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submitted 8 months ago by King@lemy.lol to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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[-] wmassingham@lemmy.world -2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I can't think of any reason the backend can't be open-source too.

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 17 points 8 months ago

It costs money to host something like that. You want low latency, real-time routing and tile-rendering? Even more money. Sure, it could be funded by donations or something like that, but I'm not holding my breath.

[-] tubbadu@lemmy.kde.social 3 points 8 months ago
[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 6 points 8 months ago

If you're willing to spend all the money on setting up and running a server, why not just spend way less money to get more phone storage and use OSM?

[-] tubbadu@lemmy.kde.social 4 points 8 months ago

Setting up a server just for this is clearly overkill, but if you already have a homeserver it would be great to be able to deploy the backend. Sadly there is no such thing currently

[-] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 8 months ago

I totally agree. Running a server on a home machine that's already running 24/7 is trivial. I don't know why this guy is acting like it's a big deal. I've got a $100 mini-PC running multiple servers already. What's one more?

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

It's not a BIG deal. I self-host a ton of stuff. It's just a bigger deal than spending a bit more for phone storage for the vast majority of people.

[-] tubbadu@lemmy.kde.social 3 points 8 months ago

This is true for literally every selfhosted app

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago

I agree. Hence why I wondered why that would be an acceptable option compared to simply changing OPs posted requirements for far less cost and headache.

[-] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 months ago

Not necessarily. Most people in the US are locked into some kind of ridiculous contract that makes swapping/upgrading their phone a pain in the ass and a financial burden. To be fair, these same types of people probably lack the ability to run a home server so maybe my point is moot ๐Ÿ˜…

[-] wmassingham@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

That doesn't have anything to do with whether it's open-source or not.

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

The correlation is high.

[-] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago

What is the cost of hosting a server like this? I'd imagine someone could cloud host it at a cost of $10/mo and sell the online service at $1-$2/mo, which would take very few users to turn a profit. If the code is FOSS, some people would be willing to pay for the service.

[-] thejevans@lemmy.ml 2 points 8 months ago

https://wcedmisten.fyi/post/self-hosting-osm/

The main problem is that this type of service requires way more RAM and disk space than most other popular self-hosted services. You CAN do it, it's just not practical.

[-] sxan@midwest.social 2 points 8 months ago

You're right. There is (are?) an open source web interface to OSM. Technically, someone could host that themselves, and the app is just the web browser.

The real reason that it's not common is because there's no demand; or, at least, not enough for anyone to take the effort to package it up in an easy-to-deploy, well documented release. And demand is low because having offline, local tiles is almost always preferrable to nav or maps that require relatively heavy, constant internet access.

this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
37 points (84.9% liked)

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