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Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

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Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#31

Post by matkoniecz »

phh wrote: post #6

At this point, I don't really consider OSM an OSS project, but an infrastructure. It has small value for everyone, but all combined usage, it has immense economical value for the society. All alone, it's not really useful to end-users, but it can help a lot of businesses that couldn't exist before it. Maps are already considered infrastructure, since they are already made by governments! The only missing part to say…

> The only missing part to say OSM is an infrastructure, is for governments to actually contribute to it.

The best way to contribute is to openly license government datasets, and many such datasets are already in use and being used to improve OSM (and often problems are reported back, resulting in fixes in official datasets!).

Government official editing directly would be in many cases more harmful than useful.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#32

Post by g_p »

123pie123 wrote: post #24

I wish Ordnance Survey in the UK would help out a little with the UK dataset - even with just say the buildings

OS is increasingly making available data under public open licences. I believe data under open government licence should be compatible with OSM, as it's pretty permissive.

If you combine a few different datasets you can build a pretty good picture

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/product...

The UPRN dataset gives you a point coordinate for each property.

The Zoomstack map gives building level vectors, I believe (if it isn't Zoomstack, it's one of the other free and open ones), and is pretty usable in qgis and other tools.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#33

Post by hirako2000 »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #7

If all open source software had new license terms tomorrow that said "no commercial use unless you pay me a license fee", they'd just stop using open source. Using it is a business calculation. If you don't get support and you have to pay for it, you might as well pay for proprietary software that you can get support from. And maybe that's fine! Maybe we shouldn't let companies use the software at all . But that woul…

The (strict) philosophy of open source isn't to take money from its adopters, or to prevent them to monetise, it is to spread the openness to serve humanity by having the intelligence reused and built upon rather than energy wasted on replicating and competing.

Competition is a waste, contrary to the misinformation we have been subjected to, it only serves a minority at the expense of everyone else. Collaboration offers far greater efficiencies, the essence and success of open source lies in the openness and contagion of openness to share the yield of commutative expenses.

I think the valid discontent you express is with regards to the open source flag being used to promote goodwill while in reality building a business model on it with closeness to protect monetisation. that I agree has been a plague and a very disingenuous approach to doing business, at the end hurting opensource, at least tarnishing the goodness reputation open source has built for decades.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#34

Post by matkoniecz »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #30
thepete2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your edit to google maps is a competitive advantage. Your edit to OSM is a public utility.

Google's competitive advantage?

Yes, exactly. If someone improves Google Maps then such contribution is under control and owned by Google.

If someone improves OSM then such contribution can be used by anyone - from hobby map maker, through artists, maker of open source navigation to evil corporations.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#35

Post by matkoniecz »

> The only one I can recommend as being easy to use is StreetComplete for Android

This is nice to hear as major contributor to that software (if you use that app and something is unclear then it is likely a bug that should be reported to https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete/issues )

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#36

Post by VictorPath »

OpenStreetMap has an "on the ground rule" where a street, a street name, a city, a city name etc. are determined by who currently has control on the ground. So the Malvinas are the Falkland Islands, Derry is Londonderry etc.

The sole exception to this is the Crimea, which the OSM board ruled is exempt from this rule, as they favor the Ukrainian government over the Russian government.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#37

Post by simonh »

hirako2000 wrote: post #19

no. I wish osm would adjust their licensing to prevent reuse of contributions to build non free (as in open) servicing.

Since companies including Apple and Microsoft contribute a lot of data and funding to OSM, what benefits do you imagine would result from preventing them using it?

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#40

Post by burkaman »

yosito wrote: post #21

This article is a bit scattered. But it makes one good point: Big Tech companies are profiting off of the OSM data set, while employing no one working on OSM. How do we change that?

We don't need to change that because it isn't true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29714360

The author is using very specific phrasing ("in the OSM community") that apparently excludes corporate employees that contribute to OSM.

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