English text
Most often, OSM mapping is focused on areas of interest: a neighbourhood, a slum, a town or a city, less frequently a region, in which the aim is to get a multi-thematic map, more or less detailed, but generally more than the ones that are or could be available through an official way or a commercial product. Nevertheless, from this approach results a “gap map”, a kind of patchwork where highly detailed areas stand alongside others where the the strictly minimum is not even fulfilled. This inconsistency has consequences:
-
it is one obstacle for the official national agencies to adopt OSM or an opportunity if they want to criticize the project. These agencies aim to produce complete reference layers and do not operate like the OSM community through mapping parties or focused edits on Areas of Interests. So whatever OSM is very detailed in some places: if they take a bit of time to browse the map they may quickly reply that yes, but some regional capitals are missing and that the primary and secondary road network is quite incomplete, contrary to their reference layers.
-
it is also a limitation for the humanitarian workers to potentially adopt OSM. One easy incentive is the OSM data can used for routing in many devices and such data is frequently absent in developing countries. But if the road network lacks continuity and connectivity… It is all the more a pity that within the next decade, smartphone will likely expand as the GSM phones did the last ten years, and the local population could use them whenever to get around and find POIs.
