[Osmf-talk] [OSM-talk] "The Future of Free and Open-Source Maps" Slashdot.org , Saturday February 17, 2018

[Simon Poole]

In one of the many threads on twitter on the subject I pointed out that
that the US mapper community seems to be far closer in sentiment to the
the community outside of the states these days than it was say 5 years
ago (just see the current efforts to get rid of the decade old boat
anchor). So I would be fairly optimistic about OSM in the states going
forward and I can't really see how we can be losing ground to google
when we never actually had that ground to start with (the corollary is
that we are actually likely gaining on the goog even if it is only in
very small steps).

Now the corporate aspect of OSM in the states is a very different
matter, but that discussion can wait for another day.

Simon

Am 22.02.2018 um 21:55 schrieb joost schouppe:
> I kind of like how most of the discussion here was about "how can we
> improve based on this critique". Still I feel like there is truth in
> this rebuttal that was shared on the French talk mailing list. Shared
> here with permission of the author.
> While I agree with much of emacsen's criticism, and think we could do
> so much better, I don't feel like we're slipping away. In Belgium at
> least, I feel like every year has been better than the last.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *Philippe Verdy* <verdy_p at wanadoo.fr <mailto:verdy_p at wanadoo.fr>>
> Date: 2018-02-17 20:44 GMT+01:00
> Subject: Re: [OSM-talk-fr] "Why OpenStreetMap is in Serious Trouble"
> To: Discussions sur OSM en français <talk-fr at openstreetmap.org
> <mailto:talk-fr at openstreetmap.org>>
>
>
> This is a vision from a user in US. In Europe the situation is
> dramatically different, and OSM is far better than proprietary solutions.
> The fact is that US contributors did not embrace OSM as much as they
> could have done, and then they left proprietary solutions take the
> lead everywhere.
>
> Outside US and Europe, and notably in developping countries, OSM is
> already better than proprietary solutions that are full of errors,
> approximations, or extremely incomplete. But yes OSM is still too slow
> to grow there and it could easily be overwhelmed there by proprietary
> solutions (notably by Google creating maps based an automated imagery
> processing). But develoing countries prefer avoiding this dependency
> and want to develop accurate maps based on local contributions and
> with the possibility for local governements and for NGOs to focus
> specific areas forgotten by major proprietary map producers (which
> cannot infer lot of details and notably local names, translations,
> social and community development, small commercial activities, or even
> accurate roads taking into account their real usability
> or assesment of risks caused by floods or damaged surfaces, and the
> more specific usage not just by 4-wheeled cars but also by
> motorcycles, bikes, traction by animal, tracks created by them or by
> pastoral/nomadic agriculture, or their seasonal state).
>
> In developing countries or poor areas, proprietary maps only focus on
> major urban centers, just to locate shops, they cannot locate
> correctly the taxis, small buses, markets, or religious places and
> many community areas, so these maps are almost unusable (all they can
> produce correctly is aerial imagery and some automated processing of
> buildings, full or errors because buildings are hard to determine in
> dense cities: see the example of Mexico or Bangladesh !). Moist
> prorietary maps have imported "blindly" some poor data created
> initially with lot of difficulties by local authorities (most of these
> are completely outdated, even the names are now false).
>
> So where OSM is loosing ground ? Basically only in US, but this can
> change (even if proprietary maps are attempting to keep the lead, by
> creating "cute" maps with lot of tools, what they create is a
> dangerous dependancy on how US citizens perceive their territory and
> what they can or cannot do on it). There's no real reason why US
> cannot progress on OSM like what happened in Europe. What is only
> needed is more involvement by the public (and unfortunately, US still
> does not have a really active OSM US chapter organization that can
> also become a force of proposition to federal and local governments
> and all their agencies).
>
> So we should urge US users to creating local communities in each one
> of US state, to become state chapters, and founding an
> association/federation of these state chapter that would become the
> OSM US chapter in the OSM Foundation. This can start already is some
> states where there are very active members (e.g. in NY, FL, CA states,
> and in DC). In the Midwest, there's still a severe absence of
> contributors. The OSM US federation should work on creating and
> sustaining the local state chapters, with help of universities, or
> Wikimedia chapters, or important NGOs (like the American Red Cross),
> or other partners (HOT).
>
> It seems that most US users don't care much about OSM, and OSM is in
> fact hidden by other US companies working with OSM data (but not
> only), such as Mapbox.
>
>
>
>
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