[OSM-talk] OSM the mediocre alternative (was: don't like you etc.)

[Frederik Ramm]

Lars,

> OpenBSD is the smarter alternative, but that just doesn't matter 
> since it has failed to attract a sufficient user base.  In 
> comparison with many GIS projects, OpenStreetMap is the mediocre 
> alternative, just like Linux (vs OpenBSD) or Wikipedia (vs 
> Citizendium), but it is the alternative that will prevail.  (Or at 
> least, that's my bet.)

I thought about that a bit and I think you're right. In many ways, this 
project is more primitive than existing or hypothetical alternatives. 
This ensures that almost anyone clever enough to operate a GPS is a 
potential OSM community member; you don't need to read volumes of 
documentation or pass an IQ test before you can contribute.

Perhaps we are like a colony of ants ;-)

I believe that things will change in the future. I am not as much into 
Wikipedia as you are but my observation concerning Wikipedia is that two 
years ago, any computer geek with limited writing skills (not to mention 
orthography) could quickly find a niche in Wikipedia and contribute 
valuable material - a badly written article with good facts is still 
much better than no article at all. (At that time, I used to spend hours 
going from random article to random article, and I had a bet going with 
a friend that there won't be a single article without at least one 
mistake I could fix.)

Today, quality standards are much higher, as a lot of terrain is covered 
by Wikipedia articles and things get more refined. There are still 
niches of course, where the subject is such specialist matter that the 
user base shrinks dramatically, but overall it has reached a level where 
many, many people would be hard-pressed to find any topic they could 
write on or an article they could improve!

We, too, will soon reach a situation where most of the ground is covered 
and "worker ant" mappers will be out of business. Karlsruhe, where I 
live, is almost complete; a few finishing touches, a few footways here 
and there, and maybe we'll make an effort to exhaustively map all public 
telephones, pharmacies, letter boxes, and restaurants, and if we think 
that's not enough we can do speed limits or spend endless hours on 
minuscle details of a few complicated junctions to make them "look 
right"... but it gets more fine-grained all the time, and the times 
where any Newbie could grab is GPS and get mapping in Karlsruhe are 
over. You will soon need specialist knowledge to improve mapping here.

(Fortunately, you can always hop on a train and find unmapped spots half 
an hour away. Still.)

What I'm saying is: Being the mediocre alternative helps a lot in the 
early phase when you want to gain breadth and momentum. This is 
something that our "competitors" seem to have overlooked. Whether it is 
still good once we achieve a good coverage - we'll see.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'