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Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

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Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#101

Post by maceurt »

throw8932894 wrote: post #85
maceurt wrote: post #80

I am against any large scale collection of data that can be used to take away an individual's privacy or to assist a government/business/person's ability to track someone's location or residence. Its one thing to not be able to do anything about a private business collecting this information on their own volition, but its another to actually aid in its collection yourself. The more you accept and buy into this realit…

Privacy ship has sailed long time ago. Try to remove license plates from your car. Or refuse to share information about your health! Now it is about gate keeping. Young people and startups, need the same ability as govs and established players. Until recently you could not even embed maps on your website (too expensive). Free data are levelling the playing field. And if anything OpenStreetMap helps me not to share my…

If we created a change we can un-create it. People who just accept that we are powerless to our past are the architects of our future hell.

> I can store map of entire continent offline on my phone, and do not have to ask remote servers for navigation!

The fact that you think anybody would need to have that is ridiculous. And also I can store an entire map of pretty much any place I need to go to and it doesn't require a phone.... Furthermore, maps are only necessary in over bloated cities not designed with facilitating humans as the main objective. Just because that is where most people live nonetheless does not make it any more right.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#102

Post by npteljes »

sovietmudkipz wrote: post #46

I struggle with contributing to open source but in a different context. In my opinion, the video games industry is information sparse on high quality software engineering practices, for whatever reason (NDAs, language/culture, etc). I am already authoring content that basically imports DevOps practices and experiences I have from my day job into a video games context. I believe practitioners have an edge over non-pra…

I think it's important to realize this struggle. You can take a myriad of approaches to life, to what and how you contribute to other people's lives. I think that ultimately you'll be taken advantage of a million times, because you can't really affect how other people act, but that shouldn't keep you from acting, if that serves you expressing yourself. So what you should be concerned about is how much it's actually hurting you or keeping you from realizing yourself.

To make this a bit more tangible, you could examine this stuggle from different viewpoints.

For example, does it hurt you that some people benefit a lot from your work, if you otherwise lead a comfortable life?

Or, would your idea/knowledge be popular if you kept it "closed source"? Maybe it's popular now and many people benefit, and if those were paying users, boy, would you be rich. But the alternative could be that the fantastic knowledge of yours wouldn't get traction in the first place, leaving you with a worse outcome, but of course you're not taken advantage of either.

I think what you should examine is what would make you feel like it's worth it to release the knowledge. Does applause sound nice? You could look into presentation. Do you like digital feedback like HN karma or youtube subscriber count? Look into content creation. I think that if you're honest with yourself about what would make you happy, then that should show the way.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#104

Post by ReleaseCandidat »

cbozeman wrote: post #77
londons_explore wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> costs basically nothing to Microsoft I wouldn't be surprised if this agreement was a big headache when Microsoft is licensing imagery from various satellite imagery providers.

Well we have SpaceX now... and Microsoft is a trillion dollar company. Launch some satellites.

They owned Vexcel for some years:

    In 2006, Vexcel Imaging was acquired by Microsoft 
    Corporation and contributed as a subsidiary to the 
    success of Microsoft’s Bing program by pushing the 
    envelope of photogrammetric hardware and software 
    technology with innovations that underpinned the Bing 
    Maps web service and mapping platform.
https://www.vexcel-imaging.com/company/

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#106

Post by techsupporter »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #87

This article is just factually wrong. It alleges repeatedly that Facebook, Apple, Microsoft etc “employ nobody in the OSM community”. They do. Microsoft even employed the founder of OSM, Steve Coast, for a while. If your criterion is ‘involved in OSM prior to current employment’, I could name a bunch of people currently working for Facebook, Amazon, Snap etc of whom that’s true. (One such person even stood for electi…

I sent this article to a friend of mine who works for Microsoft and they came back with an interesting anecdote: several groups inside Microsoft, including theirs, have recurring "hack for good" gatherings, especially during the pandemic when regular get-togethers aren't happening. One of the things they do for this is to log into a community team (I'm not sure of the exact term, I don't contribute to OSM) and spend a couple of hours tagging landmarks and streets and edges of farms and various other geographic features while BSing together as a team.

Sounds kind of relaxing to me, and a way to contribute a bulk of hours to OSM that I hadn't thought of.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#107

Post by mngnt »

up6w6 wrote: post #92

Can someone give details about what is the best way to contribute? Is there some easy way like just installing an app in my phone and receive popup notifications to answer some quick questions when I'm in a queue of a random local shop?

Check out StreetComplete. It's basically a map with question icons that help improve osm. It's even a bit gamified, you get achievements for a volume of replies :) Importantly, you can configure which types of question do you get, so you won't get bored by replying the same stuff again.

More specialized, but perhaps more important for certain people is wheelmap.org. It catalogues amenities and their wheelchair accessibility. It has similar model for contribution as StreetComplete, you answer question about stairs, door widths and toilet accessibility.

Have fun mapping :)

Edit: corrected autocorrect.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#108

Post by throwaway984393 »

einpoklum wrote: post #54
hirako2000 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 off…

> Competition is a waste I partially agree with this claim, but - FOSS software does not prevent competition, it just takes the intellectual property and copyrights aspect from it. You compete in conditions of access to your competitor's data as well as yours. And there is intense competition in FOSS! It doesn't devolve into everybody working on the same thing. But the point is it is always possible to derive from on…

I guess we should be more specific: in OSS, there is licensing competition in that there are multiple licenses. Competition between different OSS platforms is platform competition, and competition between applications on a platform is ecosystem competition.

When you think about it, there are many levels of competition, and very little code re-use. Only a few shared libraries or APIs/ABIs are actually reused by more than a handful of apps.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#109

Post by mwattsun »

juanbyrge wrote: post #68
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've enjoyed Google Maps for many years and never paid for it. You did pay for Google Maps indirectly as you were and still are a product Google sells to advertisers.

I feel like I have derived so much value from Google Maps, especially turn by turn navigation, than I don't even consider the advertisement aspects. I would happily pay a monthly fee to use it. Before it you had to use paper maps or use those very expensive and crappy Garmin devices.

It used to be a joke that married couples travelling would fight over maps. The man was always driving and the wife was always reading the large unwieldy paper map. The man would get mad about a woman's trouble reading the map. The wife would retort "What happened to your vaunted sense of direction? Why are you such a cheap skate to wait until we are lost before buying a map at a service station?" Good times.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#110

Post by nightpool »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #100
nightpool wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In practice there are people who won't be able to use the data for their use case if a non-permissive license is applied Well, of course. The whole point of a non-permissive license is to.... not permit things. It's frustrating to see people bring this out like some sort of gotcha. I use the AGPL because I think it's important that users have access to the source code the applications they interact with operate on.…

I'm not sure if you're aware, but the data on OSM is covered by their ODbL which is a "share-alike" license. From their FAQ[1]: What do you mean by Share-Alike? If you publicly use any adapted version of our database, or a partial extraction from it, or works (such as maps) produced from an adapted database, you must also offer that adapted database under the ODbL. In other words, if you improve our data and then dis…

Yes, I'm well aware. I think it maybe makes more sense to make this reply to one of the other comments I'm replying to.
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