As someone who has been editing OSM for over 4 years now with thousands of edits in my hometown, its really interesting to have now big players come in and contribute to this project. Almost always otherwise the situation is reversed. They build a competing product and extend that version only. Here they are contributing together because the competition aka Google maps is still far ahead in terms of names and addresses and buildings and stuff. Still, I do my bit so yeah
Openstreetmap is having a moment
121–130 of 153 posts
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked at Nokia in the maps unit around the time that MS tried to leverage OSM and ended up licensing maps from Navteq. Trust me, everybody was very interested in OSM but also very aware of the legalities of that. Google started building its own maps in response to Nokia first buying Navteq (in 2006, which Google was depending on at the time) and subsequently offering free navigation on the N95 (S60) and later phon…
Except that both MS (Bing) and Apple use OSM. Not all over the place and not for all purposes, but they do and it isn't a secret.
MS at some poiny had a section with Bing where they provided some OSM but they'd typically disable a lot of stuff that they could not combine with the OSM license.
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#123When I spoke at the Open Source Conference Albania[1], I met a dozen Albanian young adults for whom OSM was an important bridge to developing professional technology skills. Kudos to OSM for providing a wonderful platform for personal growth in communities where it is desperately needed. [1] https://oscal.openlabs.cc
OSCAL is a fantastic conference indeed, and the OSM crowd in Albania is a lot of fun. I hope that it will soon be possible to travel there again.
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#124I hope OSM does well, and I've heard that in some areas (Germany? Various areas in smaller countries that are less well covered? Bike trails and walking trails?) it's notably better than Google Maps. That said, in my neighborhood of San Francisco (the Mission), its business listings are basically straight garbage, and I'm reminded of that every time I use any service that's based on OSM. Lazy Bear is a two Michelin s…
In US, I find that OSM maps are the best when it comes to backcountry. Google maps have the major hiking trails, for example - but when you see the same area in OSM, there's a lot more connecting trails etc, and it also marks swamps and other terrain features.
(Apple and Bing maps are even worse than Google in that regard.)
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#125I just wish somebody made a desktop port of OsmAnd. I'd pay for that.
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#126Any recommendation for an OSM viewer/querier on linux? Bonus for lightweight and maybe cli stuff. Every couple years i try some of the software listed on the wiki [#] but i'm never convinced. edit: trying foxtrotgps right now, might be the current best edit2: can't get foxtrotgps to build, but gpxsee is an ok viewer. It doesn't seem to have any graphopper search or anything tho, so again, not really convincing. [#] h…
Also Maps.me, but tricky to build.
Do you mean https://github.com/mapsme/omim? It seems like it's a mobile app. Or maybe you run it in anbox?
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> After I did a Show HN about my OSM-powered project ( https://trailrouter.com ), This is just amazing! I immediately bookmarked and sent it to friends. But I'm not a runner myself, I prefer bikes :) Do you perchance know of something similar for bikes? Though in Sweden, where I live right now, Trail Router would work very well for bikes, too, especially outside cities.
cycle.travel (my site!) is OSM-powered bike routing, including a “n km from start point” feature. Always happy to hear comments and suggestions. https://cycle.travel/map
Awesome!
Immediate comment: replace the km slider with an input field :)
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> After I did a Show HN about my OSM-powered project ( https://trailrouter.com ), This is just amazing! I immediately bookmarked and sent it to friends. But I'm not a runner myself, I prefer bikes :) Do you perchance know of something similar for bikes? Though in Sweden, where I live right now, Trail Router would work very well for bikes, too, especially outside cities.
Brouter (brouter.de) is your friend. A lot of options to tune to your preferences and a decent height model for evading ascents.
Thank you!
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#129>For instance: I work for a company called Azavea that, among many noble efforts, maintains Cicero. It’s a database of elected officials and legislative districts in several countries around the world that gets updated daily. You can imagine that this should be a public good — like, doesn’t the government already have this information? Turns out…nah. Cicero requires ceaseless, grueling work to keep updated, and that means serious investment of time and money.
FWIW there is a crowd-sourced database of politicians on WikiData,[0] if anyone wants to take part in that project.
[0] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_every_pol...
Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi. I didn't read this. I don't go on medium.com. please consider another content distribution method.
I did read it. But Medium.com doesn't seem to support RSS feeds at all. I would have liked to add a feed for your articles so I could read them even when they don't make the front page of HN.
Medium provides RSS feeds.
https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-Using-RS...