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Openstreetmap is having a moment

joemorrison.medium.com

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Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#141

Post by rmc »

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #48
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #35

As a long-time OSM contributor (former editing software maintainer, former OSM Foundation board member yadda yadda) I like this piece, because it actually gets the "mutual aid" dynamic between corporate OSM and enthusiast OSM. The two should not be opposed. Rather, the more people are exposed to OSM via Facebook, Apple and so on, the more enthusiast contributors OSM gets. The more rendering tech that Mapbox releases…

Out of curiosity, is the Facebook infringement well known in the community, but considered too big an issue to broach, not worth putting time into, etc.?

The OSMF is currently working on updated Attribution Guidelines, which should go some way to address some of this, and will probably adopt something within the next month or two.

So the situation is currently fluid.

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#142

Post by matkoniecz »

throwaway11182 wrote: post #78
tweetle_beetle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, is the Facebook infringement well known in the community, but considered too big an issue to broach, not worth putting time into, etc.?

It's not a thing. A few zealots in the OpenStreetMap community want the literal words "OSM Contributors" to appear on any map that uses OpenStreetMap and they complain loudly anytime someone publishes a map that doesn't meet their made-up standard. Facebook maps attribute OpenStreetMap legally.

ODBL license has a clear requirement

> notice associated with the Produced Work reasonably calculated to make any Person that uses, views, accesses, interacts with, or is otherwise exposed to the Produced Work aware that Content was obtained from the Database

Hiding "attribution" in places where typical user will never visit (for example in menus hidden inside barely visible "i" symbol) clearly violates it.

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#143

Post by spurgu »

int_19h wrote: post #124
splonk wrote: post #115

I 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.)

> 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

Same in Europe for the locations I've checked.

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#144

Post by maxerickson »

m463 wrote: post #98
sleavey wrote: post #44

I can understand why the tech giants are getting involved in mapping. There are some really cool things being built with OSM and other data, like OpenRouteService [1] (Google Maps navigation for OSM), OpenTopoMap [2] (space shuttle topological data overlaid as contours on OSM), ORBIS [3] (Google Maps navigation for the Roman road network), and loads of detailed maps using OSM data directly but with a particular purpo…

This may sound silly, but I would use osm + routing more if it had better support for english units (miles/lbs). I wonder if that's not a slight barrier to entry to participate in the community.

There's lots of different routing engines built with OSM data. The units they expose are an implementation choice.

The routing engines available on https://www.openstreetmap.org/ (click the bendy arrow next to the search box on the upper left) do return km.

I'm not sure why this stalled out, but it looks like much of the implementation is available:

https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/pull/...

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#145

Post by maxerickson »

flukus wrote: post #114
SulfurHexaFluri wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people really use OSM for POI data on any meaningful scale? I tried really hard to use OSM but all the apps were really bad. OSMAnd seemed like the best one but it was super slow rendering on my phone while everything else was snappy. The only use I have seen for OSM data is in 3rd party apps like strava where you only really need street data which is pretty accurate on OSM. Or other specialized cases where you mo…

> Do people really use OSM for POI data on any meaningful scale? I've tried but IME this is where OSM isn't great and I find myself using google maps. I hope it improves but I wonder if this is the sort of thing that goes to the core of what sort of product it is. OSM is fantastic at maps, if I want to navigate around my immediate area that's what I'll use. Google maps is a fantastic location database, if I'm trying…

It's a chicken-egg thing.

If OpenStreetMap was a useful location database, there would be plenty enough people interested in keeping it up to date (businesses would do so, visitors to businesses would do so, etc). But in many areas at the moment, there's barely any locations, so it is hard to use.

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#146

Post by maxerickson »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #80
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photon is good for self-hosting - it’s the pre-compiled Nominatim index (you can download a dump) with an autocomplete-friendly Elasticsearch interface.

Thanks for telling me about Photon! I see that it's provided by Graphhopper, who in my experience have been absolutely excellent with technical support about Map Matching. I wish I could choose a subset instead of 53GB for the whole world so I could run it on my phone, but it's certainly realistic to run on my laptop. https://github.com/komoot/photon

There are experimental country extracts:

https://nominatim.org/2020/10/21/photon-country-extracts.htm...

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#147

Post by maxerickson »

splonk wrote: post #115

I 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…

Maybe just do 1 a week or something? Establish a little bit of momentum in the right direction without investing too much in something might not amount to anything.

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#149

Post by pabs3 »

jmkb wrote: post #136
pabs3 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNOME Maps isn't offline like OsmAnd is though, you can't download new tiles, search, navigate etc without network.

You're quite correct, I should not have described GNOME maps as offline, and my edit window has expired. Rats. OsmAnd+ (or the free OsmAnd~ version available on FDroid) is definitely the primo consumer-facing OSM-powered map. I haven't tried getting it running on desktop via Android emulation but that might be workable. Another desktop app worth mentioning is Garmin's Basecamp, a free download (Windows and Mac) for m…

I really wish OsmAnd~ had a Linux or cross-platform version.

Re: Openstreetmap is having a moment

#150

Post by mbirth »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #69
dmitriid wrote: post #60

Earlier 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

And if you have a motorbike, there’s kurviger.de that tries to find a nice route with lots of bends.

https://kurviger.de/

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