What Map Maker is /is not

Hi Ed,

I agree that Map Maker does not provide “a forking opportunity for the creation of open geodata”. However, it does fork the global geo data creation effort. You did not mention what I think is the greatest advantage of open data: it only needs to be created once.

Sjors

[...] Ed Parsons tries to frame what Map Maker is. I’m still disappointed in what Map Maker is not, oh well at least they [...]

I can see that people might make corrections to an existing map, but I can’t see why someone would volunteer substantial amounts of their time to donate comprehensive virgin map data to Google. I can imagine if they were paid to do it, that might be a cost effective way for Google to acquire missing maps for comparitive peanuts though.

“most end users of Google Maps/Earth etc. and most developers using their api’s don’t want or need access to the raw data, for them such information is most usefully made available as pre-rendered tiles”

Hmm, I don’t know. I think developers would love access to the raw data- think of the mashups you could create with that rather than just tiles. Google have no real idea whether people want or need that data- AFAIK they’ve never given people the choice.

I agree with Rob as well- it *is* competition because it’s another entry in the “marketplace” for people’s time and skills. The question is though, for the majority of motivated people who really want to improve mapping- will they go for the one-way google approach, where their data is sucked into the googleplex, spat out in a single form, and no longer under their ownership, or will they continue with the collaborative, two-way, flexible, openstreetmap approach?

The fact is that OpenStreetMap also provides map tiles, and different sets as well (think hiking and cycling for example). So people can still contribute to OpenStreetMap even though they don’t care about getting the raw data.
Then I really can’t see for which good reason people would work for Google for free, except for fanboyism (if the word even exists…).

Ed -

I would like your comments on a related issue. As a developer, I would be interested in using Google Maps tiles if I could then draw on top of them in my own program. But my reading of the TOS (http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html) is that this would not be allowed. Is that correct?

regards,
-Frank

Work for an hour and choose a pint of free beer from the big brewery, or get half a shandy from the local brew-pub?

David Earl, above, and a few others cannot see why people would donate their time to adding to Google Maps. He cannot see the thousands of websites that use Google Maps, and cannot hear the moans of those users when they see that the maps do not have their homes on them.

These users want the big glass of beer.
They will work that hour for that “free” beer. Openstreetmap, for their hour, doesn’t even give them half a shandy - just instructions for a home brew, and the promise of great tasting things to come. (One side effect of making more people mapping alcoholics should be more appreciation of the finer tasting open geodata brews).

Ed is correct, (at this time) most users and developers couldn’t care less where their maps come from. Some may say this view is mistaken - time will see.

[...] of the most anticipated talks was Ed Parson of Google talk on their new product MapMaker. There has been quite a bit of consternation in the GeoWeb community [...]

[...] there endless blog debate about who is better than who, see here, here and [...]