It'd be great if this is just the start of a trend where Google supports open source mapping tech that would make projects like OSM more viable (for reasons why

It'd be great if this is just the start of a trend where Google supports open source mapping tech that would make projects like OSM more viable (for reasons why its not currently viable see my other posts.) Its a bit like Google being the biggest supporter of Firefox, even though they are also a competitor (Chrome.) Though Google supporting OSM is more like Microsoft supporting OpenOffice, since Google has such a large monopoly in maps right now.