[Klug-general] slightly off topic?

[Karl Lattimer]

On Sat, 2009-05-09 at 06:45 +0100, Peter Childs wrote:
> 2009/5/8 Karl Lattimer <karl at qdh.org.uk>:
> > On Fri, 2009-05-08 at 22:09 +0100, MacGyveR wrote:
> >> On Friday 08 May 2009, J D Freeman wrote:
> >> > - gpg control packet
> >> >
> >> > On Fri, May 08, 2009 at 10:03:28PM +0100, MacGyveR wrote:
> >> > > All,
> >> > >
> >> > > I'm looking for an opensource/free application/website that can do the
> >> > > following:
> >> > >
> >> > > Display a street map
> >> > > allow me to either draw/drag a line along roads
> >> > > calculate the length of the line in miles
> >> > >
> >> > > It's for my running, I don't want to carry a gps with me, but a figure
> >> > > someone might know of anything that can do the above?
> >> >
> >
> >
> > I'd suggest getting into googlemaps api, it is awesome and very simple,
> > knock up a javascript app to do what you want and publish it :)
> >
> > K,
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Kent mailing list
> > Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
> > https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/kent
> >
> 
> I will now make the Stupid Dame Notice.
> 
> Google Maps are NOT open source they are close, with quite tight
> restrictions over what you can and can't do. There maps are also good
> for some things and not that good at other things.

OK, I also want to clarify some stuff.

The software which powers googlemaps resides on googles server, and yes
it is not open source but to be honest it doesn't need to be because
it's pretty obvious how to write something that slides, zooms and loads
maps.

The difference with google and open street map is simple, googles maps
are complete, provide route planning services, satellite photos,
streetview, traffic maps and much more.

This situation is the case because google invest in maps, they purchase
licenses for these maps so the common or garden user can make use of
them. These MAPS are not open, however there is no source... So to say
"open source" is a bit irrelevant here. The fact of the matter is, you
have a free as in beer mapping system that's awesome, or alternatively
you've got a mapping system which is open, incomplete, contributed to by
people who have nothing better to do in their spare time than make maps.
These maps are not of the quality of ordnance survey as they're produced
by amateurs not professional cartographers. Basically if I wanted to map
something open street map would not be my personal choice purely because
it isn't a complete map.

I can't imagine for a moment using OSM to do navigation and route
planning. For one, I'd have about a dozen or so roads in some cities,
and probably end up going the wrong way because it doesn't have any
direction stuff in IMPORTANT places, e.g. ONE WAY STREETS!

That's my 50c anyway.

BR,
 K

P.S. I don't mean to sound like I'm anti open source, far from it
obviously... However I would like to remind people that not everything
has to be open source, and sometimes free as in beer is fine.
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