[OSM-talk] Quality and the Openstreetmap value chain

Jean-Marc Liotier jm at liotier.org
Tue May 12 13:28:40 UTC 2020


On 5/12/20 2:52 PM, Colin Smale wrote:
> As you and many others frequently remind us: OSM is first and foremost 
> about the data and not any specific use-case or rendering thereof.
Yes - but a data model is not a neutral representation of reality: it is 
a projection through a use-case, mapping reality to a construct fit for 
specific purposes. In the relational database world, we cannot produce a 
satisfactory schema without knowledge of what sort of queries are 
intended. Flattening the highly dimensional reality into any data model 
involves such choices. Closer to the daily preoccupations of 
Openstreetmap, even lists of attribute values are reductionist and 
finding the appropriate tradeoff cannot be achieved isolatedly: it 
requires input from those who will deal with the consequences of the 
choices - the data-consuming users.



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