[OSM-talk] Some thoughts against remote mapping

[Arun Ganesh]

Some thoughts from a developing country - India. Maps have had a
controversial role to play in the modern history of much of the Indian
subcontinent, as a tool created and controlled by those who came ashore
from the west. OSM has made it possible for the first time in history for
the common citizen to control their map.  The right to access, create and
modify this map equally among everyone is what is most important. Someone
from the west has every right to trace some Indian town just as someone
from India has to update a new development in well mapped Europe.
Unfortunately there is still great inequality in the ability to access this
map.

In India there is no fledging OSM community mainly because priorities in
life are different. One does not get the leisure time here to contribute to
the map and make it a social hobby like in Europe. Moreover the project is
almost unknown because the maps are empty compared to Google and has very
few users and fewer contributors.

Over many years, I have remotely traced major road networks of Indian
cities and towns which I now see has road details slowly coming in form
local and tourist mappers. Rural areas are yet to see any local activity.

Maps are a relatively new concept in Indian society and is still used only
by a small minority in urban areas in daily life. Naturally one cannot
expect strong OSM communities at this stage till maps gain wider
reach. Remote mapping in cases like this can serve to catalyze the process
by making the maps more attractive to use. I happened to talk about a few
of these points in my lightning talk at SOTMUS last week which might give
more context on mapping in India:

https://youtu.be/4fK_cWhCQbE?t=22m1s

Devoting more resources to make these maps and tools accessible to the
common person would be more fruitful than worrying about colonizing
countries by remote mapping.

-- 
(planemad) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Planemad>
 <http://j.mp/ArunGanesh>
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