[sf-lug] Thoughts on Google Maps vs OpenStreetMap and others...

[Bill Kendrick]

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 09:00:17PM -0700, Andrew E wrote:
>    And I've heard OpenStreetMap guys on SF-LUG having parties, so that's
>    cool. Haven't heard of any Google Maps parties. Anyways, thoughts and pros
>    and cons would be very much appreciated.

Well, the 'parties' that OSM has are mapping parties.  Folks get together
with GPSes and head out and map the streets, parks, greenbelts, whatever.
Then upload the GPS data to OSM and tag it up.

I did that when Steve Coast came to Davis to run a mapping party, soon after
he moved to Calif., which was shortly after he came to LUGOD to talk about
OSM.  (See: presentation PDF here:
http://lugod.org/presentations/openstreetmap-opendata-10min.pdf )

I biked around with a GPS he loaned me and wandered, up and down, up and
down, up and down, various bits of greenbelt in the part of Davis I would
soon be moving to.  Then I went in and added it to the map.  (Much of Davis
streets was already covered by TIGER data they were able to import.)

Google doesn't have mapping parties because they (to the best of my
knowledge, _entirely_) get their map data by licensing it from big companies
that make maps.  (You usually see their copyright info at the bottom of
the Google Map widget on a webpage... and it differs depending on where
you are.)


Wow... rambling, sorry :)

-- 
-bill!
Sent from my computer