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OSM in trouble

2018-06-08 16:11:57.965241+00 by Dan Lyke 1 comments

Why OpenStreetMap is in Serious Trouble.

I've been using various map data for my job for the past two years or so, including Open Street Map, and I think this critique misses the forest for the trees: contributing to open data repositories takes time and effort. Creating tools which use those repositories takes time and effort. Learning enough about geography, including the social science aspects of it, in order to meaningfully contribute is a non-trivial endeavor.

As much as it's amazing to have this resource, it's created by volunteers who, eventually, are looking around and facing the economic realities of living. There's a hell of a lot of open source and open data out there that has just been exploitation by people who have gotten rich, and as much as it pains me to say this because I'm a happy user of open source projects and a happy contributor back into some of them, a lot of "open" is just riding on the backs idealists who were willing to work for free.

I suspect we're gonna see a swing back kinda the other way.

Via.

[ related topics: Free Software Weblogs Nature and environment History Work, productivity and environment Heinlein Education Maps and Mapping Bicycling Economics ]

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#Comment Re: OSM in trouble made: 2018-06-11 09:47:08.387877+00 by: DaveP

One of the earliest I remember was IMDb. It’s still useful, but I stopped contributing to it once Amazon bought it.

That said, it’s always struck me as weird that OSM doesn’t have a map. Seems that would be the most common way of interacting with the data.

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