it really sucks when they copy ideas and claim the credit for them. -- Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Yup there's several examples of negotiating similar compromises, all for naught; among other stories of dastardly deeds. Happy to collect these into a follow up post. Mikel on the phone On Apr 11, 2011, at 13:18, Jeffrey Johnson ortel...@gmail.com wrote: This was *directly* proposed to Google for a specific country (details have to remain private for now). It was even proposed to collect data into a neutral database and 'publish' it into both MM and OSM ... they said flat out they were not interested. It occurs to me that they simply want to own the data if they are going to participate in this kind of thing. So, 'sharing' is a non-starter. Jeff On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:50 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Could we perhaps work together with Google by organizing joint mapping parties where the resulting data is added to both maps? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and as with other pseudo-free map projects like People's Map, we should take this as a vindication of the OSM approach. I can appreciate that it really sucks when they copy ideas and claim the credit for them. -- Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Also relevant to this discussion (although not directly related to Mikel's post): Ed Parsons talks about the difference between OSM and MapMaker at minute 39 of this recording http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/13672861 (incidentally this set of videos is also where someone from Google mentioned GMM coming to the US soon) -Ian On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 1:07 PM, Mikel mikel_ma...@yahoo.com wrote: Yup there's several examples of negotiating similar compromises, all for naught; among other stories of dastardly deeds. Happy to collect these into a follow up post. Mikel on the phone On Apr 11, 2011, at 13:18, Jeffrey Johnson ortel...@gmail.com wrote: This was *directly* proposed to Google for a specific country (details have to remain private for now). It was even proposed to collect data into a neutral database and 'publish' it into both MM and OSM ... they said flat out they were not interested. It occurs to me that they simply want to own the data if they are going to participate in this kind of thing. So, 'sharing' is a non-starter. Jeff On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 9:50 AM, Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com wrote: Could we perhaps work together with Google by organizing joint mapping parties where the resulting data is added to both maps? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and as with other pseudo-free map projects like People's Map, we should take this as a vindication of the OSM approach. I can appreciate that it really sucks when they copy ideas and claim the credit for them. -- Ed Avis e...@waniasset.com ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Mikel, It's indeed a scary prospect to have Google sucking the life out of our burgeoning community. What suggestions do you have/actions are you taking[1] to help us compete with Google? - Serge [1] Either as an individual or as part of the OSM Foundation board. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
I think 'sucking the life' is a bit of a strong term. On 4/11/2011 11:49 AM, Serge Wroclawski wrote: Mikel, It's indeed a scary prospect to have Google sucking the life out of our burgeoning community. What suggestions do you have/actions are you taking[1] to help us compete with Google? - Serge [1] Either as an individual or as part of the OSM Foundation board. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:41:42AM -0500, Ian Dees wrote: When Google turns Google MapMaker on in the US and Europe*, it will become much harder to recruit new mappers to our community (that is already quite small). Being passive about this issue means that OSM and its more-open data will eventually be drowned out by Google's much greater marketing might. -Ian * At Google's MapMaker User's summit last week someone said that this would happen (at least in the US) soon. Its all about freedom - and teaching the people about it. The stricter our new license is, the less difference people will be able to see when telling them. This is why i am proposing BSD all the time - its the biggest difference one can get from anything all others do. No restrictions - period. Flo -- Florian Lohoff f...@zz.de „Für eine ausgewogene Energiepolitik über das Jahr 2020 hinaus ist die Nutzung von Atomenergie eine Brückentechnologie und unverzichtbar. Ein Ausstieg in zehn Jahren, wie noch unter der rot-grünen Regierung beschlossen, kommt für die nationale Energieversorgung zu abrupt.“ Angela Merkel CDU 30.8.2009 signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Let's not loose sight of a few facts / trends w.r.t. sub Saharan Africa: 1. The continent is not experiencing the same demographic dividend as other emerging economies. Birthrates will remain high for at least another 50 years. AIDS is decimating the economically active population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe 2. African governments are simply not building the required infrastructure. 3. The mobile phone has increase productivity in Africa more than all previous inventions combined. Farmers no longer need to make slow and expensive journeys to find out what price the market will pay for their crops. Migrant workers can send money to their families over long distances. 4. A dismally small percentage of Africans can read maps. But augmented reality-type applications will completely change that. 5. OSM is simply not successful enough in Africa to cover the tremendous opportunities presented in points 3 and 4. Lack of cheap Internet access on the African continent should take most of the blame. But it doesn't help that so many OSM apps are not available in Africa (Skobbler, ORS, OSM-3D etc). So I'm really glad about Google's efforts. -- Note that if you use Google to search for Mapping party, the top hit is the the OSM wiki. So it's public knowledge that we invented and perfected the concept. Regards, Nic On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Mikel Maron mikel_ma...@yahoo.com wrote: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/04/11/1635 == Mikel Maron == +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Of course, its not about the license at all - if you appeal to fans of licenses you'll attract nobody. Google will take potential users by providing an awesome end product; the sort if thing everyone can appreciate. Make some awesome mapping products and you'll attract plenty of contributors and you'll be able to leave licensing talk to the nerds, presumably just as Google plans. Cheers, Joseph On 11 Apr 2011 20:07, Florian Lohoff f...@zz.de wrote: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 10:41:42AM -0500, Ian Dees wrote: When Google turns Google MapMaker on in the US and Europe*, it will become much harder to recruit new mappers to our community (that is already quite small). Being passive about this issue means that OSM and its more-open data will eventually be drowned out by Google's much greater marketing might. -Ian * At Google's MapMaker User's summit last week someone said that this would happen (at least in the US) soon. Its all about freedom - and teaching the people about it. The stricter our new license is, the less difference people will be able to see when telling them. This is why i am proposing BSD all the time - its the biggest difference one can get from anything all others do. No restrictions - period. Flo -- Florian Lohoff f...@zz.de „Für eine ausgewogene Energiepolitik über das Jahr 2020 hinaus ist die Nutzung von Atomenergie eine Brückentechnologie und unverzichtbar. Ein Ausstieg in zehn Jahren, wie noch unter der rot-grünen Regierung beschlossen, kommt für die nationale Energieversorgung zu abrupt.“ Angela Merkel CDU 30.8.2009 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 08:14:28PM +0100, Joseph Reeves wrote: Of course, its not about the license at all - if you appeal to fans of licenses you'll attract nobody. Google will take potential users by providing an awesome end product; the sort if thing everyone can appreciate. Make some awesome mapping products and you'll attract plenty of contributors and you'll be able to leave licensing talk to the nerds, presumably just as Google plans. When you can do more with the data than what them on one companys site people will probably start listening. IMHO the more open we will offer the data the more applications and usage types will spin off and people will be happy to contribute as their little cornercase of geolocation will suddenly print the correct results. The more means BSD or PD for me - its the same with linux. One day there only will be one global set of geodata and suddenly the whole protectionism some where proposing in 2008,9,10,11 seems like a silly little joke we all will hopefully laugh about. Flo -- Florian Lohoff f...@zz.de „Für eine ausgewogene Energiepolitik über das Jahr 2020 hinaus ist die Nutzung von Atomenergie eine Brückentechnologie und unverzichtbar. Ein Ausstieg in zehn Jahren, wie noch unter der rot-grünen Regierung beschlossen, kommt für die nationale Energieversorgung zu abrupt.“ Angela Merkel CDU 30.8.2009 signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On 11 April 2011 20:14, Joseph Reeves iknowjos...@gmail.com wrote: Of course, its not about the license at all - if you appeal to fans of licenses you'll attract nobody. Google will take potential users by providing an awesome end product; the sort if thing everyone can appreciate. Make some awesome mapping products and you'll attract plenty of contributors and you'll be able to leave licensing talk to the nerds, presumably just as Google plans. Agreed. Most OSMers don't care about the license so why would people in the developing world? Being critical of Google serves no purpose. They aren't forcing people to contribute to their products. gmaps is cool and everybody uses it so people naturally want to see their street, business, etc. on there. We should concentrate on making OSM a better competitor. A couple of things I can think of: - Why do so many people create OSM accounts but then just do a few edits or none at all? How about a poll directed to those people to try and get to the root of the problem? Is it the editors or the help available or something else? - A lot of effort has gone into making Potlatch and JOSM the powerful tools that they are but if you are in a developing country with just a mobile phone or a low spec laptop with a crappy internet connection they are going to suck. How would someone in that situation contriibute to OSM? Kevin ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
5. OSM is simply not successful enough in Africa to cover the tremendous opportunities presented in points 3 and 4. Lack of cheap Internet access on the African continent should take most of the blame. But it doesn't help that so many OSM apps are not available in Africa (Skobbler, ORS, OSM-3D etc). To argue the other side of the coin, however, OSM is already the most successful mapping platform in Africa; Ivory Coast, for example, is best catered for by OpenStreetMap. Leaving Africa, OSM has been fantastically successful in Haiti - if you want maps of Haiti, you go to, without exception, OpenStreetMap. In Haiti, for example, local people are being trained in how to map for OpenStreetMap; this is people in the developing world mapping for themselves. The important thing with Ivory Coast and Haiti is that OpenStreetMap has provided an amazing resource that you can't get from elsewhere, certainly not from GMM. That's one of the products that I was alluding to in my previous email: spatial data. The problem is that this amazing work on the OSM front was done by a small a group of people working under the HOT banner; Google has endless more resources in this respect. OSM can provide the most amazing mapping resources for the entire planet, but we lack Google's money and person-power to get it done as much as could be. The problem with welcoming Google into the world of user-contributed spatial-data is that you dilute our available resources even further by encouraging potential users to lock up their data with the big G. I couldn't agree more with Mikel's original point; if we want to provide mapping resources to the wider world and to the benefit of the most people, we should turn our backs on Google and give our support to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. Cheers, Joseph On 11 April 2011 20:12, Nic Roets nro...@gmail.com wrote: Let's not loose sight of a few facts / trends w.r.t. sub Saharan Africa: 1. The continent is not experiencing the same demographic dividend as other emerging economies. Birthrates will remain high for at least another 50 years. AIDS is decimating the economically active population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusian_catastrophe 2. African governments are simply not building the required infrastructure. 3. The mobile phone has increase productivity in Africa more than all previous inventions combined. Farmers no longer need to make slow and expensive journeys to find out what price the market will pay for their crops. Migrant workers can send money to their families over long distances. 4. A dismally small percentage of Africans can read maps. But augmented reality-type applications will completely change that. 5. OSM is simply not successful enough in Africa to cover the tremendous opportunities presented in points 3 and 4. Lack of cheap Internet access on the African continent should take most of the blame. But it doesn't help that so many OSM apps are not available in Africa (Skobbler, ORS, OSM-3D etc). So I'm really glad about Google's efforts. -- Note that if you use Google to search for Mapping party, the top hit is the the OSM wiki. So it's public knowledge that we invented and perfected the concept. Regards, Nic On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Mikel Maron mikel_ma...@yahoo.com wrote: http://brainoff.com/weblog/2011/04/11/1635 == Mikel Maron == +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
If you don't mind about being open, why are you not just using Google's data already? Hello, thank you for your insightful comment, I will move immediately to Google and start using their data directly. Can you point out to me where I can access their data so I can make an efficient use of them? Where can I access the OSM data? I know it is possible to download the hole planet, setup a database,... but that's not an easy task. I'm a teacher and my students are able to load data from an API and display the data on a map. Last year we did some projects using XAPI - but then xapi was broken. We had about 100 API Requests per week. For that amount of requests it makes no sense to have a local copy of the db. But without db we are not able to read osm data. Without data everything is tile based and that's the same as google and bing are offering. MapQuest is offering XAPI now - but will it still be available in 2 month? Bernhard ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
Hi, Bernhard Zwischenbrugger wrote: Where can I access the OSM data? I know it is possible to download the hole planet, setup a database,... but that's not an easy task. Not easy, but possible, and done by literally hundreds of people all over the world. You are missing the point if you compare data that is not free by license to data that is free but cumbersome to use. The latter case can be fixed by manpower; the former cannot. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] We Need to Stop Google's Exploitation of Open Communities
On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 6:52 PM, Bernhard Zwischenbrugger b...@datenkueche.com wrote: Where can I access the OSM data? I know it is possible to download the hole planet, setup a database,... but that's not an easy task. Setting up a full mirror of any constantly changing data is non-trivial, and there are people in the project working on making it easier. I'm a teacher and my students are able to load data from an API and display the data on a map. Last year we did some projects using XAPI - but then xapi was broken. That's unfortunate, and had to do with lots of factors. But then Ian stepped up and wrote replacement code, and now you can run your own XAPI, use OSM's, or Mapquest's. We had about 100 API Requests per week. For that amount of requests it makes no sense to have a local copy of the db. But without db we are not able to read osm data. Sure, but then you might similarly say Do we need fresh data or can we simply use an extract for teaching purposes?. Live demos never work- relying on external services for teaching, same thing. But I digress. Without data everything is tile based and that's the same as google and bing are offering. MapQuest is offering XAPI now - but will it still be available in 2 month? I suspect so. But if this is so vital to your class, maybe your university could offer resources to the project. - Serge ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
