[Frazzydee]

The article has map samples for comparison at the bottom. I made one for OpenStreetMap, and tried my best to make it a fair comparison.

- Approximately the same zoom level, judged by distance between cities and size of land masses.

- 387x387 pixels (same as images in article)

- Map of approximately the same location

http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/3999/screenshot20100501at...

Here is a second image, zoomed-in by one notch. The level of detail provided is more comparable, but arguably I shouldn't have to zoom in to get this. http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5959/screenshot20100501at92...

[yellowbkpk]

There are a bunch of different renderings of OSM data available. More importantly, you can download the data and render it however you'd like.

Cloudmade's default rendering of New York looks pretty decent: http://maps.cloudmade.com/?lat=40.741014&lng=-74.009399&... but they also let you create your own style (e.g. http://maps.cloudmade.com/?lat=40.741014&lng=-74.009399&...)

Lars Ahlzen uses OSM data to make beautiful maps at http://toposm.com/

...the list goes on.

[ugh]

Wow. OSM really is not even close to any of its competitors.