{"id":1785013,"date":"2018-02-19T12:51:16","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T17:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1785013"},"modified":"2018-02-19T12:51:16","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T17:51:16","slug":"openstreetmap-in-serious-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/02\/openstreetmap-in-serious-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"OpenStreetMap ‘In Serious Trouble’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much chatter on Twitter about a blog post criticizing OpenStreetMap that made it to the front page of Hacker News; problem is, said chatter hasn’t been linking to said blog post. Here it is: “Why OpenStreetMap is in Serious Trouble<\/a>,”\u00a0in which\u00a0Serge Wroclawski argues that OSM has lost its way on a technical and management level:<\/p>\n

Before I criticize the project, I want to state emphatically that I still believe wholeheartedly in the core principles of OpenStreetMap. We need a Free as in Freedom geographic dataset just as much today as we did in the past. When I wrote my article about OSM in 2012, self-driving cars and other services were still a dream. Today the importance of having a highly accurate, libre geographic dataset is more important than ever, and I support those working to make it happen.<\/p>\n

That said, while I still believe in the goals of OpenStreetMap, 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\u2014and I hope it does. We need a Free as in Freedom geographic dataset.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I do love me a good rant; and as an OSM contributor myself, I do recognize some of the problems Serge highlights, particularly the difficulties in importing data, moderating edits, and vandalism.<\/p>\n

Since getting linked there is what drew attention to it, Hacker News comments (I know, I\u00a0know<\/em>) are\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Previously:\u00a0OpenStreetMap at the Crossroads<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much chatter on Twitter about a blog post criticizing OpenStreetMap that made it to the front page of Hacker News; problem is, said chatter hasn’t been linking to said blog post. Here it is: “Why… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,114],"tags":[386],"class_list":["post-1785013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-industry","category-web-mapping","tag-openstreetmap","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1789654,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/11\/openstreetmaps-unholy-alliance\/","url_meta":{"origin":1785013,"position":0},"title":"OpenStreetMap’s ‘Unholy Alliance’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 November 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"OpenStreetMap, says Joe Morrison, \u201cis now at the center of an unholy alliance of the world\u2019s largest and wealthiest technology companies. The most valuable companies in the world are treating OSM as critical infrastructure for some of the most-used software ever written.\u201d Corporate teams, rather local mappers, are now responsible\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Industry"","block_context":{"text":"Industry","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/industry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1785131,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/03\/openstreetmap-and-its-women-contributors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1785013,"position":1},"title":"OpenStreetMap and Its Women Contributors","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 March 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"When I started contributing edits to OpenStreetMap in earnest, I couldn't help notice certain idiosyncrasies in its tagging: for example, there was a tag for brothels, which I didn't need to use, but there wasn't one for daycares, which in Quebec there are rather a lot of. That seemed odd.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Web Mapping"","block_context":{"text":"Web Mapping","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/web-mapping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1785945,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/07\/a-mobile-mapping-roundup\/","url_meta":{"origin":1785013,"position":2},"title":"A Mobile Mapping Roundup","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 July 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"Rerouting. Lifehacker talks about how to prevent mapping apps from rerouting you on the fly, and lists some options. [R. E. Sieber] Traffic. Traffic congestion is a key feature of mobile mapping, and predicting it involves looking at historical data. CityLab reports on a recent study suggests that time-of-day electricity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map Errors"","block_context":{"text":"Map Errors","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/map-errors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1832195,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/06\/openstreetmap-is-dealing-with-some-vandalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1785013,"position":3},"title":"OpenStreetMap Is Dealing with Some Vandalism","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"19 June 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"It seems OpenStreetMap has had to deal with a wave of vandalism attacks lately. If you see some nonsense on OSM, this post on their community forum outlines what to do about it (it may have already been taken care of even if it\u2019s still appearing, so check for that;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map Errors"","block_context":{"text":"Map Errors","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/map-errors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1819828,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/11\/mapping-north-korea-in-openstreetmap\/","url_meta":{"origin":1785013,"position":4},"title":"Mapping North Korea in OpenStreetMap","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 November 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"Mapping North Korea in OpenStreetMap is, by necessity, an exercise in armchair mapping\u2014i.e., drawing maps from aerial imagery and other data sources\u2014because on-the-ground mapping is, to say the least, impractical. French OSM user Koreller has created a North Korea mapping guide for OSM contributors. See Koreller\u2019s diary entry about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Web Mapping"","block_context":{"text":"Web Mapping","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/web-mapping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1835382,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/12\/openstreetmap-outage-resolved\/","url_meta":{"origin":1785013,"position":5},"title":"OpenStreetMap Outage Resolved","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"17 December 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"An outage at their Amsterdam ISP knocked OpenStreetMap offline on Sunday; they\u2019ve spent the past two days in read-only mode via their secondary server in Dublin but appear to be back up and running as of 8:45 AM EST today. Details at the OSM community forum.","rel":"","context":"In "Web Mapping"","block_context":{"text":"Web Mapping","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/web-mapping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1785013"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1785015,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1785013\/revisions\/1785015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1785013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1785013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1785013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}