A Critique of OpenStreetMap

I think the problem is that the leading people care more about the data than the official rendering. I am a long time contributor and think the map should be OSM's "figurehead". Only then normal people will like it. The high number of different colours and weird rendering of footpaths really irks me.

I'd say if suffers from too much focus on the code/data and could use some dedicated good designers. They might face a stubborn community though.

It is about freedom and open-source, you can help, I do (one step at a time).

edit: You have to be aware that some of the issues ARE data issues. At least some of the state highway labels are.

This is a great critique! I am using OSM for storing thumbs and printable maps for users, but they are pretty poor quality compared to the equivalent zoom google maps. The data is there, it's just the default rendering that isn't. Obviously this can be mostly solved with custom styling, but getting a well functioning tile server is a decent task.

About the coloring of maps, I found out about http://cloudmade.com/ recently and you can make open street map look googly with this, among other color sets.