OpenStreetMap
The quality of OpenStreetMap's work speaks for itself, but it seems that we need to speak about it too - especially now that Google is attempting to to appear as holding the moral high ground by using terms such as "citizen cartographer" that they rob of its meaning by conveniently forgetting to mention the license under which the contributed data is held. But in the eye of the public, the $50000 UNICEF donation to the home country of the winner of the Map Maker Global Challenge lets them appear as charitable citizens. We need to explain why it is a fraud, so that motivated aspiring cartographers are not tempted to give away their souls for free. I could understand that they sell it, but giving it to Google for free is a bit too much - we must tell them. I'm pretty sure that good geographic data available to anyone for free will do more for the least developed communities than a 50k USD grant.
I answered this piece at ReadWriteWeb and I suggest that you keep an eye for opportunities to answer this sort of propaganda against libre mapping :
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_announces_map_contest_50k_for_adding_school.php#comment-175013
Discussion
Comment from JohnSmith on 17 December 2009 at 12:45
$50k is probably a very cheap way to get a lot of free press, it's just a shame that the media will not bother to check if anything better exists and expose this scam on their own, instead people that actually care have to give this sort of PR spin the daylight disinfection to clean up their mess as a result :/
Comment from Wynndale on 17 December 2009 at 13:19
Well done! By the way, another good idea is to point out how OSM does better on any matter any other commenter criticises (which may of course be thanks to someone’s freelance effort) or to see how it can be made better when it isn’t already.
Comment from akuckartz on 17 December 2009 at 13:55
Thanks. I also tried to comment on ReadWriteWeb but got an error.
Comment from Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason on 17 December 2009 at 14:13
If you're trying to counter propaganda it always helps not to introduce some more of it in the process.
Google's Map Maker Competition isn't "fraud" nor are people who use Map Maker "[giving] away their souls". It's made perfectly clear to everyone using Map Maker what they're signing up for and in some cases using Map Maker is a much better use of your time (at least in the short term) than using OpenStreetMap.
Comment from Jean-Marc Liotier on 17 December 2009 at 14:23
@Ævar - I admit I let my enthusiasm get the better of my objectivity. From a rational point of view, you are right. But maybe some exuberance in expressing feelings is a way to attract attention - which then is more receptive to the more rational argument.
Nevertheless, I object that users of Map Maker know exactly what they sign up for : many users do not understand how licensing is key to the whole system. Making noise about it is a start - it may merely be a way to wake them up, but it takes a fully awoken user to start considering things rationally.
Comment from marcschneider on 17 December 2009 at 15:14
You are right Jean-Marc, users of Map Maker do often not know what they sign up for. But nor do users of OSM: most of them don't even know what the the license OSM is under contains (see the current license debate: I dare to claim that a lot of the community has never thought about "license" before the debate in such a way they do now... you can see it in most of the ongoing discussions: a lot of things are criticized on the new license that are actually not any different from the old one... and so on). And people bawling for anarchy by just tagging in a way nobody else in the community would do, confirms it. not all mappers actually got the right idea of OSM. but fortunately its only a minor part of users. :)
what I want to express: I don't think - especially not from a psychological point of view - that to harsh critique and exuberance in expressing feelings is the best way to attract attention. We should find a way to actually promote OSM more... competition is now up and running, and just reacting to news concerning our "enemies" ain't bringing us anywhere. Pointing out the strengths of OSM is indeed a good idea - you are totally right about that. But the main question we should address is where to do that in order to gain the biggest attention and attract the most users possible. anyone has 50k$ left? ;)
Comment from harriercoold on 17 December 2009 at 16:47
I see this in google
We showcase projects that use Map Maker data and technology and contribute to the global mapping community
http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/mapmaker/showcase/
versus
Humanitarian_OSM_Team
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team
many humanitarian organizations made maps with OSM, but OSM is more free
Comment from slashme on 17 December 2009 at 19:10
Interestingly, Google Maps was quite useful to me recently. My latest edits took the following form: I took a look at my neighbourhood in Google Maps and OSM. I saw the difference, climbed on my bike and went logging tracks. OSM was mostly right, and Google Maps was way wrong. I added some new features that neither had (one blocked-off road, three boom gates and some private access), fixed the length of two roads and added a road that we didn't have. It also was my first time to scan data into Walking Papers, which is a pretty cool tool.
Not completely relevant, but not completely irrelevant.
More relevant, I'm going to talk to my landlady, who teaches geography, and see whether I can get her to start a walking papers project at her school. More useful than fighting google maps: let's just keep being better.
Comment from Philip on 17 December 2009 at 19:56
Perhaps we should try to persuade Google to release the data they obtained 'for free' under a Free licence. Even if the end result is not favourable, if the process is well documented, it could provide others with a better understanding of the difference between free and Free.
Comment from JohnSmith on 18 December 2009 at 07:48
Philip some people have tried, it's not even possible at present to get your own edits back out of Google, even though they state you own them.
Comment from Philip on 18 December 2009 at 08:58
@JohnSmith hehe - from my own experience, I'm pretty sure Google has a policy/practice of ignoring requests/emails from individuals. I was thinking the persuasion would be more along the lines of the UK's 'Free our data' campaign - via the blogosphere, twitter etc., eventually enlisting the support of 'well known names'. Google appears to respond to public opinion better than individuals.