2009/12/18 Steve Bennett <stevag...@gmail.com>: > So much hate... So much ignorance, see I can do that too...
> So much hate... So much ignorance... > Ok, I misunderstood. So your position is: > 1) Google gives maps away, which people want. > 2) In exchange for their privacy. > 3) Which makes them evil. > > I agree with 1, probably 2, still making up my mind about 3. Again, swing and a miss... Collecting private information isn't inheriently evil, making comments about the only people who care about privacy is wrong doers is either stupid, ignorant or evil... Govts use the same tactics all the time, their happy to soak up as much information about individuals as possible, but when their private details leak they start filing lawsuits to hush things up, thankfully for the internet keeping things quiet about sensitive issues isn't as easy as it used to be... Mind you this is a big reason for most governments implementing or trying to implement some sort of internet filtering so they can attempt to try and gain control of the flow of information again... > Just trying to understand. If I restate your views incorrectly and you > correct me, then at least we're on the same page. You seem to be jumping to a lot of incorrect conclusions. So far you have yet to get things correct about my opinions on the matter actually. > Maps have more than "some value". Maps have enormous value, and have done so > for centuries. Whether or not you get the data used to render the map in > some digital form is still a smaller consideration. It's simply not correct > to imply that the data is "real value" and the rendered form is some > trifling concern. You're building your argument on a logic fallacy. We potentially are living in a wonderous age where raw information can be used in all sorts of new and interesting ways, rather than the stiffled view of the past that says people only need them to get from place A to B, what if you don't know where B is but you would still like to get there. SteveC has highlighted this type of useful type of mapping in the past, check out his presentation at the last State of The Map where he shows a map of London and he's giving the example of someone that wants to live X distance walking from work, except that's no longer a simple circle of fixed diameter, you might have access to public transport that will make small circles of area that extend outwards. Sure you can do some nasty hacking up on google to try and achieve that, but it screws up the place/street labels because you have to put your information on top of googles rather than using a base layer, putting your transportation layer on top and then the place/street labels above that. > Do you disagree? I feel that having high quality rendered maps of an area is > like a 9/10 and having the raw data to do cool stuff with is a 10/10. What > would your numbers be? Because you are stuck in a specific mindset of what's possible with current technology and current artificial limitations of that technology. Map tiles are a very basic thing that people have come to expect in a certain way, like all commodities I don't rate this very high on the list of break through technologies. If I had to put a number on it it'd be about a 2 or 3 out of 10, the map data itself is obviously a 10 because once you have that you can do many many more things with it, like routing (and not being restrictively licensenced so you can't do real time updating of routing based on your current position if you stray from the set path the map gave you), selectively mapping or highlighting specific items (eg what the OSM cycle map does), the ability to fix mistakes on maps in a timely fashion, not being forced to fork out large amounts of money to do any of the previously mentioned things. > You said "They want to be able to sell map data without giving anything away > of > real worth to anyone else" > > And I paraphrased that as "the notion that G provides nothing of value". Which is incorrect, if I wanted to mean/say that I would have. > That seemed reasonable to me. You now propose that the difference between > "value" and "real worth" is the raw data. That's ok. It's an unusual > distinction, which I don't think I could have been expected to read into it, > but no problem - sorry for the misunderstanding. It's all about doing what isn't currently possible, most of the really great uses haven't even been realised by people yet, although things like 3D and 4D mapping will push things along a little, rather than being stuck with a flat 2D map that is almost no better than a street directory. You only have to look at what came out of people creating map mash ups with just tiles to realise how things could be if they had the ability to do mashups of the data and really take things to the next level. > Out of curiosity, what advertising? The only "advertising" I see on google > maps is businesses whose names match your search terms. Is that what you > mean? Google puts ads along the bottom of the map, not just the names of businesses which they don't earn money from. _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
