Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
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OSM is basically Wikipedia in map form. It uses public domain or donated map data and anyone can contribute.
It is very much a competitor to Google Maps.
But OSM is not a simple map but a database of data, what you see on their site is only an implementation of what you can do with the data.
All maps are a collection of databases. Points, geometries and so much more. It’s all a database that gets the. Processed into a map UI.
Yes but other services provides you only the maps that's not the case on osm.
Not if you’re using them commercially as an API. I have used various Google Maps APIs on a number of projects. It’s all databases.
That API doesn't let you do everything tho, only a number of operations like embed Google Maps on their websites or apps, perform geocoding operations, get directions, and more.
It doesn't give you direct access to the database!
Could you not say the same of Wikipedia?