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Why OpenStreetMap Should Be a Priority for the Open Source Community (linuxjournal.com)
"Despite its low profile, OpenStreetMap is arguably one of the most important projects for the future of free software," argues Glyn Moody, author of Rebel Code: Linux And The Open Source Revolution, in a new Linux Journal article shared by long-time Slashdot reader carlie:
The rise of mobile phones as the primary computing device for billions of people, especially in developing economies, lends a new importance to location and movement. Many internet services now offer additional features based on where users are, where they are going and their relative position to other members of social networks. Self-driving cars and drones are two rapidly evolving hardware areas where accurate geographical information is crucial. All of those things depend upon a map in critical ways, and they require large, detailed datasets. OpenStreetMap is the only truly global open alternative to better-known, and much better-funded geodata holdings, such as Google Maps.
The current dominance of the latter is a serious problem for free software -- and freedom itself. The data that lies behind Google Maps is proprietary. Thus, any open-source program that uses Google Maps or other commercial mapping services is effectively including proprietary elements in its code. For purists, that is unacceptable in itself. But even for those with a more pragmatic viewpoint, it means that open source is dependent on a company for data that can be restricted or withdrawn at any moment....
Although undoubtedly difficult, creating high-quality map-based services is a challenge that must be tackled by the Open Source community if it wants to remain relevant in a world dominated by mobile computing. The bad news is that at the moment, millions of people are happily sending crucial geodata to proprietary services like Waze, as well as providing free bug-fixes for Google Maps. Far better if they could be working with equal enthusiasm and enjoyment on open projects, since the resulting datasets would be freely available to all, not turned into corporate property. The good news is that OpenStreetMap provides exactly the right foundation for creating those open map-based services, which is why supporting it must become a priority for the Open Source world.
The current dominance of the latter is a serious problem for free software -- and freedom itself. The data that lies behind Google Maps is proprietary. Thus, any open-source program that uses Google Maps or other commercial mapping services is effectively including proprietary elements in its code. For purists, that is unacceptable in itself. But even for those with a more pragmatic viewpoint, it means that open source is dependent on a company for data that can be restricted or withdrawn at any moment....
Although undoubtedly difficult, creating high-quality map-based services is a challenge that must be tackled by the Open Source community if it wants to remain relevant in a world dominated by mobile computing. The bad news is that at the moment, millions of people are happily sending crucial geodata to proprietary services like Waze, as well as providing free bug-fixes for Google Maps. Far better if they could be working with equal enthusiasm and enjoyment on open projects, since the resulting datasets would be freely available to all, not turned into corporate property. The good news is that OpenStreetMap provides exactly the right foundation for creating those open map-based services, which is why supporting it must become a priority for the Open Source world.
Who said it was open source? TFA didn't. It says people in the open source community need to make it a priority.
You just wanted to post to make yourself look smart. Think before you speak.
This is definitely a real issue, but it doesn't mention the most important part - the part that all the big mapping companies already know.
If you want people to contribute their data (and time) en masse, you have to give them a high-quality mobile experience.
If Open Street Map were as easy to use as Google Maps is on mobile, people would try it. And then OSM would get their traffic/new road data organically. But until OSS developers start prioritizing the average user's experience, they will simply never get to where they can compete with Google, Waze, Apple, et al.
OpenStreetMap is a sort of open data that everybody needs, and should be available under the same terms as Open Source software or very similar ones. Open Source projects don't always succeed, for separate reasons from their desirability. Note that OpenOffice existed for years and got great benefit from Sun's contribution of StarDivision's work, but project participation was handicapped by Sun's management. When LibreOffice split off, it was suddenly so much more viable.
OpenStreetMap has had a commercial involvement which might not have helped - and as far as I can tell is mostly over. And I hear it's difficult to become an editor. I am not a geodata developer. I'd like to hear from some folks who are, and who have tried to participate or who can try now and report back.
Bruce Perens.
The submission does, at one point, refer to “purists” who would object to Google’s proprietary maps on principle. Those same purists might very well object to OpenStreetMap because of the non-GPL licensing terms used by the project.
So while the GP did appear to be correcting something which wasn’t actually stated in the submission, talking about the license behind OpenStreetMap seems like a valid topic of discussion.
#DeleteChrome
The bad news is, millions of people are happily sending any and all data with complete disregard for the consequences to themselves and to society as a whole. Because for most people, being able to instantly send lolcats to their cousin, inform the world of their latest bowel movement or watching the soccer match live on their phone is much more important than liberty and privacy.
Oh and by the way, Waze was bought by Google in 2013. Don't make it out to be a separate entity: it's part of the collective, and it's out for your data.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Hand editing data will never achieve something to compete with google maps which is far more than just a streetmap. Google also has real-time traffic data, streetview, and sidewalk / path data sufficient to help me get to a destination's door. I use all of this on a near-daily basis and would love to see open source applications that compete with this functionality. I agree that the open data is critical to that but...
Without fleets of vehicles and massive amounts of data center processing to convert images to information, how do we get there?
The best possibility I can think of for getting much of it would be to attract large numbers of people to run an app that tracks them at high resolution and donate the data. But there are problems.
How do you attract users to run the app? Google does it with their real-time driving directions app, but that presents a chicken - egg problem because you've got to get within reach of their capabilities to attract users to get the data necessary to get within reach of their capabilities.
How do you pay for the compute time to process the live data into useful information such as realtime traffic flow, most used entrances, sidewalk paths, locations that must be missing a road on the map (many users crossed at driving speed from point A to point B where no road exists), etc.
Assuming you could crack collecting the data, how would you pay for server space for street view data?
Realistically, the only way I can see getting open data of this size and complexity is for governments or large groups of companies to pay for it and choose to make it open data.
> might very well object to OpenStreetMap because of the non-GPL licensing terms used by the project.
This doesn't make sense to me for two reasons. It seems to conflate open source with GPL, and also the OpenStreetMap software *is* GPL licensed.
Open source does not mean GPL. I'm fact, the people who write and promote the GPL will tell you they support Free Software, NOT open source. They'll gladly explain the difference to you. So open source doesn't mean GPL - in fact, not only can something be open source with being GPL, the two philosophies have some fundamental differences.
Also, the primary software for open street map IS GPL, so I'm not sure why you'd say "no-GPL license". The GPL is of course a software license. The OSM project put the same terms the GPL uses into a database license. It says basically the same thing the GPL says- if you distribute it, whoever you distribute it to gets the same rights you have. That doesn't change if you make some modifications before distributing it - your modified copy is still open license.
I think there are multiple roles for OpenStreetMap to play, but one that came to my attention was mapping areas where Google, etc. haven't gone in order to help get food and power to people after a disaster.
I spent (too little) time voluntarily mapping out areas of Puerto Rico, through a well-coordinated effort to analyze and review satellite and aerial photos of less densely populated areas. This type of crowdsourcing is pretty cool...
One of the sites to visit: Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
I'm usually not one to suggest that the government take over private services but it seems like it would make a lot of sense that local governments should publish street map data in a public format. After all, they're the ones who build the roads in the first place. It seems like the tools and current tools they use to do mapping and surveying is in ancient, scanned document formats, or sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere gathering dust.
I spent most of my career building GIS maps for Calgary, Canada, for the water & sewer systems; our whole asset-management strategy was based on a GIS map/database of all infrastructure. (Some screen snaps: http://brander.ca/work.html )
It was like the sun coming out when I found open-source GIS solutions in PostGIS and QGIS about 2013, and it freed me from the "ESRI jail", wherein for large corporate mapping, ESRI is the 800-lb gorilla of the market, and all its data formats are proprietary and impenetrable. That was when I found OSM, and the salient feature to me is this:
* For a building to be named in Google, the business has to pay Google.
* For a building to be identified on OSM, somebody has to like that business enough to type it in. It just needs one fan.
That's it. One serves the google accounts payable dept, one serves the general public. Really, if the map is good enough to find routes and get you there, the actual map service is a wash, and this feature is critically important.
Uncle Sam is going to get out his trust-busting stick and break up Google/Alphabet.
Maps - separate company
Search - separate company
Surveillance / "advertising" - separate company
Android - separate company
Chrome - separate company
Once he finishes bringing peace to Korea, President Trump is gonna start channeling Teddy Roosevelt. Get ready for it!
You are mistaking the tip for the iceberg. The map on openstreetmap.org is a nice gimmick, but it is not OSM. OSM is the data behind it. Front-ends like OsmAnd (for Android) are what makes OSM useful. And depending on coverage and local mappers' degree of fanaticism in the region you are interested in, OSM can be anywhere on the scale from terrible to decent, and in some rare cases it can even blow expensive specialist geodatabases out of the water. This, the terribly uneven coverage, is its fault, not the lack of shiny images on the frontpage map. FOSS UAV mission control systems do not care about a StreetView clone. They care about precise up-to-date geodata.
Of course, I would love to get an OSM web frontend that can compete with Google Maps. But this is not a component of OSM that belongs into the project, it is a use case for its data and – especially if it is to bring in completely unrelated features like images, traffic data, restaurant suggestions etc. – could and should be developed outside of it.
A significant portion of those who contribute to OSM do not use or care about the web map at all. They are in it for the data itself.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
You are not wrong in your description of the state of the OSM ecosystem, and of course I would love to see well-designed easy to use tools to bring its magic onto as many platforms as possible. But the responsibility of OSM itself ends at the API. OP was comparing openstreetmap.org's map with Google Maps as if it was meant as a 1:1 replacement – which it is not. Frankly, I would rather they removed the map from the front page and put it onto a different website, because it detracts so much from what OSM is: a database. OP was essentially complaining that the Linux kernel does not look as nice as Windows 10's desktop.
Google Maps is mostly the opposite: a visual map with some services spun around it, but with little to no access to the underlying data. And it is a commercial product engineered to generate money for Google. We could very well found a company or a foundation, stuff it with cash, hire developers and have them create an interface to OSM that rivals Google Maps. But this has nothing to do with the OSM project itself.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.