What's odd is that Open Street Map has commercial licensees. I can see multiple competing companies, but competing open source groups usually is an indication of a problem... --dave On 12/16/22 15:34, BCLUG via talk wrote:
Stewart Russell via talk wrote on 2022-12-15 07:01:
Membership in the Overture foundation is also very costly: $3000 US/year to contribute, $3M US/year to be on the steering committee.
From the Ars story, that's cheap to these companies:
If Overture Maps succeeds, it could lower costs for everyone. Overture member companies are expected to pay an annual membership fee to the foundation, with members on the "Steering" tier paying $3 million per year and dedicating 20 engineers to the project (sign-ups are currently open). That's nothing compared to what a big company will pay for access to the Google Maps API. When Uber held its IPO in 2019, the company reportedly paid $58 million for Google Maps API access over the previous three years, and that was mostly before the Google Maps price hike. $3 million a year is a bargain compared to that.
$3,000,000 *plus* 20 engineers - that kind of resources can get things done.
Also, "Qualified Nonprofits / Government" tier of membership is $0:
https://overturemaps.org/become-a-member/
Also, a Polish "find a pharmacy with medicine I require" site was priced out of Google Maps and investigated the alternatives (interesting comparison images of different mapping products), and made this claim:
Some options we could reject quickly for various reasons. OpenStreetMap is not supposed to be directly used by commercial sites
https://www.inderapotheke.de/blog/farewell-google-maps
So, I can see the case for Overture Maps if they compete with Google (or can't afford them), and OSM licensing means OSM is unavailable.
The partners in Overture are not particularly well known for their open-source friendliness.
Ars again:
The code to "help developers process and effectively use Overture map data and the global entity reference system" will eventually be on GitHub. Initially, the foundation aims to release "basic layers including building, road, and administrative information," with later plans to introduce "new layers such as places, routing or 3D building data."
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