[OSM-talk] Things People Say

Stefan de Konink stefan at konink.de
Wed Dec 28 13:14:12 GMT 2011


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Op 28-12-11 11:21, Frederik Ramm schreef:
> I hope that we are all very clear on this issue - OSM does not want
> a sales force. Advocates who come to like OSM and "sell" it to
> their friends are of course fine!

Why doesn't OSM want a 'salesforce'? If these sales people come from
GeoFabrik, MapQuest, etc. it is the same thing right? Or is selling a
concept with data not the same as services on data.


> In my eyes, we are not aimed at "map consumers". We are, to borrow 
> business terms, a producer or maybe a distributor, but we're not a 
> retailer.

The sad point is, that if you want to attract 'contributors' they
require something to show off to their friend. "I contributed to this".
In the extreme it would be interesting _not_ to show a map at all. But
just show a page where these portals with our data are.

This will result in a debate, a big one, but might actually be
beneficial to us. There is no direct need for 'mass tile rendering'.
And users are direct in the spotlight.


>> Setting up your own tile infrastructure is something that's
>> easier now thanks to all the work that's gone into Mapnik, Planet
>> replication and other tools. Can we make it easier in the eyes of
>> a business, by showing how the costs too are predictable and
>> doable?
> 
> I think we could, but then I don't think that we need to worry. I
> do this as a business, and I am by far not the only person to do
> it. At the moment the market is still small but it is only a
> question of time until many other players big and small will start
> offering ready-made OSM tile servers, and they will become a
> commodity with lots of competition. Companies selling them will
> make sure that their advantages vis-a-vis a GMaps service are well
> known and advertised - better, I like to think, that we could do it
> ourselves. I don't think that we need to spend valuable volunteer
> resources on making OSM fly commercially; we can count on
> capitalism to do that for us.

I think starting with a tile server (vector) replication service could
be a great starting point to facilitate that. But like other
discussions started by you: we first need to make sure that what is in
the stylesheet, is considered 'the standard distributable data'.


Stefan
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.18 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEAREKAAYFAk77FiQACgkQYH1+F2Rqwn3MewCfeQ8hzYfGkOuep4so1wuB57P6
+h8AnjK3+pXfCDgaYOWNzTpxyrd0sS6e
=yvHd
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



More information about the talk mailing list