Do we need a national mapping agency?
There have been a thought-provoking series of posts about the relevance of the Ordnance Survey. It’s good that people are questioning the need for a national mapping agency, but I think the answer has to be a resounding YES. The OpenGeoData blog doesn’t.
To quote:
“Me, I just don’t care about the Ordnance Survey. It’s not “evil” or “immoral”, it just doesn’t matter. I think that Open Maps can do better, and I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is by working on Open Maps, but it’s not a crusade it’s just a superior way of working together and generating maps.”
Superior is an interesting choice of word in this context. It’s perfectly fair for OpenGeoData to think that Openstreetmap suits his mapping needs, but to call it superior, and to say that the Ordnance Survey is irrelevant is a little short-sighted. The Ordnance Survey, and any national mapping agency, have a responsibility far beyond creating maps for the general population to use to get from A to B, and I wonder if Openstreetmap honestly feel that they are ready to provide disaster response mapping, or have the resources in place to ensure that their coverage of the entire country is current to within one year or less.
I like Openstreetmap a lot, and really enjoyed the talk that Steve Coast gave at OKCon last weekend, and I think they have a useful place in the free data debate, but I don’t see them as a replacement for our national mapping requirements. In my opinion, pretending that they are simply dilutes the fight to change the Ordnance Survey’s licensing policy.
[...] My pragmatic mapper post brought some interesting responses so I thought I’d outline it a bit more. [...]
The method of survey (moving around with a GPS) is fine for streetmap surveying, but mapping certain features (eg. land boundaries, private land) - things which are otherwise impractical to survey without traditional methods, means the scope of the map will be limited for use in things such as archaology. A lot of work would have to be done to get the kind of detail kept by the OS.
Although still sceptical of the worth of the project, I can’t help the enjoyment of contributing my own mapping data and watching it grow. The potential uses for things such as navigation rely on our data. However, I am starting to tire of the Wired-magazine-esque infalibility of it all when basic things like data modelling are being not only developed from scratch, but done by unguided committee whose only experience is this project.
I totally agree. Openstreetmaps is fun, no doubt, and we’re hoping to start doing some for our home city of Lancaster pretty soon. That’s part of the problem though: most people, unless they are very committed, are going to map the things that are interesting to them rather than faithfully mapping every feature.
I also agree with your comments about the data modelling- and that’s another reason why it’s short-sighted to assume that openstreetmap could supplant the OS. It’s an attitude that is unfortunately prevalent in archaeology too- that “our data model is better than your’s”, or even better “this week’s model is better than last week’s”.
If people don’t want to use a standard model, then they shouldn’t assume that what they do will have the validity that they claim.
[...] pragmatic mapper post brought some interesting responses so I thought I’d outline it a bit [...]
You should follow the debate that then ensued on the second OSM post on this (http://www.opengeodata.org/?p=184).
I’d agree that we need a national mapping agency. The question does in fact become one of what OSM can do that will remain valid, and how you manage such a project.
Charles,
Thanks for stopping by. I had stopped contributing to the debate when it became obvious that our viewpoints were so different.
(Goes off to read the arguments…)
Firstly, I don’t think it’s possible to change the viewpoint that if they don’t need or want something then they shouldn’t have to pay for it. As I’ve said before, I find this incredibly short-sighted and naive, but also intractable, or so it seems!
Secondly, I am assuming, possibly wrongly, that as OSM gains momentum, that it will need to evolve into something more monolithic and standards based rather than collapse into chaos. Fingers crossed…