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.)
Re:Facebook acquires Mapillary
by maxerickson on Sunday June 21, 2020 @07:09PM
(#23596091)
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.
Re:Facebook acquires Mapillary
by formercoder on Sunday June 21, 2020 @07:45PM
(#23596243)
The only thing guaranteed about VC backed companies is that their investors are looking for outsized returns.
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.