[OSM-talk] Portal for end users

[Paul Johnson]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2015 at 2:54 PM, Daniel Koć <daniel at koć.pl> wrote:

> W dniu 15.09.2015 18:10, Joseph Reeves napisał(a):
>
>> http://hello.mapquest.com/ [5] ?
>>
>
> Nice try, Sauron!... ;-)
>
> I would say this is not the answer for OSM and for me this is half baked
> solution at best.
>
> Nice things:
> - Dynamic POI layers (but limited to some basic types of POIs)
> - Satellite view (but limited to medium scale, at least in Warsaw)
> - Traffic layer (but again, not working here)
> - Menu for travel planning (I don't know which parts of the world are
> available in this service).
> - Better low zoom.
> ...and that is all good (or just not bad).
>
> Bad (or just lacking) things:
> - High zoom levels are totally lacking details (osm-carto have it).
> - Lack of different styles (we have 5 to choose).
> - No innovative things (vector tiles for example).
> - No personalization (like UMap).
> - Ads.
> - Lack of community control.
> - Lack of OSM brand recognition (even copyright note is just one of 3 and
> it's only to comply with the license probably)
>

http://maps.randmcnally.com/ sounds very close to what you're suggesting
(also, bonus points, brand recognition:  People trust Rand McNally, and
oddly enough, there's a pretty sizable attribution on the paper maps that
can be found in every gas station in the midwest, which also has an
elevator pitch for the project, IIRC).  I also tend to use Rand McNally's
OSM-based maps as a form of dog-fooding it when I have to break out the
orienteering compass and ruler because something broke or ran out of
batteries (I like OklaDOT, but the state's official paper maps aren't worth
what I paid, and they send 'em free by mail on request in any quantity you
want by law).

It looks like a commercial traveler help, not general tool for end users of
> OSM. It may be a nice service in itself, but as a OSM portal for most of
> the people it'd be a failure in my opinion.
>

Well, to be fair, AOL is trying to figure out how to generate revenue now
that the majority of online users aren't interested in a graphical BBS that
happens to have an internet gateway.  No marks off for effort since they're
having the same problems we're having with coming up with a portal (if
that's something we want to do).


> Our strength is a lot of details. We can show indoor levels of railway
> stations, 3D models of some buildings, insane amount of POIs and even their
> opening hours - but nobody will see it here. There's not a slightest hint
> you can start being a mapper if you want to add/correct some things in your
> neighborhood - which is another plus for end users.
>

So pull a server together and start another tileset.  Who knows?  It might
just be featured on the front page.


> Also, as it was already pointed out, we can't be sure what data are used
> and if one day it won't become YAMS (Yet-Another-Map-Service) which has
> nothing to do with OSM - or even simply hostile takeover by anyone with
> their own maps an agenda. And if we will promote it as a portal for our end
> users, we will make only this brand stronger, not our project brand (ever
> heard about GNU project eclipsed by other labels?). Or they can use our
> brand as a honeypot for mediocre/suspected services (ever heard about
> people downloading "Open Office" from third parties and mad about spam apps
> it brings?).
>

GNU still plays a very important part underpinning a lot of other projects,
though, and is an irreplaceable part of the software ecosphere at this
point.  Their portfolio is so broad right now that computing as we know it
today would not exist, and their tenacity means they'll still be around
after Microsoft's an interesting case study for project management and
legal students; they suck in projects and tend to kill 'em rather quickly
(see the many and various, and sometimes even competing, formerly separate
software products that make up Microsoft Office's thesaurus, spellchecker,
grammar checker, and various previously unix-style "do one thing well"
3rd-party tools Microsoft bought just to roll 'em in to that).  GNU tends
to have things snowball (Wikipedia nee GNUpedia) or inspire a more
successful, yet complementary project (Hurd, eclipsed by Linux).

That said, on your third point, that is a valid concern.  See also:
SourceForge (may it rest in pieces).  However, really the only way to
protect against a SourceForge scenario is not to become a "walled garden"
of open development, as happened with the collection of properties and
projects that make up Andover.net/Dice Interactive/whatever that collection
of stuff that lost momentum when it couldn't ride Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda's
coat-tails anymore calls itself this senate term.  Which means

I'm happy to hear we may just have not enough horsepower at the moment, but
> we're not ignoring end users. It means we can mimic for example Mozilla in
> the future (dual social/commercial entity) or develop fair partnership with
> existing (or start-up) commercial enterprises, but we don't have to. We can
> also act as a hub and integrate some more external services, just like we
> already do with static map layers or routing services.
>

Well, hopefully, not something users come to begrudge like Mozilla.  Maybe
more like a Wikimedia Foundation, in which, just give it time, and we'll
hit the runaway point.  We already hit the breakaway point.
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