Mapillary is cool technology and important to OpenStreetMap in many ways: 1) Satellite imagery only gets you so far regarding object visibility and recognition. 2) GPS locations and traces are inaccurate. 3) Google's ecosystem provides a street view and to meet expectations, OSM should have one too.

Do you boycott React, which Facebook provides as Open Source as a contribution to the JavaScript ecosystem?

Do you boycott Mapillary, which Facebook provides as Open Data as a contribution to the OpenStreetMap ecosystem? Many parts of the system are Open Source too: https://github.com/mapillary

Mapillary does not have and is not selling personal data. Mapillary's main dataset is photos of (public) streets, and as openly licensed it was available for Facebook's use even before this sale.

That‘s correct. They can collect more data about mapillary users now, however. Not a good thing. I don‘t think I’ll contribute to Mapillary in the future.

Please consider contributing to OpenStreetCam instead.

https://openstreetcam.org/map/

OpenStreetCam seems to be owned by "Grab Taxi Holdings Pte. Ltd." based in Singapore. Bloomberg writes: "The Company, through its subsidiaries, develops mobile application software to book a taxi and other vehicles for transportation from one location to other. GrabTaxi Holdings serves customers in Asia."

Where can i find more information about openstreetcam? Why does OpenStreetCam use the CC-BY-SA License and not the ODbL license?

It's on my todo list, to start running OSC again, as soon as I start driving places again. Car's still got gas in the tank from February...

I don't think the personal data of (the few) Mapillary users is of any interest to Facebook either. What they need is the personal data of the masses and for that they already have and keep growing Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, and in that they are free to take advantage of any Open Source and Open Data like anyone else.

I wonder if the OSM Community will draw any long-term conclusions about trusting especially VC-backed companies from the fate of both Mapillary and MapZen in the last year as well as earlier back-turns such as MapQuest.

In these cases, it always seemed to me, as an occasional editor, like the OSM community was maybe overly eager to rely on services provided by external companies with not enough concern given to long-term risks. But beggars can't be chosers of course.

I doubt this will be any kind of soul-searching moment for the OSM community. OSM contributors make use of hundreds of different imagery sources from volunteer, corporate, and government sources. Few mappers will be particularly interested in the nitty-gritty of the funding. If the imagery is available with a compatible license, it will be used in mapping. If not, mapping will still happen, possibly more slowly. (On-the-ground survey is always the gold standard.)

I never really got into mapillary, but the uploads I have done have been with the mindset that they will be useful for a while and it's fine if exactly how long is hard to predict and so on.

It'd be nice if there was an alternative where it was reasonable to think of the upload as a digital artifact. But there isn't, and street level photos are really useful for improving OSM.

The only thing guaranteed about VC backed companies is that their investors are looking for outsized returns.

Uh, ok, but for those who never heard of Mapillary, what does that actually mean? Is it still something notable, even though we don't see it? I mean, Facebook buys tons of stuff, it's not always clear how a particular acquisition is interesting.

FWIW, "Mapillary’s involvement in OpenStreetMap" part doesn't explain to me what this stuff really has to do with OSM either.

Honestly, no-one knows but Mapillary and FB. Given that FB is starting to enter into the maps arena with Google, Apple, etc I wouldn't want to know the sort of stuff that FB could do with it.

It's too easy to think about the ugly side of this 'incredible journey' than it is to think about any good that will come out of this due to FB being 'FB'.

Mapillary is basically the Google Street View part of OSM. There are a couple of other street view offerings though.

Given that Google Maps was mainly built directly from street view (and gps) this is important.

Additionally, recently, both fb and mapillary were using ML tech on images and maps to extract info for a kind of automated mapping.

Though it's not "part of OSM" - it's an entirely separate project (set up as a VC-funded commercial entity, rather than a non-profit Foundation like OSM). It does allow OSM to use its imagery and API for mapping purposes.

That "part of OSM" describes the good relationship the OSM community had with Mapillary up until this moment.

Also I'm quite sure if they hadn't "allow" OSM to use its images, their photo database would have been much smaller.

Facebook uses OpenStreetMap for many map displays so they may have an incentive to improve OSM and continue maintaining the good relationship between Mapillary and OSM. Facebook has contributed tools to OSM before, e.g. the RapiD editor [1], though I don't think they are used much.

[1] https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/RapiD

I'm not sure how this is related to the comment before but what do you think would happen if Facebook started misusing data of Mapillary for example? Do you seriously think OSM would "lock them out" or something?

Not possible. FB can use OSM data to build their own maps like everybody else does.

Ish. If Facebook violate the OSM licence, then that's illegal and something could be done about that. Though the OSMF would never be able to seriously legally sue Facebook. One side has considerably more money than the other.

But if Facebook abided by the OSM licence, but did things the OSM community really didn't like, the OSM project could shun them. Not accept sponsor ship, block FB's RapiD software from making map changes, eject them as a corporate member from the foundation, etc. They'd still be able to use the data, but they'd be a persona non grata.

So in short:

Nothing would hurt Facebook at all.

Exactly.

This is why this argument falls flat.

If FB plans to do shady stuff with Mapillary, they will and there is nothing anybody can do about it...

Not sure I understand, google maps predates street view by many years and the street view becomes obsolete quite quick.

Doesn't seem that important (for maps).

Yes, but how good was Google maps back then. I use Mapillary to e.g., add speed limits to OpenStreetmap.

One-ways streets, road surfaces, sidewalks, lighting, oneways, shops and restaurants, turn restrictions, max heights below bridges, etc, are stuff that to a large extent come from Mapillary.

It was fantastic!

Driving wasn't available and that is what I would miss the most. But it isn't dependent on street view either.

Some efforts like this, https://mapwith.ai/

It will be interesting to see how effective facebook's rampup of"opensource" OSM infrastructure will be.

They have bought other mapping companies, which on the surface look like they are able to generate city scale point clouds. Combine those with mapillary's very compelling annotation framework, and the resources to do street sign detection, it looks like Facebook/OSM will be able to dramatically lower the cost to entry for people wanting high quality fully featured maps.

This is facebook of course, so it equally turn to shit. But one has to at least hope for a better outcome

Previous discussion from 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23564854

Normally we'd mark this one a dupe, but it looks like that thread was underwater the whole time (http://hnrankings.info/23564854/), meaning it never made the front page. That's usually an indication of greater interest, so we'll leave this one up.

Yes, it's on our list to write software to detect such cases.

Never heard of Mapillary, but does that mean that web requests to OSM shovel data to Facebook now? The article is too opaque and euphemistic to allow practical conclusions.

Mapillary can “journey” wherever they want as long as they don't take me, as their non-user, with them.

No direct impact on OSM services.

Mapillary is/was a private for profit company that allows people to extract information from their crowd sourced photos and then add it to OpenStreetMap. So a road sign or business name or whatever.

This arrangement encouraged lots of OSM users to contribute photos to Mapillary, as it is a nice way to add information to OSM (and to enable others to add information).

The indirect impact on OSM services is that turning on the view of the Mapillary images in an OSM editor will request that data from Mapillary servers (which are now Facebook servers). So you can go to the OpenStreetMap website and engage in an activity where you request data from Facebook servers. But you have to sign in, activate the editor and then activate the view of the images for that to happen.

A lot of the people that contributed heavily to Mapillary are disappointed with this outcome, as they have strong feelings about Facebook. I've contributed a little bit to Mapillary and will likely continue to do so, as I'm not trying to create an open data street view commons, I'm using it as a convenience.

it would take a lot of convincing for me to welcome Facebook into any project I'm part of. I've pointed out to one of their POs that they are violating OSMs copyright by not showing any attribution when browsing on mobile. I'm not confident it will ever be fixed. When they ask to be integrated into a project they're already abusing, the answer should be hard no. I'll reply to this comment if they start respecting OSMs copyright (unless comments get locked?). Just musing... but where do I file a DMCA?

Their use of the data is subject to section 4.3 of the ODBL. The language there demands a notice "reasonably calculated" to make the user "aware" of the data source. It doesn't demand on map attribution.

Attribution on the map is a clear, easy way to meet that bar (and acknowledges the many OSM contributors that see a prominent notice as being necessary to meet the license), but it isn't clear that the court tested bar will be so high.

Note that I'm not drawing "We'll see you in court" as a good way for a company to act towards a community, just commenting on where and how their obligations are defined.

Well, browse to a FB page on mobile, and play "find the data source". When you lose that game, I'd say they did not "make the user aware".

Especially when the FB map guys go on podcasts and brag about how they use the data source and how advanced they are.

The OSMF is currently working on an Attribution Guidelines which should help with FB's attribution

Thank you for that excellent explanation.

If you edit using iD (the default in-website editor), and you explicitly choose to request Mapillary imagery (at least two extra mouse clicks) then yes, in the abstract Facebook will be aware that you used Mapillary imagery to aid your contributions. Similarly other editors (programs and apps) may have Mapillary integration; you'll have to check with them but typically you'll be aware if you're using Mapillary imagery (you should, to be able to attribute correctly). Finally some OSM apps (e.g. OsmAnd) use Mapillary to provide street-level imagery (Google StreetView-style) for general use; if you're concerned you can probably disable this.

The main website does not at present integrate Mapillary directly. Of course, this could change in future if they decide to make it more interactive, but even then it seems likely that this would only be in the case the user asks to see street-level imagery.

> but does that mean that web requests to OSM shovel data to Facebook now?

Other way round. Facebook pile a bunch of time and tools into OSM maps.

> does that mean that web requests to OSM shovel data to Facebook now?

Absolutely not. Mapillary was an independent company. They were very friendly & helpful to the OSM community, and popular amoung OSM contributors, but they were never a "part" of OSM.org.

This is probably related to Facebook Aquila [0] drone project with the ambition to deliver internet to the whole world. MVP successful in 2016 and more developments in 2020.

With Tesla launching Starlink it wouldn't be a surprise with Zuckerberg's competitiveness that he upgrades this specific part in his gameplay.

In the words of Jim Collins to maximize the impact of the limited supply of gunpowder companies should first try to hit the the target with a riffle and with the knowledge of a success, aim the canon and hit the target at first attempt.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Aquila

Possibilities of this acquisition are endless. For instance, combine the location data in the Facebook App with the street view to identify which businesses people are at - and charge higher ad prices to those users who were previously saw an ad for that business.

Do they have street view equivalent data? My understanding was they have crowdsourced images/panoramas which are overlayed on a map using the geotags.

I'm not sure how that's even useful as anything other than a curiosity.

Perhaps I've missed something

They have enough images that it is more than a curiosity (they can do reasonable 3d point clouds of buildings in some ares). They also have quite a lot of software for extracting information from the images.

There is also crowdsourced streetview-like continuous stream of street images, and some code to extract features.

One can use OsmAnd a bit like street view in places where Mapillary images are available.

I had a look but found it doesn't at all work like streetview

5 edits on OSM since 2014 I can't see his interest on OSM

It's not incongruous to like and support OpenStreetMap and then also find editing tedious and so look for other ways to contribute.

Like say using VC funding to create a company that makes tens of millions of photos available for people that are editing OSM.

Translation for those who don’t speak marketing: Facebook bought Mapillary.

(This comment was posted when the linked URL was https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jesolem/diary/393358 and the title was "Mapillary and Facebook – Combining our open mapping efforts")

Is seems that they really do not want to admit that they have been bought. They make it sound like that they are in a partnership or something.

I don't understand this decision. Do they really think that creative wording will keep people from figuring it out? And once people figure it out, the "creative wording" just makes them look dishonest. Is it just about preventing news websites from being able to use "FB bought us" as a direct quote?

> the "creative wording" just makes them look dishonest.

I feel the same way. Whenever I see that kind of language I infer an undisguised attempt to mislead readers.

The real worrying part is that they think the creative wording makes them seem less dishonest than outright telling people that Facebook bought them.

This is not the announcement post but in the very first sentence it says "Today we announced that Mapillary has joined Facebook", linking to https://blog.mapillary.com/news/2020/06/18/Mapillary-joins-F...

Seems pretty clear to me.

I agree that's pretty clear, but I can also see how "joins" can read like a partnership or some other collaboration and not outright ownership.

I think they word it this way because they do not want to anger the OSM crowd too much (ie massively deleting their profiles & photos)

They are already getting started on that. https://framagit.org/Midgard/exit-mapillary

Admins, consider changing the link to https://blog.mapillary.com/news/2020/06/18/Mapillary-joins-F... -- the current link implies that this is directly related to OpenStreetMap, when in truth it's just a blog ("diary") of a Mapillary employee hosted under his OSM user account.

Ok, changed from https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jesolem/diary/393358.

Stop letting them buy companies. The lack of ethics and trust they have from people should preclude any of this from happening

Those who downvoted me: how're you enjoying your job at Facebook?