From web protocols and working programs, to databases and cloud companies, some expertise is so omnipresent most individuals don’t even comprehend it exists. The identical might be stated about OpenStreetMap, the community-driven platform that serves firms and software program builders with geographic information and maps to allow them to rely rather less on the proprietary incumbents within the house. Sure, that largely means Google.
OpenStreetMap is the handiwork of Steve Coast (pictured above), a College Faculty London “dropout” (Coast’s personal phrases) who has since gone on to work in varied map- and location-related roles at Microsoft, TomTom, Telenav, and — as of as we speak — Singaporean ride-hailing agency Seize.
Coast isn’t immediately concerned on a day-to-day foundation at OpenStreetMap any extra, however in a blog post on Friday marking his creation’s twentieth anniversary, he acknowledged two previous success tales from the open supply realm that satisfied him that one thing like OpenStreetMap might need legs.
“20 years in the past, I knew {that a} wiki map of the world would work,” Coast wrote. “It appeared apparent in gentle of the success of Wikipedia and Linux. However I didn’t know that OpenStreetMap would work till a lot later.”
Whereas OpenStreetMap is a bit like Wikipedia for maps, the comparability with its encyclopaedic counterpart is considerably superficial. Positive, they’re each gargantuan collaborative initiatives, however there’s a world of distinction between sharing your geeky information of micronations and mapping out geographic options on a worldwide scale.
Right this moment, OpenStreetMap claims greater than 10 million contributors who map out and fine-tune every little thing from streets and buildings, to rivers, canyons and every little thing else that constitutes our constructed and pure environments. The start line for all that is information derived from varied sources, together with publicly out there and donated aerial imagery and maps, sourced from governments and personal organizations such as Microsoft. Contributors can manually add and edit information via OpenStreetMap’s editing tools, they usually may even enterprise out into the wild and map an entire new space out by themselves utilizing GPS, which is helpful if a brand new road crops up, for instance.
As sole creator, Coast was the driving drive behind all of the early software program growth and advocacy work, finally organising the U.Okay.-based non-profit OpenStreetMap Foundation to supervise the challenge in 2006. Right this moment, the Basis is supported primarily by donations and memberships, with less than a dozen volunteer board members (who’re elected by members) steering key selections and managing funds. The Basis counts only a single worker — a system engineer — and a handful of contractors who present administrative and accounting help.
OpenStreetMap’s Open Database License (ODbL) permits any third-party to make use of its information with the suitable attribution (although this attribution doesn’t at all times occur). This consists of big-name firms resembling Apple and VC-backed unicorns like MapBox, via a who’s who of tech firms together with Uber and Strava, the latter tapping OpenStreetMap information for roads, trails, parks, factors of curiosity, and extra.
Extra not too long ago, the Overture Maps Basis — an initiative backed by Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and TomTom — has leaned closely on OpenStreetMap information as a part of its personal efforts to construct a viable different to Google’s walled mapping backyard.
There’s little query that OpenStreetMap has been successful these previous 20 years, successful that wouldn’t have been attainable with out the web and folks’s need to create one thing invaluable that’s owned by everybody.
“OpenStreetMap managed to map the world and provides the info away free of charge for nearly no cash in any respect,” Coast notes. “It managed to sidestep virtually all the issues that Wikipedia has by advantage of solely representing info not opinions. If OpenStreetMap is a medium, what’s the message? For me it’s that we are able to go from nothing to one thing, or zero to 1.”
Apart from affordability and accessibility, there’s not less than one different good motive why an open map dataset ought to exist, and all of it comes right down to the notion of who will get to “personal” location. Ought to company juggernauts resembling Google actually get to regulate all of it? By any affordable estimation, a location monopoly isn’t a constructive factor for society.
As OpenStreetMap contributor and free software program advocate Serge Wroclawski notes: “Place is a shared useful resource, and once you give all that energy to a single entity, you’re giving them the facility not solely to inform you about your location, however to form it.”
