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Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

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51–60 of 77 posts

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#51
post #38

They probably saw the 'amazing ios6 maps' blog and were like 'damn, time to put some money in'

If the Knight Foundation made this grant last month, they would not get nearly as much press. Apple's Map mishap is a great PR opportunity to point out our dependence on walled gardens and promote alternatives.

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#52
post #28
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if I got it right, if Google uses OpenStreetMap, they will have to make their data available under ODBL? Good luck with that.

That used to be my big caveat with ODBL too. Though the final version of the license differentiates between "Derivative Database" and "Collective Database". Effectively it seems that if your application uses OSM data as one layer, and non-OSM data as separate layers, it would make up a "Collective Database", and you'd only have to release changes to the OSM data itself. That's potentially a huge improvement. The prob…

There are some cases where it's perfectly fine to not have to release the data, like if you, as a company make a map of how much each store makes in revenue, and you want to use OSM. You should not have to release internal, confidential sales data.

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#53
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSM just changed their license. Possibly for this very reason...

From what I heard in 2011, the OSM license change was motivated by legal status of the data in the EU. Creative Commons is seen as an arts license and data could only be licensed and protected through an appropriate data license.

An USA. USA doesn't have 'sweat of the brow' aspect of copyright, so it's debatable if a 'collection of facts' (i.e. the OSM database) could be copyrightable in the USA.

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#54
post #30

The more we hate the Apple's map, the more we need to worry if our life is depending too much on a particular company like Google or Facebook. It is just the beginning, kudos to OSM, I really hope OSM can be as successful as Wikipedia in the future.

Apple wrote a software application which uses Openstreetmap and Tomtom. They don't have an actual map data set like Google does.

If they use OSM, they have the actual map data. That's all OSM produces...

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#56

How long, one wonders, until Open Street Map becomes the ubiquitous standard? Could Google switch to using it, and feed into it themselves to improve its results further?

OpenStreetMap just underwent a rather tortuous conversion from using Creative Commons to the ODBL ( http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ ) I don't fully understand the ramifications, but it's possible that this was done so that companies like Google could build products on top of OSM data rather than re-invent the wheel, possibly in a parallel to GPL and LGPL or the split between Linux and thing like Tivo or And…

Does Foursquare's Venue data count as "map data" or "mashup data"?

IMHO, basic venue metadata info like name, address, geocoded address, and other details like phone number, hours and website should count as map data. Stuff like user reviews should count as mashup data.

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#58

Could anyone explain what the benefit might be to investing in an open source service like OpenStreetMap? This is a sincere question. [edit] I know that the concept is brilliant, it's a great service, and has great potential. Will investors potentially build chargeable products that use it? Why not just invest more into their product to enhance it?

Companies like MapBox, Stamen, MapQuest, and Bing, who have OSM layers, have an incentive to improve OSM data because it makes them competitive with Google; it eliminates the massive fixed/sunk cost of creating proprietary data and redirects the game into how you can use/distribute/mainstream that data. The business models for that are fairly clear; charging for services based on the data.

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#59
post #58

Could anyone explain what the benefit might be to investing in an open source service like OpenStreetMap? This is a sincere question. [edit] I know that the concept is brilliant, it's a great service, and has great potential. Will investors potentially build chargeable products that use it? Why not just invest more into their product to enhance it?

Companies like MapBox, Stamen, MapQuest, and Bing, who have OSM layers, have an incentive to improve OSM data because it makes them competitive with Google; it eliminates the massive fixed/sunk cost of creating proprietary data and redirects the game into how you can use/distribute/mainstream that data. The business models for that are fairly clear; charging for services based on the data.

Makes sense! I didn't realize those companies use OSM. Thanks.

Re: Large Investment in OpenStreetMap from Knight Foundation

#60
Credit to Mapquest for opening their data to all and giving OSM a big push forward.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Google Maps started with public data. Data you tradtionally could find in public and university libraries and from government sources, even before the web existed. And then what they found crawling the web. They saw the potential value and have just added to and improved it a great deal.

But they did not start from zero. Nor has Apple.

Do not underestmate the "free" contributions to this type of data. It is not insignificant. It really should be open. In my opinion.

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