196
Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and TomTom have launched their open map dataset
(www.theverge.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
196 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
34820 readers
19 users here now
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
It seems they consider themselves complimentary with OpenStreetMap, as stated on their FAQ https://overturemaps.org/resources/faq/#
I don't know a lot about any of both projects, but it seems fair.
Almost sounds too fair, like there's a catch. You can never know with these guys.
All companies are forced to play nice when they aren't at the top. Google has a monopoly on mapping, their only real competitor is TomTom, and really only in the US. All of these companies need mapping data and don't want to pay google for it, so it makes sense to work together to release this.
It makes sense; OSM is a great source of mapping data, but it misses POIs like businesses and whatnot. If I understand it correctly they all want to chip in to make a huge combined dataset that has the potential to rival Google Maps, especially if they all use it and allow people to contribute as easily as you can do on Google Maps.