Category Archives: State of the Map

State Of The Map. The OpenStreetMap conference organised by the foundation

State Of The Map – Thanks

Last week the OpenStreetMap community came together for their annual conference “State Of The Map”

We need to say a huge thank you to all the people involved in organising this year’s conference, including Henk Hoff, Gonzalo Gabriel Perez, Fernando Sanz, and Nicolás Alvarez. They battled various problems, and came out with a triumphant success!

A big thanks also to this year’s State Of The Map Sponsors:

sponsor logos

As it has been in previous years, the conference was wonderful meeting of OpenStreetMap friends, a showcase of diverse modes of map use/contribution, and a melting pot of ideas to take the project forwards. Another big thank you to all those who presented. We will be aiming to publish videos of the talks (always more easily said than done) [update Videos starting to appear here]  There are already some photos on the ‘sotm14’ flickr tag. The program on the SOTM 2014 wiki page links off to various wiki-editable session sub-pages. Please feel free to edit these pages to add links to slide-decks and other coverage.

Besides the general buzz and exciting talks, there were a couple of important extra things coming out of the conference:

OpenStreetMap Foundation Election Results

As has been the the norm in the past, we held the OpenStreetMap Foundation Annual General Meeting during the SOTM conference, and this included electing a new board. Frederik Ramm was re-elected, and we elected Kathleen Danielson and Paul Norman replacing Matt Amos and Simon Poole who were stepping down.

Congratulations to the new board, and thanks to all the candidates and organisers of this election. More election details on the wiki

New feature ‘?’

As has also been the norm at past conferences, OpenStreetMap developers have prepared a little something special as a new feature to be launched on the weekend of the conference. This year they’ve added a new ‘?’ button on the right hand side of the openstreetmap.org front page. Didn’t notice? Give it a try! More details coming soon.

New OpenStreetMap Latin America

Also during the conference there was a meeting of the brand new OpenStreetMap Latin America group. They have recently established themselves with a new ‘talk-latam’ mailing list and they are planning a “State Of The Map Latin America” conference, to join the set of local spin-off conferences held around the world.

This is fantastic news, and a great result to come out of our visit to Buenos Aires. We have aimed to organise the annual conference in a variety continents, to help spread OpenStreetMap enthusiasm to different corners of the globe. So this kind of group-forming and general boost is exactly what we are aiming for. But in fact the OpenStreetMap community of South America has always been quite impressive, so it’s only fair that the conference came there this year. And what a joy it was! Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, and the Argentinean OpenStreetMap contributors were wonderful hosts for State Of The Map 2014.

Two weeks until State Of The Map 2013

Just two weeks to go until “The State Of The Map“, the official annual conference of the OpenStreetMap project. If you haven’t been to one of these before, you’ve been missing out!

The State Of The Map conference offers something for everyone, with multiple streams of presentations, workshops and space for lively discussion on anything and everything to do with OpenStreetMap. It’s a joyful coming together of our friendly community, but also a serious period of concentrated discussion and idea sharing, and a promotional opportunity for your map-making and money-making endeavours. Whether you consider yourself a mapper, a cartographer, a developer, a GIS industry representative, a humanitarian, whether you like your maps on an iPhone, an Android, a Garmin, or a piece of paper, you’ll be in good company at State Of The Map!

sotm-bull

StateOfTheMap.org

The schedule of presentations and sessions is being finalised now. There will be the oppportunity to do a “lightning talk” at the conference (Just signup at the conference). Additionally there is the opportunity to display an A1 sized poster during the conference. It will even be printed for you, if you get the design to us within the next week. Get in touch about posters if this is of interest.

State Of The Map would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. Here’s the sponsors we have so far:

sotm-sponsors-2013-so-far

These organisations recognise the value of OpenStreetMap and choose to support it in this way because they are at the forefront of their industries, working with new mapping technologies. If you would like to see your company among them, there’s still time. Please get in touch.

See you in two weeks!

2013 Articles of Association Update

At the upcoming Foundation annual general meeting we will be voting on a new set of articles. The articles are essentially the constitution of the organisation and should lay down the law for how we operate.

Why are we revising the articles this year?

It is not uncommon that over time rules imposed by an organisation’s articles start to be at odds with reality, in the case of the OSMF there have even been issues from the beginning. Given that OSM and with it the foundation have become far more visible and important, we can no longer afford to simply ignore the differences that exist between what is prescribed and what is our day to day practice.

The process that has lead to these new proposed articles has been 2-3 years in the making, and not all of the change requests that accumulated over this period have found their way in to this new text. For this reason we expect more changes at the 2014 general meeting. Further, some of the goals we had for the current changes have not been 100% met due to legal restraints. None the less I would strongly recommend that the general meeting accept the new articles, they are far better than what we currently have.

While I cannot relieve you from the task of actually reading the new legal language, I do want to point out the major changes to the current set of documents.

The new text makes a structural change in that it merges our previous two constitutional documents, the Memorandum of Association and the Articles of Association. We have not made any substantial changes to the objects of the foundation even though in discussion it has been suggested that we make them more specific to the OpenStreetMap project. On top of the merger the whole document has been reformatted and numbered to be in line with the requirements of the new 2006 companies act.

The main issue with the current articles is that they assume that all our members are members according to the UK companies act, this requires us to collect full names and postal addresses from all members and make them available to third parties on request. While there are ways to get around publishing the address, we still consider it problematic from a data privacy point of view that we cannot offer an alternative. The new proposal adds a “associate member” class that sidesteps the above issue.

Our original goal was to afford “associate members” exactly the same rights as normal members. This turned out to not be possible with respect to resolutions and special resolutions at the general meetings which remain reserved for the companies act members. In practical terms this means that the “associate members” will not be able to vote on changes of the articles and dissolution of the organisation, and a handful of other topics. The “associate members” will however be able to elect the board and vote on motions at the AGM. You remain free to choose between regular and associate membership. After adoption of the new articles we will be contacting all existing members for instructions with respect to their membership class.

The proposed text allows us to use electronic means for our correspondence with the members and does away with the need to be physically present at the general meeting location. It still assumes that we are using a conventional proxy assignment for our e-mail voting, we are exploring alternatives to this for the next revision.

During the public discussion early this year I touched on the issue of including an asset lock in the articles, there wasn’t very much feedback on the topic and for that reason we are postponing adding such text to the next revision.

The board was evenly split on the matter of voting corporate membership. As this tends to be a hotly debated topic in our membership too, we have decided that we split the vote on the articles in to a vote on the new text and a vote on a set of amendments that add voting rights for corporate “associate members”.

As the last important point, the current articles did not detail how a member could lose membership either by not paying the membership fees or by being expelled by the board. The new articles try to lay down a reasonable set of rules for this,  in line with our current practice.

Again, while not perfect and with some remaining warts, the new articles are a big step forward. The board and myself strongly recommend accepting them at our upcoming meeting in Birmingham.

Simon Poole

State Of The Map – Register now for early bird prices

Tomorrow is the last day of May, and your last chance to grab yourself a “State Of The Map” conference ticket at the reduced “Early-bird” prices.

State Of The Map is the international annual conference of the OpenStreetMap foundation. There’s a lot of excitement about stateofthemap.us taking place in San Francisico in just over a week’s time. This is shaping up very nicely, and registration is still open. It is organised by OpenStreetMap U.S., and is followed by SOTM Baltics in August. Various other local chapters are running their own local conferences. ….but the main event….

State Of The Map is taking place in Birmingham, England. 6-8th September. A few months away, but book early to avoid disappointment (and save a bit of money). Register now!

There’s also an upcoming deadline for the call for presentations. A great opportunity to reach out to the OpenStreetMap community. Get your presentation ideas submitted there. We’d love to hear from you.

State of the Map – Call for Papers

The call for papers for State of the Map-Birmingham is now open.

Rob Nickerson, of the State of the Map organizing committee, sends the following information for you.

It’s that time of year again when we look to you, the mind-bogglingly creative OpenStreetMap community, to tell us what you’ve been up to. That’s right – it time to submit your presentation ideas for the annual State of the Map conference.

Presentations

State of the Map 2013, to be held in Birmingham, United Kingdom, from 6 to 8 September is calling for presentations.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Change” so we are particularly interested in presentations addressing this theme. Our programme will cover a wide range of topics that will interest everyone from the new OpenStreetMap contributor to the old hand to the professional contemplating using our data.

If you have something interesting to present about your work with OpenStreetMap and would like to tell the world, we would love to hear about it. Simply fill out the Call for Presentations form explaining the topic of your presentation. To keep things easy, at this stage we just need a few words, not a full presentation. 🙂

Who can present?

We are seeking presentations from businesses, the public sector, charities, and individuals.

Poster Exhibition

This year I personally want to try and get as many people involved as possible. We are therefore hoping to have a Poster Exhibition for people who may not be able to attend in person (we can print them locally). If this sounds interesting to you, please use the same form and specify “Poster” as the “Session Format”. Posters can be mainly pictorial, or include text. You can bring it yourself or send an electronic copy for local printing

Sponsor the poster exhibition

Sponsorship to cover printing costs would be much appreciated.

If you have something to say, for example, about switching to OSM, barriers to its use, apps for mobile mapping, changing community organisation or behaviour, historical mapping, or just anything that you want to present, then make sure you register your proposal with a a few words to describe the topic.

Tutorials

Tutorial sessions are especially welcome!

Deadline

Call for Presentations closes on Monday, 10 June 2013.

About State of the Map

The State of the Map is the official, annual, international, OpenStreetMap conference. Founded in 2007, previous State of the Map conferences were held in Manchester, Limerick, Amsterdam, Girona, Denver and Tokyo.

State of the Map 2013 – Birmingham

State of the Map logo

The OpenStreetMap Foundation, State of the Map Working Group, (SotM-WG) announced today that State of the Map 2013 will be held in Birmingham, England, from 6th – 8th September 2013.

The State of the Map 2013, in Birmingham will be the 7th edition of the official OpenStreetMap conference State of the Map (SotM). State of the Map conferences include:

  • Birmingham, England – Friday through Sunday, 06 – 08 September 2013
  • Tokyo, Japan – 2012
  • Denver, USA – 2011
  • Girona, Spain – 2010
  • Amsterdam, The Netherlands – 2009
  • Limerick, Ireland – 2008
  • Manchester, England – 2007

After more than five years, State of the Map is back in England. The country where not only the project started, but also the country where the first SotM was held.

The Birmingham bid-team are excited to host State of the Map. “We will work hard to ensure we have a memorable State of the Map 2013” Brian Prangle, the local team lead, says.

More information about the program, sponsoring, etc. will be made available in the coming months.

#SotM2013

Your First ODbL Planet

The first day of State of the Map, each year is filled with anticipation. Anticipation of seeing old friends and making new ones, anticipation of inspirational presentations and discussions and anticipation of big announcements.

The opening session at State of the Map, 2012, was no different. In Tokyo, on Thursday morning, 06 September 2012, Steve Coast called Michael Collinson, chair of the License Working Group to the stage to make an announcement. And it was an announcement that we have been anticipating for quite some time.

The next OpenStreetMap planet published will be an ODbL planet.

Mr. Collinson also thanked the countless hundreds (or thousands) who aided immeasurably in the OpenStreetMap license upgrade to ODbL. He named a representative few including OSMF legal counsel Wilson Sonsini, OpenStreetMap community members Richard Fairhurst, Frederik Ramm and Francis Davey, author of the ODbL, Jordan Hatcher and posthumously, License Working Group member Ulf Möller.

There will be more details posted in the next days, but for now we’re excited to share this announcement with you.