Self-hostable maps stack, powered by OpenStreetMap | Hacker News Reader

Self-hostable maps stack, powered by OpenStreetMap

github.com

233 pointstaubek29 comments

All it needs is a mobile app.. could finally stop constantly sharing location data to Big-G and Apple.

Not really. OSMand has been around for ages if all you want is navigation with open street maps.

But that's really not what we want from a maps app, issit?

We want intelligent location data like searching for "groceries" and we want to know wherever the location is currently open etc.

While I hope that - eventually - open street map can fill that need, it can't today.

OsmAnd can search for supermarkets and show opening hours in the search results.

Screenshot: https://dro.pm/d.png (expires 18 hours after this comment was posted)

It's a data problem more than a software problem. A shop owner would be stupid if they don't want to appear in google search results with business information nicely presented on a card, and in doing so, they automatically put themselves on Google's map. Fast forward a few years of business owners doing this, and Google Maps is a superb directory where also the consumers flock to (previously they'd look for geo data with different providers such as TomTom). Now both sides are going there and only open data enthusiasts care about any alternatives that might exist.

What amazes me is that OpenStreetMap wins in basically every other category of map data (in most places of most countries). Not the real-time streams like traffic and public transport delays (OSM simply does not support that) but any geo data like streets, paths, power lines, benches, etc. There is also a push from basically every company except Google to use and improve OpenStreetMap data (Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc., with various governments involved as well).

We just need to somehow get these business locations more complete and current to be able to ditch Google entirely, for those that want to.

I sometimes wish companies were required to report their opening hours when registering and the state made this information available through a public api.

It's not really possible as not all place have scheduled opening and closing times... But a dude can dream, right?

Just a thought... opening hours can usually be scraped from their website (totally unfounded guess: that's how Google does it), so what seems to be missing here is a free tool -- and probably a free central database of pre-scraped data -- to collect this information for others to use together with OSM data. The process will be a bit different from OSM because data is scraped, not edited.

Edit: To add, if such a tool needs site-specific configuration to work, then that configuration could again be community-edited in a style similar to OSM data.

> totally unfounded guess: that's how Google does it

I'm pretty sure Google doesn't do that. At least not as the primary information source.

I don't work for Google, so I could be mistaken, but I've provided several information updates before. Google gave me the "local guide" after my first accepted update and gave me gamified incentives to update and verify local information about businesses afterwards until I disabled them again. (Like notifications when I'm at a store to verify if there is a parking lot and things regarding to disabilities etc).

The questions are usually really innocuous and quick to answer, which pretty much makes the player into free labor for Google, one minute at a time.

I was required to provide some proof on some information like opening times and that's probably how they're linking back to the official website. But it happens through user input not automated scraping i believe.

I wonder if one can, ahem, scrape gmaps data little by little and put it in OSMand

> OSM contributors are reminded never to add data from any copyrighted sources (e.g. Google Maps or printed maps) without explicit permission from the copyright holders.

— OpenStreetMap's Copyright and Licence page https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

Absolutely not! Google forbids copying map data, you could make OpenStreetMap liable. Once detected all such additions to OpenStreetMap will be reverted.

Precisely, and this is exactly why we want geo data to be open for using, reusing, remixing, or whatever the common software freedoms are.

https://organicmaps.app/ Can search for „groceries“ around you and shows the opening hours of any shops (that have added the data to OpenStreetMap)

I use OsmAnd~ on mobile. Works perfectly. Obviously doesn't do traffic.

Nor street view (but there is Mapillary) or search for business activities with reviews, pictures, etc. It does satellite view with Microsoft Earth images. I wonder if MS is so much better than Google but probably there aren't many sources of those images.

If you just want a polished offline maps app based on OpenStreetMap data checkout https://organicmaps.app/

I really love Organic Maps. My biggest wish is that its bookmarking/tagging system for places was a little bit better. For how cluttered Google Maps has gotten, it's still the only maps app I've used that does a good job of letting me tag and categorize every lunch spot I like, or every bar someone's ever recommended to me, or that donut shop I tried once years ago. Having a quick and easy geospatial map of my personal points of interest is invaluable to deciding where I want to stay in a city, or remembering places across various trips.

Organic Maps lets you star things, but without much for non-menu intensive categorization. And then when you go back to look around a city with your starred places later, it decides to make them about a 5px red circle until you zoom in so far it's showing you more information than you'd ever want to know about the zoning plan for every building on the street.

It's partially the classic OSS problem. The people who want to not have the clutter of Google Maps have a high overlap with the sort of people who want the app to ultimately give them as much information as possible if they keep zooming in. To what someone else put in this comment section, some of the value of Google Maps is that they have a good idea of what businesses on a given street you actually care about. OSM will often show me in big text that, instead of the coffee shop I'm looking for, I could go to a stone wholesaler that's 3 doors down.

If you want them to continue existing, contribute! https://organicmaps.app/support-us/

I just did a bike tour of Italy using this. It is absolutely fantastic and I've set up a monthly donation to them. Will be even happier when they get GPX imports working!

How does Organic Maps compare to OsmAnd?

Organic Maps is better for an average user to simply explore new places, OsmAnd is better if you want a customizable map for a specific use case (especially hiking or cycling).

FTR, location data is shared with Google and Apple regardless whether you use their mapping app or not: already the presence of their software on your device causes that software to send data about the device location to them, on a regular basis. This is used for features like traffic info or how busy with visitors a shop or restaurant is at a given time of day: you usually don't have your maps app open when dining or when grocery shopping.

Furthermore, even if you somehow stopped this sending, both operate multiple network services to help devices establish their location: one bases on devices sending a list of the wifi hotspots they see plus a list of network towers they are connected to, etc. The second service is aGPS, which is a network service that helps devices to locate themselves on the basis of GPS input in a cold start situation.

On Android phones, even if you kick gapps off your phone, it will likely still use aGPS.

I still think it's good to use OSM based apps though, because that brings all the improvements/error corrections from users into OSM instead of some proprietary silo.

Are you saying that if you don't have any google apps, including the google apps framework installed on an android device, it still sends location data to google?

It's not location data directly, but instead some measurements. I'm not sure how precise the location will be that Google obtains about you. All I know is that the name of the protocol is called SUPL, and the domain it connects to is supl.google.com. You can see it written here in a config variable, e.g. for lineage OS:

https://github.com/search?q=org%3ALineageOS+supl.google.com&...

These are some links with reading about SUPL (I haven't read them):

https://docs.broadcom.com/doc/1211168566155

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ASMS.2008.46

https://www.openmobilealliance.org/release/supl/V2_0-2012041...

There is a second network service for AGPS that connects to qualcomm hosted gpsonextra.net, but that IIRC just downloads a bunch of binary blobs with satellite data inside. It's not an interactive service where you send your position to it. You can find gpsonextra.net in the same gps.conf files that you can find SUPl URIs too.

Thanks! I checked the Blockada log. I got supl.google.com called 125 times which is not much but still 125 unwanted calls if they are monitoring me (but I didn't grant location permissions.) I added it to the block list. I'll see if it breaks something.

While I don’t see the need for this project myself, I appreciate how it is very specific hardware needs for both building and running it.

That sort of upfront info can save a lot of work down the line. Props for putting in the effort.

Some good discussion from a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32551273

A lot of these tools convert .osm.pbf provided by OSM to.mbtiles.

If only OSM provides the .mbtiles directly, then we don't waste many other servers many hours converting them. Especially the planet one.

The mbtiles have a different tag schema than the pbf (and they add layers and zooms). If/Once there is a widely used data conversion, there will probably be some centralized service providing it. But that doesn't solve your problem if you want a different schema.

real admins use mapnik

https://github.com/mapnik

No true Scotsman

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