Author Archives: Mikel

The OpenStreetMap Foundation Board looks ahead to 2024

2024 is already moving fast. The new OSMF Board is working hard, digging into their focus areas, and implementing the strategic plan. Following the “tradition” of the collective post in 2023, here are a few sentences from each of the Board members on where they want to contribute in 2023.

We welcome your input and participation. Contact us directly or, if you are an OSMF Member, join our monthly Board meeting.

Arnalie

Last year comes by so fast. I am not so proud of what I have accomplished as a board member as I have had some health challenges. It was a learning experience (the success and failures) for me!

This year, I will continue efforts to engage, grow and diversify the OpenStreetMap community, this includes:

Building more local chapters
- Last year, we have revised the Local Chapters page to clearly state eligibilities and document that are required to submit. In addition; LCCWG is taking the lead role to review applications for potential local chapters as well as taking proactive steps to encourage communities to apply.
- This year, we hope to establish 1-3 new local chapters especially in regions where there is no or less established local chapters. Our newest board member Dani will be my partner on this!
- To learn more about OSMF Local Chapters and how to apply: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Local_Chapters
Growing and diversifying OSMF membership
- Run a membership drive at first to second quarter of the year with volunteer team and community leaders
- Review OSMF WGs, their goals, processes, operations, etc to provide a baseline how to encourage more participation in OSMF WGs
- Review Active Contributor Membership application – ensuring that criteria are fit for people who it wish to benefit
- Exposure to local communities and community projects through community presentation during OSMF board meetings
- Revitalise the Diversity and Inlusion Committee to ensure that it is still fit for purpose and membership makeup/activeness
Ensuring OSMF’s support to regional and national SotMs (more on this)
Representing OSMF in various events/conferences to extend our reach (outside OSM, other open communities) and listen to local communities

More on this in my OSM diary: community in the map and at the table: my first year and continuing plans as OSMF board member

If you would like to talk and discuss about community, reach out to me arnalie[at]osmfoundation[dot]org or send me a message (https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/arnalielsewhere)

Craig

When I first joined the Board I had never seen inside of the OSMF organisation so I initially wanted to fix some obvious external problems. But I now hold the post of Secretary and Chair of the Finance committee which has led me to be far more focused on the internal problems that impact on the operations of the Foundation. I am now putting in a lot of effort to improve systems and guide the foundation towards a future where members, corporate members, donors and data users speak of the OSM Foundation as a well managed, highly effective organisation that has a clear view of how it wants to develop in the next decade. My stress is not on making the Foundation bigger, but rather on making it much better at what it already does and then making sure that people know that it is better.

Dani

I am thrilled and grateful to embark on this journey as a member of the Board of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, representing YOU. The opportunity to contribute to such a dynamic and impactful community is both humbling and exhilarating. As I step into this role, I acknowledge that I have much to learn, and I eagerly anticipate the wealth of knowledge and experience that the community members will teach me. My primary goals for this year revolve around fostering a stronger sense of unity within the community, amplifying our fundraising efforts to ensure the sustainability of our initiatives, and serving as a dedicated liaison for all members of the OpenStreetMap community. I approach these objectives with humility and determination, understanding that collaboration and inclusivity are paramount to our success. I am genuinely excited to immerse myself in this vibrant community, to forge meaningful connections, and to work together towards our shared vision of empowering people through open mapping.

Guillaume

2024 will be a pivot year for the OSMF, and as board chairperson, my focus is on making sure that the big changes we have coming up happen smoothly.

The most exciting change will be vector tiles. We will be trying to have about one blog post each month throughout the year as our project progresses. You can already read our first one or play with Paul’s demo.

Our move to the EU is another interesting shift that we will be working on. Brexit has made our life in the UK too complicated, and while a move represents a lot of work, it’s something we have to do. While I have had very promising talks with officials from Luxembourg, we’re also looking at Belgium. Ease of doing business, community presence, OpenStreetMap usage, and financial and non-financial incentives all play a role.

This year is the first year when will work under our new budgeting system, letting us easily link every expenditure to the budget. This means we will get better at showing where your donations are going: it’s not only spreadsheets and numbers, but about trust and accountability. It has been the product of a lot of work, started back when I was OSMF treasurer. This will help us fundraise more effectively.

Fundraising is, indeed, an area where we need to work more to be able to achieve our goals. Some of the largest OSM data users don’t contribute at all to keeping it running. We have mostly fundraised from large tech companies (thank you!), and must also expand to other sectors that are part of our ecosystem, including governments, humanitarian NGOs and transit companies, to increase our income’s resilience against market cycles.

Attribution is another key area. It’s not about ego; it’s about creating a funnel for the virtuous circle that improves the map. Our copyright page is the single largest landing page on our site, and due for a revamp, transforming it into a recruitment tool for new mappers and donors rather than just a legal necessity.

Major vandalism incidents in Israel and Ukraine marked us in 2023. We have patched the most vulnerable spots ad hoc, and managed to discourage the vandals. If we could more easily moderate what gets submitted before it hits the API, we would address a core vulnerability and improve data quality. I’m picturing an auto-moderation engine for which DWG could write rules, like an email filter. It would, of course, be a major engineering project and require careful planning.

Improving the reliability of our operations is one of the most rewarding long-term projects. By improving many things a little bit at a time, we’re reducing the areas where our infrastructure is at risk from a single failure. If any of the open tickets inspires you, please help us out.

I have for the last few years worked to encourage the OSMF to hire more staff – we have enough work for a dozen people if we can get the funding. Managing our operations and projects has long been too much for volunteers to handle. I would like to make progress on hiring an executive director for the OSMF to be able to work on ideas like this full time.

These goals suffer not from a lack of vision or talent, but a lack of hands and time. If you care about making these happen, please donate, or join one of our working groups.

Mateusz

Since the start of my activity as an OSMF board member, a bit more than a year ago, I have spent in a total of 390 hours on various OSMF-specific work. Recently it was budgeting discussions but earlier also for example work on ensuring that OpenStreetMap is attributed when required, coordinating contact between organisers of upcoming SotM-EU and memebers of working groups, getting community feedback into strategic plan and various communication – with community in general, working groups and members of both. And a lot of discussions/meetings.

Currently, I am thinking about how the budgeting process can be improved for the next year, based on how it went this year.
I will work further on encouraging to attribute OpenStreetMap, as required by our license.
I also want to spend some time on making clear how we spend money and how we will spend it with more funds raised – both to make clear to the community what is happening with our funds and to encourage potential donors to help us fund cases where smartly spending money can help OpenStreetMap.

I also want to thank for all the work done – by all mappers, people helping as part of working group or without a defined structure, other board members, people who donated money, people who have released various software making it easier to edit or use OpenStreetMap data. And people who use OpenStreetMap data in various interesting and useful ways.

Roland

The volunteers of the Foundation heard in the past years loud and clearly the expectation to get longstanding software work done – on top of maintaining a stable platform including the responsibility for your SRE. For example, vector tiles on osm.org are no longer a vision, but now work in progress.

The board’s job within that framework is to ensure the funding for all of these goals. The board has heard loud and clearly the message last year that there is open homework despite the absoutely honorable mission. Alan Mustard’s keynote at the SotM EU has given a good overview what alreadly is done and what still is ongoing work.

The board will organize finances in a way such that they look much more familiar to people who are used to donate to benevolent causes. And thus the finances also become more transparent to our community than ever has been asked for! I’m very happy that Guillaume has convinced Harrison to bring his expertise in finances of non-profits to OpenStreetMap. The board has started to set up a budget, will maintain a forecast, and seek close communication with the working groups to assure both financial reliability and ensure the working groups can focus on their maximum contribution towards the Foundation’s mission to support OpenStreetMap.

Sarah

This year in the OSMF board has started with intense discussions on budget and spending. Fundraising for all the activities necessary to advance the strategic plan will still be an important task for 2024. But there are other things to organise around that: defining the rules for our financial management, getting some project management in place and learning how to work with our contractors. Last year I’ve also started looking into the practical steps of moving the OSMF into the EU and will continue to work on that throughout the year. Finally, we are celebrating our 20th birthday and I hope to see everybody in Nairobi at SotM to celebrate together.

Call for SotM 2024 Travel Grant Program Application now OPEN!

State of the Map, our annual gathering, welcomes all who are involved with or interested in OpenStreetMap. We extend an invitation to everyone passionate about OSM – whether you’re an amateur mapper, a research academic, involved in humanitarian efforts, part of an NGO or government entity, running a small business, or representing a multinational corporation. Join us in Nairobi on September 6-8, 2024, to exchange insights and strategies for advancing the OSM ecosystem. Our goal is to include as many of you as possible in State of the Map 2024! Your participation at State of the Map is anticipated and encouraged upon selection. This may involve presenting a talk if chosen by the program committee, or participating in lightning talk sessions designed for scholars. Additionally, there are various other ways to contribute to and support the conference’s success while you are there.

Apply now for support to join us in Nairobi for State of the Map 2024!

Deadline: 31 January 2024, 23:59:59 UTC

Each year, we receive more scholarship applications than we are able to support. To help us best allocate the funds, please specify the minimum types of support you need to attend. If you are requesting a travel grant, then tell us the amount of money to cover a portion of your travel and make a difference to attending or not. Please review our privacy policy covering how we will handle the information in your application.

Here are some tips to help you complete your application.

The clarity and concise answers will be helpful. Keep sentences short.
Select the minimum level of scholarship you need. This will help us to make the best use of limited funds and enable more scholars to join.
Make sure you clearly state your visa and travel requirements and other potential funding sources.
We want to hear about your contributions to OpenStreetMap, your project or your group. We do not want an account of a group’s work but your individual part in it. Try to use “I”, not “we”.
You may include links to your OpenStreetMap profile, a local group you run, or software you created. If your written answer is satisfactory to get on our shortlist, we might look at these additional details.
The motivation statement on why you decided to apply for the TGP

More detailed information on the Travel Grant Programme can be found on the State of the Map 2024 website: https://2024.stateofthemap.org/calls/travel_grants/

Stay tuned to know more about the news and the events of State of the Map 2024! See you in Nairobi and online.

The State of the Map Working Group

Checking Progress, Planning, and Funding: The June 2023 OSMF Board Screen to Screen

The OSM Foundation Board spent most of last Saturday together at our second “screen to screen” meeting of the year. We are motivated to put in this effort by the mission of OpenStreetMap and the faith entrusted in us by the membership to steward the core resources in the Foundation that makes the map free to all.

We want to share about why we on the Board are putting so much effort where we are, and what you’ll see coming soon.

The screen to screen is the recurring opportunity to step back and assess the current state and direction of the OSMF and our work on the Board. We talked a good deal about a fresh approach and accelerating the strategic planning process. We delved into work underway on top priority items like the EU relocation, technical staff growth, potential future needs like an ED role, and local community support. We looked at the current financial picture and the resources needed in the near term, and recommitted to the fundraising plan to raise 500K GBP to meet our budget plans for this year.

Progress Check

We reviewed how far along we’ve come since setting the 2023 agenda at the March screen to screen. This is critical accountability. The answer is mixed. A lot is in fact moving, but there is a good amount falling behind as well. This can all be tracked in our public action items gitlab. We resolved to address effectiveness in 3 ways. First, strong prioritization on what tasks need doing – we admit that we must triage. Second, team work. Pairing up with another Board member on a task means sharing the burden and keeping each other on pace. And it’s more fun to work together. Third, clearly communicate limits. Life happens. If a meeting will be missed, or a commitment needs to be taken on by someone else, the minimum expectation is communicating to the Board.

We’ll update the Board Rules of Order to capture this point.

Strategic Planning

We then switched to the Strategic Planning Process. The strategic plan will be a comprehensive document to guide and align all the day to day work and decision making in the OSM Foundation. We recognized that to this point translating strategic planning to an online, global community is hard and could have worked better. Through feedback from the Board and wise guidance from our facilitator Allen Gunn, we are reorienting the planning to process to clearly communicate general goals rather than discussion of every potential tactic, and explain more clearly the motivation for each section of the plan. We also agreed that the plan should be a living document, so that it can easily respond to developments as they emerge in the years ahead. We are accelerating the process of drafting, consulting on, and finalizing the plan to conclude in the next 2 months. Expect to see details on this soon.

Strategic Growth

There are a handful of key specific tactics we discussed at the screen to screen for strategic growth. Extending team coverage and accelerating infrastructure robustness by bringing on an additional system administrator to our team. Unlocking mapper needs and development innovation by engaging a paid role to project manage coding projects on OSM.org. Flexibly meet diverse mapper rendering needs by standing up vector tile infrastructure. Investing in the extensive OSM software ecosystem that powers OSMF infrastructure and use of OSM data through engineering community development and grants. And investigating the scope and suitability of an Executive Director role for the OSMF to support the strategy set by the Board.

Funding

To meet growing needs, we need resources, and we spent time examining OSMF finances. In recent years the OSMF has grown its obligations to meet the growing demands to create and use OSM data. Our financial management strategy for this year is to break even, retaining our reserves for a rainy day. And in the years ahead, as we look at areas of strategic growth, we want to have funds to grow carefully and considerately to sustain growth with very targetted staff, infrastructure and community investments. We do not plan to commit to growing obligations without confidence that we have the funds necessary to sustain them.

Historically the OSMF has dedicated the most resources to our technical infrastructure, and we have added dedicated staff support with our Senior Site Reliability Engineer and iD Maintainer. This has resulted in more stable and robust systems, and more accessible mapping tooling. The budget for the year, supporting infrastructure investments, staff, operational overhead, and reserves 681,000 GBP. The gap from our regular income from corporate and individual memberships is 521,000 GBP. We reaffirmed this as our target for the fundraising campaign. and “membership” https://join.osmfoundation.org/

The map is free to all and free to edit, but it is not free to make. OSM is powered by donations in the form of membership, gifts, and sponsorship. At the screen to screen, we reviewed the excellent conversations we had about the fundraising campaign at SotM US, SotM France and SotM Baltics a few weeks ago. Our approach to fundraising is to draw on a diversity of sources. This typically means signing up corporate members and soliciting funds from them, and asking for donations from the OSM community and the broad internet of people who support a free and open map. This year we are doing both again, while also researching other opportunities in public funding and private philanthropy. We are gearing up to make requests from individuals and organizations in July. We’ll need your help – whether as a donor yourself or an ambassador promoting the campaign to your community.

We welcome your thoughts!

The OSMF Board reflects on the first third of the 2023

At the start of the year, the Board put together our thoughts on what we saw ahead of us. Four months later, there’s a lot to reflect on and assess. Here’s thoughts from each of us on what’s happened, what’s ahead, and how we’re feeling about it.

We welcome input and contribution to the work of OSMF. Contact us directly or, if you are an OSMF Member, join our monthly Board meeting.

Arnalie

Transitioning to this new role has been a slow learning process for me. In the first three (3) months, I failed to do any tasks as I am still learning (plus some health issues). I am keen to help improve new board member onboarding process, as well as to share semi-annual or annual reflections via my OSM Diary. With that said, my priorities is still the same and I hope to support my colleagues in their tasks to grow our community and maintain the OSM project.

Building more local chapters (Q2 priority)

Proposal to Local Chapters application and processes have been drafted and we hope to share it with the community for feedback by end of May / early June
Had some chats with potential local chapters (if you are reading this and interested to know more, reach out to me!)
We also hope to strengthen our relationship with the current local chapters (will conduct research and consultations with LCCWG) and we will be sharing compiled LC annual reports
Diversifying OSMF membership, including membership of OSMF Working Group (Q3 priority)
Ensuring financial sustainability and effective fundraising
- in supportive role, but hope to help in diversifying fundraising activities especially in Asia region

Craig
Working on the Board starts with a steep learning curve picking up all the skills needed to be effective. We’d gain a lot by upgrading the on-boarding process before the next Board elections. It’s on my list!

My main focus has been work on the OSMF strategic plan. A small team, Allan Mustard, Sarah Hoffmann and myself have revised and restructured the plan from 2021, translated it into 10 languages and we are now doing a communications campaign inviting widespread OSM user comment on the Community Development part of the plan.

I am bringing OSM into the United Nations Digital Public Goods register and we are now close to concluding the very bureaucratic process of registration. I’m also studying whether the OSMF should appoint a full-time Executive Director. Work on a discussion paper is progressing but has not reached presentation stage yet.

I have put in particular effort learning about the very important but complex Tech side of OSMF from the many sources, and I have attended Operations meetings to find out what the small team does, how they do it and how they might best be supported at Board level.

Guillaume

Guillaume has been occupied with family matters and deeply regrets that he has not been able to attend to OpenStreetMap since.

Mateusz

I am learning how the OSMF board works, with various minor activities like preparing email responses/participating in discussions and meetings. I hope to achieve more in the coming months, especially with issues from strategic meeting plans and what I described during the OSMF elections. I am especially happy that the April licensing issues with data published by Overture Foundation/Linux Foundation are solved.

Mikel

It’s been been especially intense and productive. We’ve prioritized fundraising in OSMF, brought on a fundraiser to help us with the effort, and drafted guidelines to align fundraising with the mission and values of the OSMF. There’s a lot more to come in the fundraising campaign. Also, I’ve spent a lot of time communicating for the Board with the community and with some of our organizational relationships, and gotten the Advisory Board going again. Been especially interesting to figure out the complexities of things like Overture and Map Builder. I think we’ve struck a good tone, and OSMF is positioned well. Finally I think the Screen 2 Screen was very good to orient us on all the work in front of us, and take single threaded ownership of it. It’s a lot, and I can’t say it doesn’t both excite me and feel daunting, but we have the right set up to see it through.

Roland

There is a clearly predominant issue for now: fundraising. The OSMF has now grown to a size where hardware and running expenses are substantial, and the employment of people is a commitment that comes on top of that. We now need close to 700’000 GBP (or EUR or USD) per year to assure that, although we had in the past an income of only about 200’000 GBP (or EUR or USD) per year. We have reserves, so it is not urgent, but really really important.

Starting to work with a fundraiser is thus the right decision. This is currently much US centered – this is within expectations as historically most income has come from there, but also a challenge as we want substantial contributions from outside the US both for the money and the diversification.

Sarah

After a slow start, board work has become pretty intense in the last two months. The appearance of the Overture foundation was an unplanned event that without a doubt influenced the priorities of the board. Consolidating the OSMF’s financial situation is in full swing. We’ve had fruitful discussions about budgets, and means of funding and fundraising. What has come up again and again in discussions is our pending move to the EU, which would open more venues of cooperation for the OSMF. This will be a priority for me in the next quarter. Working on the Strategy plan updates gave me the opportunity to talk to quite a few members of the community about the future of OSM and I very much like to hear more. Next I will be organising a discussion session at the State of the Map France in Marseille.

Ethical guidelines for fundraising at the OpenStreetMap Foundation

OpenStreetMap is gearing up for a campaign in 2023 to fund the maintenance and growth of the core services that enables the amazing mapping community. This is so important the OSMF Board consulted on and decided to engage paid help with organizing the fundraising campaign. With this big step, it’s imperative that this effort is guiding by the high ethical standards aligned with the mission and values of the OSMF.

The Board has written draft Fundraising Guidelines and wants to hear from the community about them. At a high level, fundraising is guided by these main points.

Funds are raised to support the OSMF’s mission.
We balance honouring donors’ wishes and preferences while upholding the communities’ values.
Our communication will adhere to high standards of integrity and transparency.
Collaboration and inclusivity of the diverse OSM community in fundraising efforts is paramount.
Fundraising will be executed and managed effectively.
Our guidelines are anchored in clear policies.

Please take a close look and provide any feedback in the forum, in the comments, or directly to the Board.

Welcome TomTom, our first Platinum Corporate Member

We are happy to announce that TomTom is joining us as our first platinum tier corporate member. Their contribution provides crucial direct financial support to our operations and infrastructure, which is essential to accompany the growth and ensure the long-term sustainability of the world’s largest crowdsourced geospatial project.

People create data in OpenStreetMap, excited that open map data will be widely useful and used. Many more people will be interacting with OpenStreetMap data through TomTom’s user base, and some of them will be curious about our community and interested to help make it better. We welcome all such contributions, whether someone is fixing a small issue on the map affecting them, or as the first step of a life long mapping passion.

We are grateful for the wide extent of TomTom’s support of OpenStreetMap, which extends beyond financial contributions: they actively participate in working groups, the Advisory Board, and local OpenStreetMap communities. TomTom’s recognition of the importance of the OpenStreetMap data they use is a testament to the value our project provides. We hope this inspires other corporate partners to join as members to support OpenStreetMap.

Read more from TomTom on their announcement.

Starting 2023 on the OSMF Board

In January, the new OSMF board met to discuss the work each of us wants to drive forward in 2023. What emerged was an initial, work in progress agenda for the year, with a good distribution of focus areas. Below are a few sentences directly from each of us on what we are thinking and how and where we want to contribute in 2023.

We welcome your input and participation. Contact us directly or, if you are an OSMF Member, join our monthly Board meeting. We will continue to develop and refine our ideas, including in a half day screen to screen session, soon.

Mikel:

Fundraising is my top priority, to support our core staff and infrastructure in a sustainable way. We will have dedicated fundraising campaigns across diversified sources including community small donors, public and private grants, and corporate sector engagement. Secondly, I will focus on making OSMF a great place to work, continuing to implement the necessary processes and structures, and supporting them to be successful. Finally, as secretary, I want to give the OSMF a professional, responsive communication tone. The more I think about it, the more I believe that excellent communication is the key to so much – across fundraising, reputation building, and community growth.

Sarah:

I’d like to focus this year on making the daily operations of OSMF run more smoothly, so that the board has more time in the future to focus on strategic matters. This includes yearly planning and budget, smoothly running communications to and from the board and a financial plan where the majority of our operational cost is covered through regular income. I also hope to get some wisdom from our working groups to understand how we can help each other to spread the work more efficiently, and on more shoulders.

Guillaume:

moving our corporate registration to EU
improving communication
facilitate process improvements for OSM tagging, like liquid democracy
financial planning and budgeting
increasing the diversity of fundraising sources
with Grant, increase infrastructure reliability

Arnalie:

For my first year on the OSMF Board, I would like to focus on:

Building more local chapters
Diversifying OSMF membership, including membership of OSMF Working Groups
Ensuring financial sustainability and effective fundraising (an aspect I need to learn more/develop personally)

Roland:

For me, fundraising is the most important thing to do right now. We need money for both long-awaited improvements and daily operations, and our traditional sources of income from individual and corporate members do not even cover our daily operations. At the same time, the Overture announcement has made clear that some data consumers are willing to spend money on reliable map data. So one building block is to adjust the corporate membership levels.

Another aspect is to raise money for improvement projects and, even, completely new projects. History has shown that it is more feasible to secure income for concrete ideas than for an abstract fund. As the board works on behalf of the community, I will bring project ideas into discussion and listen for existing project ideas from the community that are concrete enough for cost estimations so that we have a list of project ideas ready to excite potential donors. I do not expect that every project will be funded, but I do want to see every potential funding opportunity finding an impactful project that it can be invested in.

Craig:

Now, a month in, I’m getting some traction on my election promises.

I want to help OSMF build up the mapping community and support and encourage existing community leaders. My special effort will be in Africa.

I’m keen to prioritise the OSMF diversity and inclusion programme. I have some ideas, but this must be done as a collective effort.

For tech, I’d like to support OSMF documenting its computer operations, updating and improving the software, look at data structures, promoting vector map tiles and keeping the hardware up to date and reliable.

I’m also making an effort to support the administration in a professional way, with a focus on strategic planning, budgeting, fundraising, and communications.

Mateusz:

For starters, it is necessary to keep basic things running – this applies to the OSM community, servers and critical software. Hopefully only routine activities will be needed here.

I am working on a human-readable budget summary – needed for OSMF board work, better transparency and for people interested in what the OSMF is actually doing – especially those who might potentially donate.

GDPR handling is stuck in limbo – and it is the responsibility of the OSMF board to organise the handling of this annoying task.

Lastly, I want to take action on enforcing attribution requirements.

Views from the OpenStreetMap Foundation on the launch of Overture

The launch of the Overture Maps Foundation is a significant development in the world of open map data. The founding members of Overture are influential tech industry leaders, and have committed a lot of resources. While many details of Overture remain unclear, the OpenStreetMap Foundation is interested to get a better understanding of the project. In the best scenario, OpenStreetMap would benefit from Overture’s advancements in software development, from the data and from funding. However, we also recognise risks, and will continue to develop our ability to grow the community and to fund our infrastructure and future development.

OpenStreetMap data is available for anyone to use, from hobby map makers to global corporations, and we encourage Overture to do the same, following our community expectations and licensing terms. The technical problems that Overture is addressing, such as quality checks, data integration, and alignment to schemas, are valuable for any map data provider. We know data consumers have been working on these challenges in isolation for too long, and by bringing these issues out into the commons, and open sourcing the tools, we can all benefit.

Following the announcement, we have had informal conversations with some people involved in Overture to ask questions and learn more. In particular, we asked about how work scoped in Overture overlaps with OpenStreetMap, and what the future involvement of member companies in OpenStreetMap will be. The answers have been helpful, though many questions remain. We have encouraged Overture to engage with our community and to share their plans publicly. We’ll share a few points here that were discussed informally.

Everyone we talked to emphasised that Overture is not intending to replace or fork OpenStreetMap. They see the work as complementary. The individual companies expect to continue working directly with OpenStreetMap, and may even increase their involvement, including financial contributions. Map edits that are right for OpenStreetMap, should go to OpenStreetMap. This stated commitment to OpenStreetMap’s work and community also suggests that the companies and Linux Foundation are on board to support OpenStreetMap financially. Overture has come together with a small group, and the intention is to grow and work out many details. They welcome OpenStreetMap involvement in the form that makes most sense.

The OpenStreetMap community has vast experience and knowledge in working with the diverse and complex realities of geographic data and compiling it into a unified global dataset. This knowledge can be supported but not replaced by automated approaches. We firmly believe that our community-driven approach to data collection will remain foundational to any global map. The mission of the OSMF to support the growth and development of OpenStreetMap community is more important than ever.

We encourage Overture to engage with the Foundation and the OpenStreetMap community, and make us a part of Overture’s strategic discussion holistically. Through good engagement, we can identify areas to collaborate and bring improvements to the core of OpenStreetMap, rather than creating duplicate or competing efforts. The resources that Overture’s founders are investing into the project, and their stated commitment to OpenStreetMap’s work and community, show the value they place on good maps, and the potential for supporting improvements in areas core to OpenStreetMap’s mission. We welcome Overture to discuss with the OSMF Board, and to explore the best ways to facilitate ongoing communication, decision-making, collaboration, and support.

Call for participation in moderation subcommittee

Volunteers from across the OpenStreetMap community are coming together to improve how we communicate in our central spaces, and we want your help! The Local Chapters and Communities Working Group Moderation Subcommittee invites your participation in the process.

The subcommittee has created a Scope of Work to help you understand what work is being undertaken and an Implementation Plan that outlines a step by step approach, including how you can get involved and the different types of contribution that community members can sign up for.

Please take a minute to share your ideas and any interest in participating in the process via this form. And help spread the word! Please share this form with anyone who might be interested. Form closes April 10, 2021. Thank you!

100 million edits to OpenStreetMap

Today, the 100 millionth changeset was uploaded to OpenStreetMap. This milestone represents the collective contribution of nearly 1 billion features globally in the past 16+ years, by a diverse community of over 1.5 million mappers.

The result is the largest free and open map dataset in the world, providing critical infrastructure for understanding our planet and running our society.

Changeset number 100,000,000 was uploaded by user Lamine Ndiaye. They added buildings in Nianiane, Sénégal. Look out for an interview with this mapper in an upcoming edition of WeeklyOSM.

100 million times a mapper has chosen to share their knowledge of the world with everyone. 100 million thanks of appreciation. And our mapping is growing and accelerating. Changeset 90 million was only about 6 months ago.

Will you join us as we make the next 100 million contributions? Get started now!