Comments on: Tracks4Africa: Mapping and annotating Africa’s remote eco-destinations

By: Jon Udell

Jon Udell — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:32:36 +0000

> I’m very happy to be partially responsible

Not just partially, you are wholly responsible. Thanks!

By: Jon Udell

Jon Udell — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:30:59 +0000

> the data itself is then kept proprietary

As Johann points out, the quality assurance provided by T4A is the basis of its commercial existence. And it arrived at that model when the effort required became more than the community wanted to volunteer.

Of course, nothing prevents an open service from evolving a comparable level of QA based on volunteer effort.

Here’s a thought. Imagine a service that receives contributions of geodata, and routes them to multiple services as appropriate, including T4A, OpenStreetMap, others. Now it’s a level playing field.

By: Andrew Turner

Andrew Turner — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:18:50 +0000

Tracks4Africa has made great strides in pulling together data – however like other “Map Making” tools the data itself is then kept proprietary. There isn’t a way for contributors – or the public in general – to get to the vector data.

By constract, OpenStreetMap is an open repository of track and geodata that anyone can contribute to and also access the underlying vector and topology information. This means there can be real innovation (user-defined routing algorithms, cartography, etc) as well as offline usage, syncronization, and more.

It would be great if Tracks4Africa adopted a more open strategy and worked in the community.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:01:40 +0000

I think I was the reader who commented about T4A on your previous post. I’m very happy to be partially responsible for a new connection between yourself and T4A. :-)

By: Eugene

Eugene — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:53:03 +0000

I am seaching for some idea to write in my blog… somehow come to your blog. best of luck. Eugene