For The Love Of Open Mapping Data
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
> Ha. I’m not sure I do. I look at it really as a series of milestones, right? We are still not quite there. I mean, OpenStreetMap is a great display map, but there is still not a whole lot of navigation data and address information
Like, seriously? The founder condemns his product like this? Sure you have to be critical, but not outwardly. I use OsmAnd for to-address navigation all the time. Since the government data import in the Netherlands I never have to resort to proprietary sources. Germany and France too, I hit in some address in Hamburg and it routes me across the country.
Not sure if where he lives it's "still not quite there", but as a founder aren't you supposed to highlight the good parts?
Perhaps this rant also comes a bit from the unprofessionality that we, as mappers, are used to get from the self-proclaimed project admins. Threatening to revert our data import (which was a huge quality improvement in the Netherlands and also a huge effort by dozens of mappers), then stop responding when we ask additional questions.
Boy am I grateful that OpenStreetMap isn't a VC-funded startup, because they'd have to deal with logic like this. It's an open source project. I'm happy for him to be honest about what needs improvement.
Edit: to those downvoting me, I can only assume you've had your thunder stolen from you, since you're not explaining your downvotes. Sorry someone else launched a similar product as yours.
Related: Do you agree or disagree that the "good for them! btw, our product..." is not an issue on HN?
"Well, Steve, I really think it'll still find an audience. We've got a lot of higher-end features that you guys probably won't ever add." [1]
That from someone going up against a free program that would be preinstalled on every single potential customer's computer. I can't speak from much experience, but I imagine that most people have trouble seeing the markets around their own software/customers 100% clearly.
So I wouldn't be too quick to blame it on the startup echo chamber of people wanting to keep image positive for VC fundraising. Nor do I think there's much anyone can do to change it. When people talk about their own products and how they stack up against the competition, you just have to take everything with a grain of salt and form your own opinions.
[1] The Audion Story, it's a good read https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/
Telenav. TNAV ticker. Sinking to new lows recently.
...but the Netherlands and Denmark are the only two countries I know of where addresses data have been opened by the government (are there other?). In most other countries, this is still an ongoing fight, and crowd-sourced data is still not on par with the proprietary offering.
The good news is that we are working on it: see for instance here (in French) for the ongoing grassroots effort in France (started a few months ago, already 18 million addresses compiled): http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_France/WikiPr... ...or this meeting in London which took place yesterday(!) and was the kick-off of a similar effort in the UK with some funding from the cabinet office: http://lanyrd.com/2014/openaddresses/