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OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

blog.emacsen.net

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Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#61

Post by brewdad »

bahmboo wrote: post #36
jedberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally when I drive with Google Maps, I already know the route but want Google to step in when there's traffic. You should try Waze. I too mostly use Google to route me around traffic, but Waze is an order of magnitude better at it. It has more frequently updated traffic data and is willing to take you on side streets. For example the other day I was driving down a major road, and Google said to just stay on it,…

Google maps does update route in real time. They also integrate Waze data since they own them. Waze was taking heat for routing onto residential side streets which makes me wonder if Google is taking a softer approach. Interesting that you mapped your route with Google maps and Waze at the same time and compared them. I'll have to give that a shot.

In my area Waze does a better job at anticipating future traffic patterns. For example, every Thursday I have to get my son from school and drive across town starting at 5pm. It's a 20 minute drive if there's no traffic and 30-35 minutes typically and we only have 40 minutes to get from A to B. Google will pick a route that is fast at 5pm, but builds a lot of traffic at the Nike headquarters by the time we reach it 15 minutes later. Waze seems to understand this better and has never routed me into that traffic jam.

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#62

Post by coldtea »

y4mi wrote: post #44
andrewljohnson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that most companies using OSM are using Mapbox. Is that even true? And is number of companies even a good metric? Based on revenue/market cap, the bulk of companies use OSM directly. The world's biggest company (Apple) uses OSM directly. Telenav uses it directly. Don't Tesla and Uber use OSM directly too? And we use Mapbox at Gaia GPS, but we also use OSM data directly. > How about letting users expe…

> The world's biggest company (Apple) uses OSM directly sigh apple zealots... its big, i give you that, but sure as hell ain't the biggest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...

Revenue? Wallmart gets that making pennies in every sale. And with 2.3M employees -- Apple does half that revenue for 1/20 the employees -- and has 2-3 times the market cap (Walmart is not even in the top 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by... ).

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#63

Post by coldtea »

y4mi wrote: post #55
andrewljohnson wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Largest by market cap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_corporations_by...

a) biggest company does not equal company with highest market cap b) having the biggest market cap is something thats good for their shareholder, and terrible for anyone else. But yeah, do continue to praise your beloved highness.

>a) biggest company does not equal company with highest market cap

Actually it does. Especially since you can have 1 billion in revenue by selling $10 dollar bills at $1 dollar.

>b) having the biggest market cap is something thats good for their shareholder, and terrible for anyone else

Whatever.

>But yeah, do continue to praise your beloved highness.

Irrational argument ad hominem.

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#64

Post by dfox »

SippinLean wrote: post #47
jedberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally when I drive with Google Maps, I already know the route but want Google to step in when there's traffic. You should try Waze. I too mostly use Google to route me around traffic, but Waze is an order of magnitude better at it. It has more frequently updated traffic data and is willing to take you on side streets. For example the other day I was driving down a major road, and Google said to just stay on it,…

I thought GM used all the Waze data in their routing ever since they acquired Waze?

They do not and in fact technically can not, because the underlying map data is different between google maps and waze.

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#65

Post by gpsx »

Previously I really like the flexibility of the tagging system in open street map. I used something like it for a unrelated commercial product and we have found we have to switch away from it. And we had very tight control over the definitions of the tagging we were using.

The tools were difficult, as is mentioned in the main post. That is certainly an inconvenience but I figured we could muddle through that. The bigger problem is that the customers just never got it. They wanted a single, authoritative classification for an object.

Our plan is to move to a system inspired by the model used in BIM for classification. The princicple difference is that in open street map all data identifying an object has to lie within the tags. In the alternate system, a single identifier for the object type is used, and this references external metadata that gives you additional information which does not have to be embedded in the tags on the object. An example of additional information held external to the map and tags is that a bathroom is a type of room. I don't have to include in the map data that the object is both a bathroom and a room.

I should add, the external meta data also gives a strict definition of what types of tags (and maybe values) are allowed on the given type of object. If you need something a little different, you can make a new type.

I am not sure how well this type of system could work in open street map. Is it too rigid? Or would there be too much proliferation of types? Classification is always hard and I am not sure people have solved that problem in any large context.

And of course, changes like this would mean a new database. If people ever do think about making an OSM 2.0 maybe this, or another tagging alternative, is something to consider.

(edit: typos)

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#66

Post by wldcordeiro »

bahmboo wrote: post #36
jedberg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Generally when I drive with Google Maps, I already know the route but want Google to step in when there's traffic. You should try Waze. I too mostly use Google to route me around traffic, but Waze is an order of magnitude better at it. It has more frequently updated traffic data and is willing to take you on side streets. For example the other day I was driving down a major road, and Google said to just stay on it,…

Google maps does update route in real time. They also integrate Waze data since they own them. Waze was taking heat for routing onto residential side streets which makes me wonder if Google is taking a softer approach. Interesting that you mapped your route with Google maps and Waze at the same time and compared them. I'll have to give that a shot.

In Google I see options for enabling which types of roads to prefer.

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#67

Post by maxerickson »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Open maps used to be the job of the USGS. They stopped doing it because of Google. I was touring the USGS in Palo Alto about 10 years ago, and the librarian there was lamenting the existence of Google. He said that while it was nice that Google was doing all this work, it was causing the USGS to stop doing it, since they could get the data from Google. He predicted that the USGS would get severely cut in their fundin…

They weren't ever really in the business of publishing data.

(A challenge: download a routable road network for the US from a USGS source)

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#68

Post by just_testing »

I'm also interested in the development of OSM (being an editor and a data consumer) and I've witnessed first hand some of your issues. For instance, once I've had to create my own "geocoder" for transit fines in São Paulo using OSM data, because no geocoder commercially available would be able to deal with the data.

So, now that we clarified I'm not a troll, nor a bot, I ask you: how should we deal with those issues? Join en masse the OSMF so we can vote for a change? Begin the "New-OSM-But-Better Foundation"?

I also think having layers (particularly, layers vouched by governments) would be awesome. I saw several governmental branches in Brazil wanting to be more integrated with OSM - this would allow them to stay "inside" OSM (and being an accredited citizen), instead of creating their own silos, importing data from time to time.

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#69

Post by ghaff »

coldtea wrote: post #63
y4mi wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a) biggest company does not equal company with highest market cap b) having the biggest market cap is something thats good for their shareholder, and terrible for anyone else. But yeah, do continue to praise your beloved highness.

> a) biggest company does not equal company with highest market cap Actually it does. Especially since you can have 1 billion in revenue by selling $10 dollar bills at $1 dollar. > b) having the biggest market cap is something thats good for their shareholder, and terrible for anyone else Whatever. > But yeah, do continue to praise your beloved highness. Irrational argument ad hominem.

Well, "biggest" can mean a number of different things but, given that this is an Internet comment board and not an audited financial report, market cap seems one perfectly reasonable measure.

Re: OpenStreetMap Is in Trouble

#70

Post by spectre256 »

emacsen wrote: post #32
jimmyrocks wrote: post #25

Thanks for posting this here! I feel like this is mostly good constructive criticism. I have given a few talks about using OSM data in the US government and it comes down to authoritative data sources and validation. It's a great starting point, but there needs to be another layer (or two) of validation before it can be used at the enterprise level. The National Map Corps has some good examples of how this can be imp…

You're welcome this Jimmy. And you rock. You're one of the people who got me into OSM in the first place. And I still love OSM. I want to see it succeed! Go Igles!

As soon as I started reading your article I actually started thinking of Jimmy and how he's been a part of a real government entity (the national park service) sending data directly into OSM.
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