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

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

TIGER - Now being imported

Contact - dave@sr71.net

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

So what is valuable within the OSM stack?

Value0 Lots

Value0 Lots

Aerial Imagery

Value0 Lots

Aerial Imagery

Pre-existing data - TIGER, NPE

Value0 Lots

Aerial Imagery

Software

Pre-existing data - TIGER, NPE

Value0 Lots

Aerial Imagery

Software

Pre-existing data - TIGER, NPE

The People, the Commons, the Community

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

•Non-monetary motivation

•Discrete multi-size pieces

•Low-cost integration

(Yochai Benkler)

Commons-based Peer Production:

Coase’s Penguin

•Fun

•Takes 5 minutes

•Easy

(Yochai Benkler)

Commons-based Peer Production:

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

•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

Letting people do things

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

Victoria in OSM

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

Customised Cartography

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

Customised Cartography

Heathrow Airport

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

Data:UK-US comparison

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

US GeoData Maket

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

US GeoData Maket

TIGER

TIGER-derived(mostly)

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

UK GeoData Maket

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

UK GeoData Maket

OSM

OS

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

UK GeoData Maket

OSM

OS

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

UK GeoData Maket

OSM

OS

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

UK GeoData Maket

OSM

OS

We’ve seen this before

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

OS Market

Linux

Windows

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

OS Market

Linux

Windows

(Think price per feature)

Future Trends

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

The future geodata market

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

The future geodata market

OSM

OSM Derived

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

The future geodata market

Proprietary

OSM

OSM Derived

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

The future geodata market

Proprietary

OSM

OSM Derived

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

The future geodata market

Proprietary

OSM

OSM Derived

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

The future geodata market

Proprietary

OSM

OSM Derived

‘Quality’

Price

100 ‘%’

The future geodata market

Proprietary

OSM

OSM Derived

The Fallout

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

AND - Donated their entire Dutch road data set to OSM

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

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

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

© Copyright 2007 OpenStreetMap

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