[OSM-talk] Using OpenStreetMap on a daily basis

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 07/09/2013 09:36 AM, Maarten Deen wrote:
> The problem with OSM is that with Google, Google maps is the go-to site
> to get everything:

[...]

> It just is less userfriendly than having it all on one site.

Then again, having all this offered by different people and not by one 
big corporate behemoth might also have advantages. If one day the people 
at fietsrouteplanner-zuid.nl make a business decision you don't like - 
say, they tune their parameters in a way you don't agree with, or 
display advertising, or require registration or whatnot - then you can 
use someone else's site (or, if one doesn't exist, someone else can with 
relative ease set up a site).

Let's not kid ourselves - even if we *were* to offer everything as a 
one-stop shop, we'd still have people with special interests whom we 
couldn't serve from the main site and for whom special third-party sites 
would be created, and it is in *those* where the value of OSM really 
becomes apparent.

The great thing about OSM is not that we might one day have a site where 
you can do everything that you can do on Google too; the great thing is 
that everyone can set up their *own* site where you can do something. 
And shouldn't we actively encourage that (by, perhaps, better 
integrating osm.org with third party sites) rather than building our 
very own corporate behemoth?

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"