Wikipedia ditches Google Maps for OpenStreetMap

Wikipedia has ditched Google Maps in favour of OpenStreetMap, and it’s not the first one to do so; Foursquare has its reasons and so does Apple for switching to OpenStreetMap, and here’s what Wikipedia’s Yuvi Panda wrote in a blogpost.

“Previous versions of our application used Google Maps for the nearby view. This has now been replaced with OpenStreetMap — an open and free source of Map Data that has been referred to as “Wikipedia for Maps.” This closely aligns with our goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone.

“This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.”

Google charges around $4 to $10 for any website having more than 10,000 daily views over 25,000, and this could be the main reason for the switch.

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Thanks, Cnet.