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posted by martyb on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the uncharted-territory dept.

Serge Wroclawski, a long-time contributor to OpenStreetMap, has posted a criticism of the management choices he believes are preventing the OpenStreetMap Foundation from fulfilling its mission (much like the Wikimedia Foundation):

I feel the OpenStreetMap project is currently unable to fulfill that mission due to poor technical decisions, poor political decisions, and a general malaise in the project. I'm going to outline in this article what I think OpenStreetMap has gotten wrong. It's entirely possible that OSM will reform and address the impediments to its success- and I hope it does. We need a Free as in Freedom geographic dataset.


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by chromas on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:42PM (6 children)

    by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:42PM (#641153) Journal

    Wellp, time to fork. Who wants to start LibreStreetMap with me? We'll need some moneh and people who know what they're doing. I'll bring the nachos and take some of the money.

    Lack of Permanent IDs

    See, in LibreStreetMap, we'll solve that by giving each way its own IPv6 address. Relations, of course, get /64s. Nodes are scoped link-local for obvious reasons.

    It would be easy to think about the OpenStreetMap Foundation (the OSMF) as similar to the Wikipedia Foundation

    Does that mean they have people who go around deleting small, 'unnotable' roads?

    • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:42PM

      by Wootery (2341) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:42PM (#641166)

      They just have to balance the oh-so-pressing need for speedy deletion, against local traffic laws.

    • (Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:18PM (4 children)

      by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:18PM (#641294)

      > Does that mean they have people who go around deleting small, 'unnotable' roads?

      After they remove all six connections to large towns as irrelevancies, the road that's left certainly isn't notable.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:56PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:56PM (#641321)

        Nor is the town then either, if no roads lead to it.

        Wikipedia-sarcasm aside, does OpenStreetMap also operate like that? I use them as my map provider for Galileo, and they generally had information on minor footpaths for off the beaten path areas.

        • (Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:12PM (2 children)

          by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:12PM (#641328)

          > Wikipedia-sarcasm aside, does OpenStreetMap also operate like that?

          No idea, though I hope not. I think we've just devolved into taking shots at Wikipedia. (Not that it hasn't earned 'em, mind.)

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:09PM (1 child)

            by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @10:09PM (#641434)

            I have made several edits to OSM, addressing one way street, footpath, and signage changes that have occurred in recent years, and are newer than the source data.

            Even before my edits, OSM was more accurate in this neighborhood than Google Maps. Both are probably close enough for navigation purposes (Assuming people are smart enough to not turn on to a signed one way street), but sometimes Google Maps don't even match with the reality of the satellite maps.

            I have never had reverts to any edits, as my edits are always ones that I have physically visited. I suspect that nobody else that edits OSM has visited some of the areas I have edited, so they get left alone. Most of them had no edits since the original base data. There were several small parks and footpaths that were not on the map, and several roads that have not existed for 20+ years.

            When editing OSM it has a "source" field, which you can set to "local knowledge".

            I do see some people on OSM will edit areas that they have probably not visited. It looks like they changed the map to reflect the satellite maps. But any of those changes that have happened in areas I have visited look accurate.

            Another interesting thing is that my edits appear immediately on the live map, with no (apparent) review process. Maybe it is because all of my edits have been fairly minor and constrained to a single street or intersection. I don't follow the reddit, but I know they have had people look at the imagery to check how accurate some maps are.

            --
            "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
            • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:08AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:08AM (#641733)

              Lack of review is one of the problems mentioned.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:53PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:53PM (#641158) Journal

    The article talks about this Nominatim software/algorithm OSM uses to look up addresses, and that it's not very good. Nominatim doesn't get much maintenance either. I wondered why OSM was so bad at that. I routinely use other map sites for address lookup.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Shimitar on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:59PM (13 children)

    by Shimitar (4208) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:59PM (#641159) Homepage

    While i do not know enough to understand if this is just a rant for secondary motives or a genuive dis-enchantment, i must agree OSM so far is quite a disappointment to me. For some of my own needs i choose to use OSM as a mapping tool and:
    1- it's really poorly documented
    2- You need a "renderer" unless you roll your own
    3- You end up feeling like you are "stealing" and wondering what OSM actually is.

    I agree that something should change to make OSM more useful to people than it is right now. I don't care for "internals" (tehcnical whys), but i whish OSM was easier to use as a WEB/app developer.

    Another great point i agree on is that the real jiuce is not in the mappinga data itself, but in the actual extra-info: like business hours, prices, reviews and so on. This the fight of the future and the area where a Libre solution will be most important right now.

    --
    Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by TheRaven on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:45PM (12 children)

      by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @02:45PM (#641167) Journal

      1- it's really poorly documented

      Very true, though some of the libraries are much better. I added a map thing for a conference that we organised using an off-the-shelf JavaScript OSM thing (I forget which one, it was a few years ago) and was able to upload GPX plots created with the maps app on my phone to indicate locations of important things, with very little effort. If you want to contribute (and this ties into your third point), the learning curve is very steep. I mostly just leave comments on their web interface, rather than try to figure out how to contribute something more useful.

      2- You need a "renderer" unless you roll your own

      That's a bug, not a feature. They decouple the data from the presentation. There are a load of different renderers available with different performance characteristics, for different uses. To give a concrete example of why this is useful, the University of Cambridge used to maintain its own mapping system for all of the university and college buildings (and various other buildings that, over time, random people had said were important to include). This was costing a lot of money to maintain, so a few years back they contributed all of the data to OSM (including information that members of the public can't collect without trespassing) and wrote a new renderer. Their renderer includes a bunch of data that the standard ones ignore (for example, the location of the porters' lodge is not a thing most people displaying maps care about, but is very important for a Cambridge College) and looks exactly the same as their old mapping system, so they were able to switch to it without anyone noticing.

      Another great point i agree on is that the real jiuce is not in the mappinga data itself, but in the actual extra-info: like business hours, prices, reviews and so on.

      I agree here. It would be great to have a simple UI for people who want to upload this kind of data. You can't currently, for example, do a search for a pharmacy that's open on Sundays with the OSM data (even if you download the whole thing). This kind of thing should be easy for people to provide and would be a very good way of getting people involved in the project.

      --
      sudo mod me up
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:14PM (10 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:14PM (#641249)

        It would be great to have a simple UI for people who want to upload this kind of data. You can't currently, for example, do a search for a pharmacy that's open on Sundays with the OSM data (even if you download the whole thing). This kind of thing should be easy for people to provide and would be a very good way of getting people involved in the project.

        I honestly don't see how you'd do this with an open-source thing, unless you set up a foundation with a big endowment like Wikimedia so that it could run a large datacenter and basically be just like Google Maps. Hours of operation change from time to time (esp. on holidays), and as I understand it, with Google Maps, businesses can contact them and get that information updated. And reviews are constantly changing, plus need some level of moderation. These things just don't lend themselves to a static downloadable dataset; the OSM maps are already huge and take up a ton of space on your phone, and downloading new ones (updates) uses a lot of data and time since they don't seem to have a way of downloading deltas.

        For better or worse, this is what's made Google Maps so popular: not just having maps and navigation, but also being able to search for businesses by name or type (e.g. "grocery store" or "italian restaurant"), and then see operating hours and reviews, have it warn you that the place will be closing in 10 minutes by the time you get there, etc. Other real-time information is also valuable, especially traffic updates so it re-routes you when there's an accident for instance. OSM doesn't do any of this stuff, and doesn't really have a way to: you need to have someone running a datacenter and providing customer service to make this kind of stuff work. This doesn't mean OSM is useless; there's real value in having this data publicly accessible ("open source", or should I say "open data"?) so that for-profit companies like Google can use it, along with any new competitors that may arise. But the other convenient services on top just don't lend themselves to being replicated this way.

        • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:16PM (5 children)

          by sjames (2882) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:16PM (#641293) Journal

          Some changes could bring it closer. You identified a big one, make it possible to just send deltas. Add a torrent like system with signed data and they cut way down on bandwidth costs while keeping things updated.

          If they add site metadata (like store hours, web page, phone number, etc) those records could be owned by the business for the purpose of updates.

          But agred, it would be very hard for a free and open project to do everything Google maps can do.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:37PM (4 children)

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:37PM (#641306)

            Some changes could bring it closer. You identified a big one, make it possible to just send deltas. Add a torrent like system with signed data and they cut way down on bandwidth costs while keeping things updated.

            That would help, but the way it is now, it seems that this goes against business models. OSMand in particular only lets you download 3 maps for free, and wants you to pay to download more (including updates, I think).

            If they add site metadata (like store hours, web page, phone number, etc) those records could be owned by the business for the purpose of updates.

            I wonder how much it'd bloat up the datasets to include this information. But having the business "own" this data only works if there's some organization in place to make sure businesses can update this data, that other people can't sabotage it, etc. Someone running a restaurant might want to sabotage the information about their competitors, posting that they're closed or have short hours on important holidays, for instance.

            But agred, it would be very hard for a free and open project to do everything Google maps can do.

            Yeah, my point exactly, and maybe they shouldn't try, and should just stick to the map data. Another thing that Google Maps does well is public transit: it'll take into account when trains/buses are scheduled to arrive and how long they take. It also takes into account historical traffic data, so you can plan how long a journey by car will take on a particular Monday morning, for instance. All this requires a lot of work and a big datacenter.

            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:59AM (3 children)

              by sjames (2882) on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:59AM (#641611) Journal

              I just wish the mobile version of google maps would let me drag routes to an alternate like the browser version does (rather than just choosing between a couple proposed routes).

              • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:15AM

                by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday February 22 2018, @05:15AM (#641639)

                I completely agree. That's a really handy feature.

                The mobile Google Maps also kinda sucks if you have multiple stops on your route; it's not that easy to look at the stops, reorder them, delete one, etc.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:23PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:23PM (#641820)

                The mobile version of Google Maps USED TO let you do that. The feature was REMOVED.
                Google Maps seems to just get crappier.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:27PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @03:27PM (#641823)

                  Google Maps mobile has removed features and gotten crappier over time so I can't 100% confirm that it used to enable route dragging, but I seem to recall that it did.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:36PM

          by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:36PM (#641305) Journal

          I honestly don't see how you'd do this with an open-source thing, unless you set up a foundation with a big endowment like Wikimedia so that it could run a large datacenter and basically be just like Google Maps.

          You realise, I hope, that OpenStreetMap does already have a web UI for browsing the maps and getting routing information, and that this lets you leave comments reporting errors? The only change that they'd need would be to extend the comments box to allow more structured input, and streamline the approvals process (i.e. rather than having a trusted contributor read the comment and translate it into OSM internal data, you provide them with accept / reject buttons).

          --
          sudo mod me up
        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:13PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:13PM (#641330)

          uh, blockchain?

        • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:50PM (1 child)

          by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:50PM (#641357) Homepage Journal

          People do the work for Google maps. You establish a business account with Google (which is free), claim your business on Google Maps (I don't remember the process, but I think it involved answering physical mail sent to the address). Then you keep the information up-to-date yourself. Google Maps is important enough that business owners are willing to do this. There's no reason the same couldn't work for OSM, but only once they reach a certain degree of importance. And it does involve a budget - someone has to handle the initial check, to make sure you are the business owner.

          I think OSM has just reached a size where volunteer work doesn't quite cut it anymore. It's difficult, when an OSS project reaches a certain maturity - lots of the work isn't "fun" anymore, and volunteers only get you so far. Seems to me that OSM really needs a couple of commercial sponsors to provide funding for actual staff.

          --
          Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:34PM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @08:34PM (#641385)

            People do the work for Google maps. You establish a business account with Google (which is free), claim your business on Google Maps (I don't remember the process, but I think it involved answering physical mail sent to the address). Then you keep the information up-to-date yourself. Google Maps is important enough that business owners are willing to do this. There's no reason the same couldn't work for OSM

            That's wrong, and you just showed why. According to you, Google sends physical mail to the business address, then allows that business to maintain the information, which is kept on Google's servers.

            Who's going to pay for sending out millions of pieces of mail to these businesses? That's not cheap. Who's going to maintain all this infrastructure? Those datacenters don't run themselves. This isn't a static file: the businesses need to be able to log in to their accounts and update their info, and then that info needs to get to users quickly to be useful.

            And it does involve a budget - someone has to handle the initial check, to make sure you are the business owner.

            Exactly. Free software rarely does well with stuff like this: it requires some type of business. If you're lucky, you can set up something like Mozilla that's a nonprofit company, which can hire employees to do this stuff. But that takes a lot of money, which has to come from somewhere. Who's going to contribute millions of dollars needed to set this up for mapping, when there's already *multiple* commercial competitors with products that are totally free for users?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:22AM (#641735)

        That's a bug, not a feature.

        From what follows, I suspect that's exactly the opposite of what you wanted to say.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by isj on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:13PM (6 children)

    by isj (5249) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:13PM (#641173) Homepage

    One of the things the article complains about is that that OSM doesn't offer a map service competing with google maps etc. The service they do offer is bandwidth-limited etc. And multiple companies have made their own map renderer and services based on OSM data. I don't see that as a problem - I see that as an opportunity that has made multiple competing renderers possible, and those companies are all interesting in good data in OSM.

    The article mentions that the documentation is poor and the some features are ambiguous or superfluous. That is true. I have struggled with finding the correct way to mark the end of a road attached to another road but having a bollard blocking all but pedestrians.

    I still happily contribute to OSM. I no longer contribute to google maps. Why? because contributions to google map goes into a closed system controlled by a single company.

    • (Score: 2) by Lester on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:05PM (3 children)

      by Lester (6231) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:05PM (#641283) Journal

      And multiple companies have made their own map renderer and services based on OSM data

      He doesn't say only that, also says that the owners of that companies are also in the board of OpenStreetMap, so there is conflict of interests. Probably they are not very interested in good free high quality render service.

      Those companies are all interesting in good data in OSM.

      I'm afraid they have a problem. Who will feed the system with good data? The companies or the final users?. To make things work you need final users work force, and you won't get much contribution if final users can't access freely or aren't aware that OpenStreetMap is behind the scenes.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by isj on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)

        by isj (5249) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:17PM (#641334) Homepage

        Yes, the article raises other points. I recommend people to read it.

        The point about conflict of interest is an interesting one. Apparently there are some companies that make rendering and consumes that data from OSM, who is also on the board of OSM.
            * If OSM is a data set aggregator/provider then there is no conflict of interest. In fact it is a good thing they (the companies that rely on the data) are on the board so they an steer the direction of OSM with valuable insight form the data consumers.
            * if OSM is a data set aggregator _and_ presenter/renderer then there is an obvious conflict of interest.

        As far as I know OSM currently only provides a basic renderer for showcasing the data. The author of the article wants to make OSM provide better maps and rendering and services. Of course some on the board will disagree.

        What should OSM do? Get rid of anyone on the board that is involved in any way with competing services (both current and future services)? Thereby also getting rid of insight. Fill the board with people who agree with the author and potentially compete with google/bing maps? Thereby making the data consumers not that interesting anymore.

        I think OSM should stick to being a data service. Keep the commercial data consumers on board. If the article author wants a better renderer he is free to make one himself - the data is freely available.

        if final users can't access freely or aren't aware that OpenStreetMap is behind the scenes.

        Seems pretty clear to me. From OSM /about:
        OpenStreetMap is open data: you are free to use it for any purpose as long as you credit OpenStreetMap and its contributors.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:19PM (1 child)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @09:19PM (#641401)

          What you're missing is that, without a high-quality renderer, OSM will have trouble getting users to volunteer their time to contribute data.

          Basically, it's like having a Free and open-source OS kernel like Linux, but only being able to compile it with a proprietary $$$ compiler (which in this analogy you have to use every time you use the system and you somehow can't copy the binaries from other people). Having the source isn't all that useful if the tools you need to work with it are all locked up, and telling someone they're free to make their own compiler isn't much help. Instead of doing that, they're just going to use one of the free-but-proprietary (paid by ads) alternatives, while people like you bemoan the lack of volunteer contribution.

          What should OSM do? I have no idea. But the problem does appear to be real. FOSS works well when not only is the source/data freely available, but also all the tools you need to work with it. FOSS software would never have gotten very far if it relied on proprietary compilers; how many volunteers would have bothered to write Free software if they had to pay thousands of dollars for some proprietary compiler?

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday February 22 2018, @12:30AM

            by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Thursday February 22 2018, @12:30AM (#641524) Homepage Journal

            What you're missing is that, without a high-quality renderer, OSM will have trouble getting users to volunteer their time to contribute data.

            Apparently, there are quite a few rendering tools [openstreetmap.org] for OSM data, most of them either GPL'd or source available.

            As such, the real question is "who is going to make OSM data generally available with feature parity to other mapping platforms, hence giving end-users the impetus to contribute data?"

            Presumably, there are folks doing so already (likely without feature parity), but perhaps not in a completely FOSS/ad free/libre way. Which is unsurprising, given that providing such a service (not just the data, but the rendering, management and maintenance of infrastructure, updates to the data set, etc., etc., etc.) has significant start up and operational costs.

            There are many ways this *could* be addressed. However, I'm not very sanguine about the prospects that this will happen anytime soon.

            --
            No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 22 2018, @06:01AM (1 child)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday February 22 2018, @06:01AM (#641652) Homepage
      barrier=bollard

      See the wiki for usage notes.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by isj on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:42AM

        by isj (5249) on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:42AM (#641742) Homepage

        barrier=bollard

        I tried that, but it seemed to have no effect on route planning - still letting cars through.
        It seems that someone recently changed my change to explicitly ending the road and connecting the two roads with a footpath. Hmm.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:31PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:31PM (#641215)

    OpenStreetMap is a terrific idea, but it's terrible in everyday use. Frequently old information and some areas are just completely unmapped. I know that I'll take some heat for this, but for everyday use I prefer Bing Maps. It's the one Microsoft product that shines, IMO. The areal images look crisp with a high amount of color in comparison to Google Maps.

    But hey, here's at least one point in OpenStreetMap's favor: It's not Apple Maps.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:58PM (#641228)

      Google Maps works great for me. It has seamless mass transit and biking directions. I don't even look at the areal images; I might check Street View occasionally to identify landmarks for biking.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:18PM (5 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:18PM (#641253)

      I'm a Microsoft hater, but I have to admit that Bing Maps is definitely prettier than Google Maps. Google Maps badly needs a style update.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:30PM (1 child)

        by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:30PM (#641264)

        Google Maps needs a friggin' speedup.
        If I have to search (or need to check foreign countries with non-latin names), I use Google maps.
        But if I want to check a map (roads and trails), OpenStreetMap is an order of magnitude faster.

        Every version of Google Maps adds bloat and slows down. e.g. Defaulting to 3D for the sat view is a giant waste of bandwidth, CPU and time.

        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:20AM

          by anubi (2828) on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:20AM (#641718) Journal

          I was wondering why Google Maps had seemed to have gotten so slow. I remember being able to "drive" down a highway, almost realtime, with Google, whereas now I can only move so far, and wait so long before it re-renders. Forget "flying". Its almost like back on dialup.

          So I use this thing like I used to use dialup. Pick something, wait for it to render. But, unlike a few years ago, I have a lot more things to pick from. Quantity of available info is through the roof. But getting it down is slow as molasses. Yet I have no trouble viewing the HD Youtube stuff until the ads come through... sometimes the dual HD streams of both ad and content will overload my older 2.3GHz single-core celeron.

          My boss finally ditched his AT&T connection, that was advertised as being super-fast, but in practice often slower than dialup on a 33.6K modem, and got some sort of high speed connection from Spectrum. My CPU will peg now far before the Network limiting kicks in.

          I do like the increased amount of info available, but I was hoping by now, I should have the capacity of "driving" anywhere, realtime, seeing on the screen about what I would have seen through the windshield. I am nowhere close to that.

          Tourist with polaroid is more like what I get.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:33PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @05:33PM (#641268)

        ...Google Maps badly needs a style update.

        Yeah, google should make it all flat looking and hard to use like their other products.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:42PM (1 child)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:42PM (#641309)

          Have you tried Bing Maps? It's actually attractive.

          Yeah, their OS looks like total shit with that "Metro" interface and all, and really looks rather garish IMO, but Bing Maps isn't like that.

          Now this doesn't mean that Bing Maps is actually more useful or functional or has better data, I'm just commenting on the aesthetics. I just looked at my local area on it (I don't normally use it), and while it's prettier than Google Maps, it's missing a bunch of details, such as a nearby rail-trail, a nature preserve, various businesses, etc.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by damnbunni on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:12PM

            by damnbunni (704) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @11:12PM (#641491) Journal

            The worst part about Bing Maps is that it killed Microsoft Streets and Trips.

            S&T was a much more complex program with a lot of features most people would never need, but if you needed them, now you're just hosed.

            Since Garmin bought Delorme and killed Street Atlas, the only real alternative now is something like Maptitude which certainly does the job, but it's $700.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:36PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @06:36PM (#641304)

      And Google maps took over a year to fix a bus stop location, after 18 months still doesn't have the new lake and worse if you search for its name leads you to a completely different lake, and is generally crappy for foot paths.
      I don't doubt your experience, but for me OSM is generally miles ahead of Google.

      • (Score: 2) by isj on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:32PM

        by isj (5249) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:32PM (#641346) Homepage

        There is definitely some weirdness in google maps. I am/was a google maps contributor.

        One day I noticed that the street address of where I used to work had moved 2km. Not the building but the actual address. It seemed that some unrelated business had randomly moved the address' physical location. And there was no way for me to correct it. And no way to unapprove the change. An no clear way to find out who the incompetent approver was or where to report it.

        Another time I saw that new street addresses had popped up on a bare field nearby, and one old address had moved there too. No signs of what had happened in revision history. Any no way to correct it.

        Yeah, footpaths are generally not that great in google maps, even though I know the source data has it (gst.dk). My favorite example was once I found a one-way sidewalk. Turns out that google maps ties the sidewalk to the associated road, and when one diretion on the road is closed for roadwork it affects the sidewalk too (incorrectly).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:28AM (#641737)

      Around here, Bing Maps still shows - and routes along - a road that was closed decades ago. Even though I used their error reporting tool to point that out years ago.

      When a new motorway was opened, Google Maps showed it, but it took months before it would use it for routing.

      OpenStreetMap, on the other hand, is very detailed, and the motorway in question switched from "under construction" to a routable road the same way it opened.

  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @07:18PM (#641335)

    the freemium model strikes again. it's just a shortcut to thinking that ensures long term problems. they should have figured out a way to have a fully open model. these days you could incorporate blockchain tech. OSM could have it's own coin. the client software could have governance, and other features built in. no centralized server farms needed. end users could receive coin for serving data. etc, etc.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @10:37AM (#641741)

    A few of the points mentioned are the database design, and I suspect most people here know that major database design changes are not something you just do.

    The rest are complaints that the OpenStreetMap project doesn't spend as much money as Wikimedia foundation. Such as the one about not wanting other projects to leech on their server traffic. If you have millions like Wikimedia Foundation, this wouldn't be a problem, but OpenStreetMap is a comparably small project and server traffic gets expensive.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:41PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @09:41PM (#641996)

    It's time to inundate the project with fags, feminists, and a Code of Conduct.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @12:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @12:33AM (#642113)

      You forgot trolls. Where would the internet be without you? Oh right, nerdtopia. Fack off you scaly fuck.

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