Yahoo satellite images -> Bing satellite images?

Posted Nov 24, 2010 17:27 UTC (Wed) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
Parent article: Microsoft helping OpenStreetMap

The big picture is that map data is a natural monopoly. And even Google probably agree that it doesn't make sense for that monopoly to be run by a for-profit company.

In a joined-up world it also doesn't make sense to try to divide the monopoly geographically, as happened historically. Nobody wants to buy map data from sixty different countries, each in a different format, with inconsistent rules about what terms mean ("Oh, in Germany, this distinction does not exist, but instead ...") and licensing conditions that bury novel uses in tortuous legal process.

In the past OSM had access to Yahoo images (and I believe that Yahoo may have been one of the sponsors which bought me a pleasant meal after a day surveying a maze-like housing estate for OSM). I'd be interested to hear how that relates to this new announcement. Is it the same images under a new name, an expanded range of images, or ...?

Yahoo satellite images -> Bing satellite images?

Posted Nov 24, 2010 22:49 UTC (Wed) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link] (3 responses)

> Nobody wants to buy map data from sixty different countries, each in a different format, with inconsistent rules about what terms mean ("Oh, in Germany, this distinction does not exist, but instead ...")

Instead, you get a single inconsistent set of rules as to what the values of the tags mean. Is it highway=residential or highway=tertiary with abutters=residential? Which of the two sets of explanations as to what the values for highway= mean on Brazil should I use, or should I use a third one from somewhere else? If I have a two-way road with continuous lines in the middle (no overtaking allowed), should I use a single oneway=no way, or a pair of oneway=yes ways? Should buoys be marked with the simple set of tags, the complicated set of tags, or both at the same time?

(Sorry about the rant, but I fear at least half of the highway= ways I added are tagged incorrectly. And I still cannot see how the the six levels of highway= tag values, two of them being more primary than "primary", match the kinds of roads on the major urban area I live in.)

Yahoo satellite images -> Bing satellite images?

Posted Nov 25, 2010 11:05 UTC (Thu) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]

Maybe it's part of the British heritage of the project. In the UK, "primary routes" are A-roads, which are the trunk roads that pre-dated the creation of the motorway network.

Yahoo satellite images -> Bing satellite images?

Posted Nov 25, 2010 14:07 UTC (Thu) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

"with abutters=residential"

People haven't been using abutters= for years.

You don't have to worry so much about the classification of roads. It's far more pragmatic than you seem to think. The general rule is that you are classifying the road relative to the other roads in the surrounding area.

OSM mapping and (in)consistency

Posted Nov 29, 2010 21:07 UTC (Mon) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

Yes, OSM is inconsistent. There's a simple reason for this: Mapping is dead simple in theory, but looking further into the nitty gritty details reveals a whole lot of interesting problems.

And if Brazil, as a culture, solves the real-world problems with traffic, naming things, writing maps, etc., in some way that's almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the way the UK or Japan or does, that's just life. Deal with it.

The other side of the problem is that the OSM creators themselves were somewhat naïve when they started the project (and some contributors still are ). So yes, the whole set of tags is somewhat inconsistent at times.

But then, the very idea to go and map the entire world is so damn daunting that anybody who does not have that bit of naïvety wouldn't even be able to get started. They'd throw up their hands when confronted with the sheer magnitude of the problem, and leave mapping in the hands of some data-hoarding corporations who are at least two years behind the Real World.

That kind of contribution economy just plain works. It works for Wikipedia, and it does for OSM. This, more than anything else, IMHO is the whole point of having this huge thing called "The Internet".

OK. I'll get off my soapbox now. Sheesh. ;-)