On Wed, 2010-06-09 at 16:57 +0100, Craig Loftus wrote: > As another thought; I believe it has been mentioned before that the OS > thinks that OSM could fill a valuable role in keeping footpaths > up-to-date (as the OS don't)... previous discussions on the list > seemed to reveal some uncertainty surrounding footpaths. Perhaps if > the OS did the leg work to open up all the footpaths we could just > take it off their hands entirely? With them becoming the downstream.
If I owned a business making and selling maps, I would be asking myself some serious questions about the long term viability of the current business models. I think OSM now has quite a compelling argument to make to the map companies that unless they start seeing themselves as downstream providers with their own value add, then they are going to become obsolete, with other value add companies taking their place. The companies are still in the position where they can generate huge goodwill by feeding data into the commons, but this won't last indefinitely. I mean, what do AtoZ currently offer beyond a brand and a neat booklet? In many cases the OSM data is hugely superior. Its been said the OS resisted the recent data release, but I actually think it makes very good business sense, particularly for the data they did released. hen _______________________________________________ Talk-GB mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-gb
