How OpenStreetMap is Mapping the World

How OpenStreetMap is mapping the world Nick Black 25th September 2007

§

This year

Stats •11,000+ users •1,000+ users editing / month •10-20 million objects in db

The OpenStreetMap Foundation • Board elected this summer • Oversee fundraising, promotion and legal representation of OSM • Membership open to all

Rolling with Rails • Server code ported to Ruby on Rails in April • Simplified participation for developers • Now a very active server developer community

StateoftheMap 2007 •Two days •100 delegates •20 talks

So what is valuable within the OSM stack?

0 Value Lots

Aerial Imagery 0 Value Lots

Pre-existing data - TIGER, NPE Aerial Imagery 0 Value Lots

Software Pre-existing data - TIGER, NPE Aerial Imagery 0 Value Lots

The People, the Commons, the Community Software Pre-existing data - TIGER, NPE Aerial Imagery 0 Value Lots

What is a community anyway?

People who want to make a Free map

Also... •People who want everything to be free •People who love maps •People who hate the OS •People who want to make maps •People who want to use data •People who want to write software

The Problem: How to get all of these people to do something coherent?

Non-monetary motivation

Non-monetary motivation Give people ownership

Non-monetary motivation Give people ownership Create a short feedback loop

Non-monetary motivation Give people ownership Create a short feedback loop Allow especially talented people to do amazing things

Coase’s Penguin (Yochai Benkler) Commons-based Peer Production: •Non-monetary motivation •Discrete multi-size pieces •Low-cost integration

Coase’s Penguin (Yochai Benkler) Commons-based Peer Production: •Fun •Takes 5 minutes •Easy

Give People Ownership •Its your map, your project •Ownership of the data •CreativeCommons License - Trusted, inpedendent third party •Copyright assigned to the OpenStreetMap Foundation

A Short Feedback Loop •People want to see the results of their hard work •Maps - Need to be rendered yesterday •Software - Needs to be deployed before its written •This can be annoying, but it means that the community is working

Mapping Parties • Gather in a place • Map it exhaustively • Have fun

Allow especially talented people to do amazing things

Letting people do things •Committees don’t help much •Massive standards don’t help much •Talking doesn’t help much

Letting people do things •Committees don’t help much •Massive standards don’t help much •Talking doesn’t help much •Let the talented people do the amazing things

Data: UK-US comparison

US GeoData Maket Price 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

US GeoData Maket Price TIGER-derived (mostly) TIGER 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

UK GeoData Maket Price 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

UK GeoData Maket OS Price OSM 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

We’ve seen this before

OS Market Windows Price Linux 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

OS Market Windows (Think price per feature) Price Linux 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

Future Trends

The future geodata market Price 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

The future geodata market Price OSM Derived OSM 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

The future geodata market Proprietary Price OSM Derived OSM 100 ‘%’ ‘Quality’

The Fallout

Suppliers of Proprietary data will have to react • More ANDs • More PeoplesMaps • More Tom-Tom map share • More commercial use of OSM data

What the critics say • How can you trust the data that someone puts in? • OSM format is useless for my GIS • Where is the support? •Where is the person on the end of the phone?

OpenGeoData Providers

CloudMade - Open Data for GIS Professionals • Veriﬁcation of data - correction of errors, spelling mistakes, profanities, topology • Support - For data and software • Metadata - source, date, geodetic information • Updates - get the latest data from open sources

Geo-Coding • Worldwide geo-coding based on open data sources • Available as a web API

CloudMade - Open Geodata Providers • Pilot services available now • Full services launching October 2007 www.cloudmade.com

Thanks for listening nick@cloudmade.com

How OpenStreetMap is Mapping the World

0 comments

Notes on slide 1

2 Favorites