[OSM-talk] OSM book in English published

[Joseph Reeves]

I've not seen the book, but I have bought books before on subjects
that were covered by free resources online. Books, I'm sure, are a
good idea:

1: There is a lot of free stuff available out there on the Internet -
a printed book, by an author or three, provides a handy reference to
the most relevant material. This is something you can pick up and use.
The wiki, on the other hand, has a lot of good stuff, but also a great
deal of cruft. If it's not on the wiki, you may find yourself managing
reams of bookmarks to the thing you need. A book can provide an edited
relief to this.

2: A book provides a historiography: It says something about the
opinions of the people that wrote it. If you value the opinions of the
authors, you should consider buying the book.

3: A printed book on a subject that "is available online" will
invariably teach you something new about the subject. The thing it
teaches you may be online, for free, already, but I would bet money
that there's something "new" in the book that you haven't seen.

4: Books can go into University libraries and onto GIS course reading
lists. A big one, I would imagine, for OSM.

Perhaps we should ask why, in this Internet age, do we need newpapers,
TV, radio and pubs? Can't all these things be replaced by Google News,
YouTube, Spotify and IRC?

Books are a massively positive thing - they demonstrate a healthy and
productive OSM ecosystem and a growth in adoption. More books please!

Cheers, Joseph



On 16 September 2010 00:38, Dave F. <davefox at madasafish.com> wrote:
>  On 15/09/2010 19:39, Steve Chilton wrote:
>>
>> "OpenStreetMap: Using, and Contributing to, the Free World Map"
>> (Paperback, in English) by Ramm/Topf/Chilton will be available in 5 days.
>> Pre-order at discount http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781906860110/
>>
>
> Apologies for living in the real world, but why do I need a highly priced
> printed book for information that is, or should be, available to all *free*
> of charge on line (apart from internet charges, obviously) for a *free* &
> *open* crowd-sourcing project such as OSM?
>
> Regards
> Dave F.
>
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