[OSM-talk] OSM book in English published

[Frederik Ramm]

Dave,

Dave F. wrote:
> I fail to see how charging for regurgitated data (as confirmed by 
> Frederik) is positive or productive.

Firstly, lots of people pay money for OSM data (e.g. OSM Garmin maps 
regularly sell for €20 on eBay). That in itself is positive because it 
proves that OSM is actually worth something to them. And it isn't that 
these people pay money for nothing - they pay for someone selecting the 
right SD card and the right IMG file, copying the file onto the card, 
making a nice package and a little documentation and shipping it to 
them, and probably even being available on the phone if there's a 
problem with the product. In a way, this is the ideal form of commerce - 
if you have money and don't want to spend the time, buy the ready-made 
SD card; if you don't have money and can afford to spend the time, 
here's the document on the Wiki that says how to do it without spending 
a penny. It's the consumer's choice, and if the producer wants to sell 
his product he better had to make it worth the money.

It's the same with the book. You can buy it if you like the convenience 
it brings - the information being neatly and coherently organised, 
selected, professionally reviewed and proof-read. If you don't want to 
fork out money for that editorial work, you don't have to; you can do 
the organising and selecting yourself.

It is even likely that there are people who wouldn't bother using OSM at 
all if there wasn't a ready-made SD card available for them to buy. In 
Germany, where the book has been selling for 2.5 years now, many people 
have definitely taken OSM more seriously when they saw there was a 
proper book about it - *especially* those outside of the technophile 
community whom we often have difficulty to reach out to.

(Btw. I think you have slightly misinterpreted me when I said that the 
book hardly contains anything that hasn't been said here in the last 
years. You interpreted that as the book regurgitating mailing list 
posts, when in fact it often was the other way round. The German book, 
on which this English edition is based, has been around for 2.5 years 
now, and often I had researched something for the book initially and 
then "regurgitated" the book content on the lists when the question 
popped up here.)

Bye
Frederik