[OSM-talk] Big sponsors (was: WolframAlpha uses OpenStreetMap data)

[Ben Last]

On 18 June 2010 12:32, SteveC <steve at asklater.com> wrote:

> On Jun 17, 2010, at 10:28 PM, Ben Last wrote:
> > Well, fixing it isn't trivial, since there may be a bunch of reasons why
> it's wrong (or it may not actually be wrong!).  We could store these and
> forward to OSM, but as has been mentioned, we don't want to bounce our users
> over to the OSM site (because we don't want them to have to be registered
> with OSM) and sending such comments programatically is not simple.  But I do
> agree that it's valuable feedback if there is the capacity to respond to it.
> absolutely agreed - but the first step is to collect it, then we will
> respond to it (I volunteer!)
> We can't start arse backward and have a response mechanism and then start
> collecting it, that makes no sense.
>

Fair enough :)  However, whilst volunteering is impressive, we have to
consider issues like this: our site is seen by users as "all NearMap".  Yes,
we acknowledge OSM in the terms and conditions and the like* but in general
the average user doesn't care - it's all NearMap to them.  So when they give
us feedback, they expect us to respond.  If the feedback's being handled by
a small volunteer team who lose interest/fall under the proverbial bus/go
off on a round-the-world trip, then our users see no response.

This isn't in any way to say that volunteer effort isn't the right way to
handle this; all I'm saying is that there are other concerns that a
commercial enterprise must consider :)  Which sort of brings us full circle
to the original posts about Wolfram and their thoughts on relying on OSM :)

* We're currently revising these pages to make it even clearer what comes
from OSM.


> > Actually, I think it's the other way around.  The biggest issue with OSM
> for the use cases that concern me right now is that its usability to locate
> an address is pretty limited.  Improving that is the single thing ("step
> one") that would make it better (again, for my use cases).  So having
> streets with correct names and at least some numbering data helps a lot.
>
> Oh I agree but what I'm saying is that the above case is immediately
> fixable whereas the latter cases are implicitly fixable, with some more
> unknown work. See what I mean?

Ah, yes.  Agreed as to the fact that fixing these latter cases means more
work!

Cheers
b

-- 
Ben Last
0423 475 673
Development Manager (HyperWeb)
NearMap Pty Ltd
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