Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap? • Hacker News Board

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#111

Post by humanistbot » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

juliansimioni wrote: post #51

Here is why you should contribute to OSM even though there are major players profiting from it: OSM is big enough and good enough that all the tech giants (except Google) would do better to start with OSM and improve it to meet their needs than to start a new, completely proprietary map from scratch. That means that we are in an amazing place where in addition to the substantial volunteer OSM community, there are con…

Right! Remember when Google made their Maps API far more restrictive and it broke a whole bunch of cool applications that were built on top of it? That can't happen with OSM.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#112

Post by alufers » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

juliansimioni wrote: post #51

Here is why you should contribute to OSM even though there are major players profiting from it: OSM is big enough and good enough that all the tech giants (except Google) would do better to start with OSM and improve it to meet their needs than to start a new, completely proprietary map from scratch. That means that we are in an amazing place where in addition to the substantial volunteer OSM community, there are con…

OSM is so good that even the fire fighters use it in Poland for navigation and finding fire hydrants. The funny thing is that if you modify or add a fire hydrant a guy from the emergency services asks to send a picture of it before he approves the change.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#113

Post by spookthesunset » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

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.

I remember back when we were at an intermediate stage of maps when you could type an address into Mapquest and then print out the directions to it and take that stack of paper with you.

Now days you can drop into the middle of almost anywhere on the globe and get mostly accurate on-the-ground directions regardless of if you walk, take public transport or drive. Made navigating Tokyo so much easier!

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#114

Post by juliansimioni » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

alufers wrote: post #112

juliansimioni wrote: post #51

Here is why you should contribute to OSM even though there are major players profiting from it: OSM is big enough and good enough that all the tech giants (except Google) would do better to start with OSM and improve it to meet their needs than to start a new, completely proprietary map from scratch. That means that we are in an amazing place where in addition to the substantial volunteer OSM community, there are con…

OSM is so good that even the fire fighters use it in Poland for navigation and finding fire hydrants. The funny thing is that if you modify or add a fire hydrant a guy from the emergency services asks to send a picture of it before he approves the change.

That's amazing! I know that lots of local and regional governments are trending towards using OSM as their source of truth for data about their area, but hadn't heard that particular story. Love it!

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#115

Post by tomarr » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

epaulson wrote: post #93

I've always thought OSM's data license should be more BSD-ish than the current LGPLish license. If you were trying to privately build and edit data from OSM, there'd be a pretty strong incentive to get most of your updates and corrections upstreamed back into OSM, (especially for things that are broadly of interest to the rest of the community) because eventually someone will also create those updates in the upstream…

I don't think that's obvious, e.g. an Apple or Facebook could take OSM and fork it privately and invest all their efforts into that, without releasing upstream for competitive advantage.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#116

Post by nradov » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

My friends and I use a lot of Garmin fitness trackers and bike computers for endurance sports training. Those devices use maps derived from OSM. So when I contribute data to OSM for free I (eventually) see a direct benefit with better navigation on my devices.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#117

Post by tverbeure » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #22

About 10 years ago I helped build a piece of software that would use OSM data and that data needed to be precise. Turned out that a lot of the Tiger Maps scans were not super accurate so I urged our company to hire a data entry team to clean up a bunch of it. We had I think 5 or 6 people whose job it was to precisely clean up OSM data based on satellite imagery in a bunch of small-medium cities as well as Chicago. Ev…

The TIGER data was (is?) terrible in terms of exact coordinates, but the graph of the streets is usually accurate.

Back in 2007 or so, I spent hundreds of hours aligning TIGER data to the satellite imagery in OSM, usually in cities I never had been before. If I remember correctly, I did most of Fresno. :-)

I’m totally fine with my edits being used commercially too.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#118

Post by durkie » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

lukeqsee wrote: post #74

juliansimioni wrote: post #51

Here is why you should contribute to OSM even though there are major players profiting from it: OSM is big enough and good enough that all the tech giants (except Google) would do better to start with OSM and improve it to meet their needs than to start a new, completely proprietary map from scratch. That means that we are in an amazing place where in addition to the substantial volunteer OSM community, there are con…

I second Julian here, as the founder of another company (in profile) that profits heavily from OSM's data set. It's amazing how good OSM is today, and the rate at which it's expanding and improving means it will only get much better over time.

Thanks for Stadia maps! Happy paying customer here and it substantially lowered my map hosting bill compared to mapbox.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#119

Post by onphonenow » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

matkoniecz wrote: post #23

> Microsoft Bing uses OSM in several regions, and is slowly moving from it’s traditional providers to OSM globally. They provide machine-learning (ML) datasets that they have computed from areal imagery. They employ nobody in the OSM community. Microsoft Bing made its aerial imagery available for OSM editing, this is often very very very useful for mapping (speaking from own experience as an OSM mapper). See https://…

The article is very weird. If the author doesn't understand the value of the aerial imagery (global) they have obviously never tried to license this stuff globally.

That alone should give Microsoft "platinum" status.

Secondly, you need users to justify investments in these products. Microsoft brings users. Now businesses and others start paying attention, updating their details etc.

Re: Should you contribute open data to OpenStreetMap?

#120

Post by indigochill » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

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…

Arguably being more permissive could lead to more recognition. Lovecraft's mythos probably wouldn't have taken off the way it did had he been the only one writing it, but he was very permissive about letting others write their own stories in it (although I'm still unclear as to how he kept his name so closely associated with it when there were plenty of other writers riffing on it).

In the tech context, if something you make gets a lot of uptake because a lot of people find it useful, then the spread of the useful thing could mean more recognition for you. But taking hold of that recognition will still require extra effort, like going to conferences to talk about the thing so people can put a face to the name.