this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2024
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OpenStreetMap community

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Everything #OpenStreetMap related is welcome: software releases, showing of your work, questions about how to tag something, as long as it has to do with OpenStreetMap or OpenStreetMap-related software.

OpenStreetMap is a map of the world, created by people like you and free to use under an open license.

Join OpenStreetMap and start mapping: https://www.openstreetmap.org/.

There are many communication channels about OSM, many organized around a certain country or region. Discover them on https://openstreetmap.community/

https://mapcomplete.org/ is an easy-to-use website to view, edit and add points (such as shops, restaurants and others)

https://learnosm.org/en/ has a lot of information for beginners too.

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[–] LucidBoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 2 weeks ago

very icky, no good

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 7 points 2 weeks ago

Man, so much attempt to stir up drama. Can they just talk about why they initially added the MIT license if they didn't intend to make it public, why they didn't make it public and open source, and what needs to happen to do that in a way and at a time that everyone is happy with, without having to do so with the eyes of the internet on them?

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world -3 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

A good opportunity to remind everyone that a vastly superior alternative to Organic Maps already exists: Osmand.

[–] Pleat1752@feddit.uk 21 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Organic Maps is better for "normal" users if you ask me. Osmand is better for pro users but quite clunky.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Yes, Osmand is definitely clunky by comparison. But the UX is getting slowly more intuitive. I see no reason why Osmand's easy-peasy defaults mode cannot end up equal to to OM. They're not far off, and at that point its superiority would be clear as day.

Personally I wish the OM devs could have contributed their talents to making Osmand better. Really feels like wasteful duplication which benefits nobody benefits except the egos of a handful of developers. A common problem with FOSS and this is a great example IMO.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago

I wish Organic maps would add some of the features from OsmAnd. I want the ability to select a part of the map to avoid.

[–] przmk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Did osmand change its rendering engine to make it as smooth as OM?

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Something changed to that effect a while back, yes. OM continues to look and feel a bit better (possibly a subjective experience) but it is so feature-poor by comparison.

[–] przmk@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

I just tested it again on my Fairphone 5 and it's still slow. I'm not talking about the UI but the rendering of maps. Unless they somehow manage to fix that, it'll keep being a poor experience.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Osmand has a terrible user interface

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It is also only open core and hides features behind a paywall.

[–] maxmalrichtig@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't think this is true in that sense. You can get the full experience for free by - either building it your self - or simply on FDroid. If you still use Gruesome Playstore, then yes, it is "soft paywalled".

Or do you mean other features that are not even in the FDroid build? (Which could be some proprietary features.)

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can get the full experience for free by - either building it your self - or simply on FDroid.

I doubt they gift you accumulated hundreds of dollars yearly worth of premium features plus all the stuff hidden behind the paywall just because you didn't load from the Google Play Store.

If you have a fully open source product (with a permissive license) you can't just "paywall" it, as FOSS licenses allow you to build and often redistribute the product.

When you have a fully open source product and want to build a valid business model from it, you have to work WITH your license. The OsmAnd team chose an interesting way to do this by "paywalling" the Playstore version "OsmAnd+". But you still can get all the stuff, as it is open source.

A community-compiled version of the full OsmAnd+ named OsmAnd~ without Google Play services dependency is also freely available on F-Droid.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OsmAnd#Licensing

Welcome to the world of FOSS. 🌍

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago
[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

OsmAND is not superior at all. It is unintuitive and prone to crashes.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Or perhaps it's your software stack. I've used it constantly for well over a decade, every day, on multiple devices, and crashes have been vanishingly rare.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

"It doesn't work for me." Your argument is also just an anecdote.

Personally, I love OsmAnd because of the power features. In the best sense "it works for me". However, I would recommend OM to not-so-nerdy friends and family as it is just simpler to use and understand due to the fewer features.

[–] sic_semper_tyrannis 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I would disagree. I have both and use each for different tasks.

OSMAnd is clunky and unintuitive. I have learned it well and have it setup for land navigation type stuff. It's incredibly good at displaying every last detail of the topography.

Organic Maps is fantastic for city navigation. It's smooth and quick and ever since the addition of turn-by-turn voice navigation I'm in love. I use the Sherpa Onnx voices and they sound so lifelike.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Interesting perspective. I too have used Osmand (or "OsmAnd" or "OSMAnd" or whatever unpronounceable official name it is) for years. 13 years to be precisely, without a break. I've contributed numerous bug reports and feature requests. It's clunky and unintuitive yes, but I've seen worse in other power apps of this kind.

But Osmand is still lacking a couple of features on my personal wishlist, so I naturally gave Organic Maps a decent audition, navigation included. I found that it did only one thing better: rendering of subway lines in dense cities. But this has now been largely fixed by a new setting in Osmand (cleverly hidden, obviously). In everything else, OM just felt to me like a poor man's alternative to Osmand. With a busy hive of developers earnestly working towards feature parity sometime in the next millennium.

These two projects have the exactly the same objectives. I continue to wish the OM developers would just put aside their egos and help fix whatever it is they don't like in Osmand. That's the point of FOSS.

[–] InsertUser@en.osm.town 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Everyone does. If only they would drop the fussy spelling conceit and just write it like that.

[–] redd@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Same problem that Osmand is dependend on their backend for map data download

[–] InsertUser@en.osm.town 2 points 2 weeks ago

@redd @JubilantJaguar not really.

OsmAndMapCreator is a free download and can process raw OSM data into what you need.
I used it all the time for quick updates before their "live" updates

[–] InsertUser@en.osm.town 1 points 2 weeks ago

@JubilantJaguar @sic_semper_tyrannis if I want the advanced capabilities and to wait 50 seconds for the map to load I use OsmAnd

For most things Organic Maps is better.