Community survey for the State of the Map 2018 program

Community voting for State of the Map 2018 is now open! Inspired by the community that makes OpenStreetMap a reality we want your help in shaping this year’s program.

The People Speak! by saulalbert. Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Thank you everyone for submitting session proposals for State of the Map 2018. We have a great line up of presentations this year, it is time to share your views and help shape the State of the Map 2018 program.

Please participate in our OpenStreetMap community survey. It’s open to all, whether you are planning a trip to Milan, attending virtually on the live streams, or just enjoying our session videos afterwards.

Once past the front page you will be presented with a long list of talks to rate, sorted at random. We don’t expect you to rate all 134 talks; if each person reading this just did 10 then we would end up with a large amount of valuable data. When you’ve got as far as you’d like, just scroll down, hit Next until you can Submit your answers. Just don’t leave the page open for too long, as your session might time out. Note: Use of OSM usernames helps us with spam detection – we won’t share them with anyone.

You matter in the creation of OpenStreetMap and we want your voice to be heard in the creation of its conference. The survey is only open until 20th March 2018, so go to the survey now!

The State of the Map (SotM) conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap. Organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation it has been held each year since 2007 (except 2015). State of the Map 2018 will take place in Milan (July 28 – 30, 2018).

Updated OSMF Trademark Policy


The OpenStreetMap Foundation has updated its Trademark Policy, as per January 1st 2018. The revised policy is the work of the OSMF volunteer Licensing Working Group.

Read the updated Trademark Policy

The OpenStreetMap magnifying glass logo. One of the marks covered by the new trademarks policy

Why does OpenStreetMap have marks?

The OpenStreetMap marks represent OpenStreetMap and its work to bring open map data to the entire world. When users see the OpenStreetMap name and logo, they should be confident that they are looking at a high quality map that is the result of the rigorous and comprehensive collaboration process of OpenStreetMap. Trademark protection helps reinforce that connection.

What are the goals of this trademark policy?

The goodwill supporting the OpenStreetMap marks has been generated by a prolific and passionate volunteer community. The OpenStreetMap Foundation has prepared this policy to preserve and protect that goodwill by ensuring that uses of the marks are consistent with OpenStreetMap’s mission and promote the OpenStreetMap movement.

How is this trademark policy different from most trademark policies?

This trademark policy seeks to make trademark licensing as easy as possible for the contributors who created OpenStreetMap, by making explicit that many uses do not require a trademark licence, and by empowering them to use OpenStreetMap’s marks without a trademark licence for community-focused events and outreach work. The OpenStreetMap Foundation hopes that this helps spread OpenStreetMap and encourage contribution while also ensuring that the mark remains a reliable signal of quality.

The updated Trademark Policy has information on:

  • How to use the OSM marks
  • When you may use the OSM marks without asking us
  • Special uses that require permission
  • Prohibited uses
  • Unauthorised use

Some of the updates:

Offer to register domain names for informal local groups

The OpenStreetMap Foundation now offers to register domain names for informal local groups. Once a domain has been registered, it will point to the groups website as long as the terms of the trademark policy are followed and this can be done without causing conflicts with other user groups. Please note that this is intended for informal local groups, not Local Chapters. Please read the Trademark Policy for more details.

Events and conferences

Please read the Trademark Policy if you are interested in organising an OpenStreetMap related event or Conference.

Questions?

If you are not sure whether your use is in compliance with this policy or local trademark laws please don’t hesitate to contact OSMF at trademarks@osmfoundation.org

Join the legal-talk mailing list

The legal-tallk mailing list is focused on the discussion of all legal matters relating to OpenStreetMap, including licensing and copyright. Join or view the archives at https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk

About the Licencing Working Group

The Licencing Working Group is one of the seven volunteer Working Groups of the OSM Foundation, focused on the promotion of open geospatial data through practical, coherent and clear licensing. If you find that interesting we invite you to join us – just mail us at legal@osmfoundation.org

State of the Map 2018 tickets now on sale

Tickets for State of the Map 2018 are now on sale. Come register for this international gathering of the OpenStreetMap community. Move fast in order to guarantee yourself the “Early Bird” discounted rate!

State of the Map offers value for anyone excited about open location data. Our main conference days will feature around 50 talks, open spaces for gatherings, and exhibition areas where individuals and organizations can meet. Hundreds of OpenStreetMap community members are expected to attend and we want you there!

The early bird catches the worm. Or “chi primo arriva, meglio alloggia.” The world of OpenStreetMap belong to those who get (tickets) early.

OSMF Request for Proposals: Data Centre 2018

Photo by cosheahan on flickr. Licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Statement of Purpose

The OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) Operations Working Group (OWG) is looking for proposals to provision space in a data centre to continue to run the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project’s infrastructure.

Background Information

OSMF is a nonprofit organisation dedicated to supporting, but not controlling, the OpenStreetMap project. OSMF created the OWG in order to support OSM’s technical infrastructure, including the main website, API, data distribution, community sites, and manage them for the benefit of the project.

The map data created by OpenStreetMap and distributed through ​OSMF​ is the best free global map available. It powers services all over the world, including for companies such as Apple, Foursquare, Craigslist and Mapbox. Ple​ase see https://www.openstreetmap.org/about​ for more background information.

Scope of Work

The data centre provider must meet the requirements set out below.

Requirements

Primary

●  The data centre must be in the EU.
●  One rack (at least 40U) of space, at industry standard rack dimensions.
●  Power capacity at least 3kW w/ dual redundant supplies.
●  Cooling to keep the servers suitably cool, e.g: under 35 degrees celsius.
●  Secure cages, so that only access authorised by the data centre or OSMF is possible.
●  On-site “remote hands” to be able to receive and replace HDDs and press power buttons during weekday business hours and at least some service weekends and holidays.
●  Network connection capable of 1Gbit/s peak traffic and 500Mbit/s sustained.

Secondary

●  Control over the configuration of any upstream firewalls for the purposes of ensuring necessary ports are open.
●  Good peering connection to major European backbone network. Ideally within 20ms of our existing sites on JANET.

Additional questions

Please provide detailed information on:
●  The procedure for shipping parts to the data centre, and
●  The procedure for raising a ticket for “remote hands” work, and
●  Whether “remote hands” would be available outside of business hours, and
●  The site’s uptime and network reachability over the past year, and
●  The procedure for an OSMF representative to visit and access the data centre.

Term of Agreement

The agreement would start on or before 1st April 2018 and run for a minimum of 3 years (at
OSMF’s option), preferably renewable annually or on a longer basis after that. Any renewal or
cancellation on either side would need a minimum notice period of 3 months.

Terms and Conditions

If you have Terms and conditions or Acceptable Use Policies then you should submit them in editable form for legal review, where possible. T&C/AUP changes should be expected to ensure we meet the privacy and security commitments required for our users.

Schedule, Evaluation and Award Process

This RFP is expected to be open until 28th February 2018. Only applications received prior to this date can be considered for this RFP. All proposals will be received in confidence and will be kept private.

After the date above, all proposals will be evaluated by the OWG against the requirements set out above, after which OWG may contact candidate sites with follow-up questions or to arrange site visits. The final agreement will require legal review and approval by the OSMF board.

OSMF particularly welcomes responses from anyone willing to support the work of the foundation at minimal cost.

The successful candidate will be publicly thanked on the main OSM project website as well as OWG websites in accordance with OWG’s Hosting Provider Credit Policy.

Points of Contact

Many thanks for your interest. If you have any questions or proposals, please send them to
operations@osmfoundation.org​.

Last chance reminders for State of the Map 2018

Castello Sforzesco – Fedewild on Flickr cc-by-sa 2.0

In July the OpenStreetMap community will be coming together for our annual State of the Map conference, this year in Milan, Italy. With planning well under way it is set to be as exciting as ever. Here is a gentle reminder of some upcoming deadlines so that you don’t miss out on the fun.

The deadline to apply for a scholarship is Wednesday, 14th February 2018.

We don’t want high travel costs to get in the way of talented individuals joining the fun. Thanks to the support of our sponsors, scholarships will help bring us together. Apply now for a scholarship to join us.

The deadline to submit your session proposal is Sunday, 18th February 2018.

You are encouraged to submit proposals for 20 minute talks, 5 minute lightning talks, and 75 minute workshops that will result in progress and excitement in the world of OpenStreetMap.

Please apply here!

The deadline for academic track proposals is Sunday, 4th March 2018.

In parallel to the standard sessions, this year State of the Map will run an Academic Track session to showcase the great importance OpenStreetMap has gained within the scientific and academic communities. If you’d like to propose an academic talk you have an extra two weeks.

If you have any questions, please contact us at team@stateofthemap.org.

Thank you,
Your State of the Map team

State of the Map 2018 Academic Track – Call for abstracts

In parallel to the standard sessions, this year State of the Map will run an Academic Track session to showcase the great importance OpenStreetMap has gained within the scientific and academic communities. The Academic Track aims to bring together and foster interactions between OpenStreetMap contributors and scientific researchers from all over the world. Consequently this will demonstrate both the potential and maturity of scientific investigations based on OpenStreetMap to the whole community and stimulate a beneficial discussion among the attendees. Contributions are expected to address any scientific aspect related to OpenStreetMap, in particular, but not limited, to the following:

  • Quality of OpenStreetMap data.
  • Analysis of contribution patterns in OpenStreetMap.
  • Exploitation of OpenStreetMap data to generate new scientifically valuable datasets.
  • Integration of OpenStreetMap data with other datasets to generate new scientifically valuable datasets.
  • Scientific applications of OpenStreetMap.
  • New approaches to facilitate or improve data collection in OpenStreetMap (e.g. through gamification or citizen science approaches).
  • Literature reviews on specific aspects of OpenStreetMap.
  • Creating better connections and collaborations between the scientific community and the OpenStreetMap community.
  • Open research problems in OpenStreetMap and challenges for the scientific community.

Authors are invited to submit abstracts using this form.
Deadline: March 4th, 2018.

The maximum length of the abstract is 2500 characters. Abstracts must be scientifically rigorous and structured as follows: introduction/background, where the problem addressed is introduced; main aim or purpose of the study; brief description of the methodology and findings achieved; final discussion highlighting the scientific contribution of the study and its practical benefits/implications. Abstracts describing the use, analysis and processing of OpenStreetMap data for new and unconventional applications/disciplines are particularly encouraged.

Abstracts will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to give an oral presentation during the Academic Track sessions at the conference. In addition, authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper for the Special Issue “Open Source Geospatial Software” of the journal Open Geospatial Data, Software and Standards.

Scientific Committee

  • Dr. Marco Minghini – Politecnico di Milano, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Italy
  • Dr. Peter Mooney – Maynooth University, Department of Computer Science, Ireland
  • Dr. Vyron Antoniou – Geographic Directorate, Hellenic Army General Staff, Greece
  • Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli – Politecnico di Milano, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Italy
  • Dr. Frank Ostermann – University of Twente, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), The Netherlands
  • Dr. Amin Mobasheri – GIScience Research Group, Institute of Geography, Heidelberg University, Germany
  • Joost Schouppe – OpenStreetMap Belgium, Belgium

Apply for support to join us in Milan for State of the Map 2018

return 

The application form for State of the Map 2018 grants and scholarships is now open.

OpenStreetMap is a world map of many people and places. And we want you all there for our upcoming State of the Map conference in Milan. We can provide financial support to help you to join in the fun thanks to the generosity of our sponsors. This year we welcome back Bing, Facebook, Mapbox as Gold sponsors, Telenav as Silver sponsor, and say hello to Italian company, Immobiliare.it who joins at Silver level.

Apply now for support to join us in Milan for State of the Map 2018!
Deadline: Wednesday 14th February 2018.

Each year we receive more scholarship applications than we are able to support. To help us best allocate the funds, we have different levels of scholarship – you can now pick from Grants for speakers, or Full or Enhanced scholarships.

Here are some tips to help you complete your application. You can also check out Gregory’s post on how we selected scholars from previous year’s applicants.

  • Select the minimum level of scholarship you need to attend. This will help us to make the best use of limited funds.
  • Answer the question “How will attending State of the Map benefit you and OpenStreetMap” in 1500 characters maximum. Keep sentences short. Focus on the benefits to you and to OpenStreetMap.
  • 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 in our shortlist – we might take a look at these additional details.
  • What topics or views will you bring to State of the Map that are otherwise missing?
  • What do you plan to do when you return home after State of the Map?

Whilst you are here don’t forget that you can also read the experiences that our scholars gained from being able to attend State of the Map 2017.

Apply now!

This post was updated in late June 2018 to include the sponsors from our top two tiers.

OpenStreetMap Receives Large Donation from the Pineapple Fund!

Pineapple Party

We’re celebrating the generous donation from the Pineapple Fund to the OpenStreetMap Foundation. Party.

Only two weeks ago we were amazed to see a large bitcoin donation of over 2.3 BTCs, worth €30,000 (£27,000) and asked ourselves where this donation might originate from. There had been different ideas, but we’re still clueless.

Some suggested that this was the Pineapple Fund donating to us. But only today we learned it wasn’t them as we received a second donation, this time indeed from them. They sent us the amazing amount of 18 Bitcoins, currently worth over €200,000! Yay!

What is the Pineapple Fund?

The Pineapple Fund was created by an anonymous (privacy-loving) person that goes by the username Pine who invested in the really early days of Bitcoin, and is now one of the 250 richest bitcoin holders. They generously decided to establish the Pineapple Fund, as “once you have enough money, money doesn’t matter” and to donate $86 million worth of Bitcoins to all kind of charitable organizations. Read more about their mission statement on pineapplefund.org. If you scroll down a bit you’ll find a list of organizations that already got a donation and the list now contains our project as well. They also link to different news covering their story.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and an innovative digital payment network which started back in 2009. It is based on cryptography to secure any payments and has a public ledger to document any payments made. As it is based on a public peer-to-peer network, anyone can participate and no central server or instance is needed.

Bitcoin received broader media attention lately as the fiat exchange rates have risen by some hundreds of percents last year, making one Bitcoin worth more than €10,000 as of today.

For more details you may want to have a look at bitcoin.org, which also features a nice introductory video.

Why OpenStreetMap?

The Pineapple Fund explained on reddit that “$250k go to OpenStreetMap, because geographic data for our world should be freely available, without restrictions”. OpenStreetMap was started because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, productive, or unexpected ways. We aim to make the best map data set of the world, read the OpenStreetMap Foundation’s mission statement.

Thank you!

A big thank you to the anonymous donor two weeks ago and a special thank you to the Pineapple Fund, both generously supporting our project!

You can help OpenStreetMap too

If you’re considering donating yourself, here’s our Bitcoin address! You can donate via other methods. You can also help by mapping! Go to www.openstreetmap.org, create a free account and start mapping your neighbourhood. Let’s make the best map of the world together!

Propose your session for State of the Map 2018!

In July the OpenStreetMap community will be coming together for our annual State of the Map conference, this year in Milan, Italy. It is set to be an exciting three day event where mappers, programmers, practitioners, entrepreneurs, and policy makers will share their passion for OpenStreetMap.

We invite you to submit your session proposals for the 2018 State of the Map, by Sunday, 18th February 2018.

You are encouraged to submit proposals for 20 minute talks, 5 minute lightning talks, and 75 minute workshops that will result in progress and excitement in the world of OpenStreetMap. If you require a grant or scholarship to attend, please note that you will have to complete an additional form which we will publish in the next few weeks. Again, the deadline to submit your session proposals is Sunday, 18th February 2018.

Apply here

This year, we are particularly keen to see applications from good quality workshops (please apply for a grant or scholarship if it will help you). We also want to welcome academic talks, and will soon be releasing an additional form for you to submit your academic abstracts for peer-review.

Milan is known as the fashion capital of the world and is equally famous for its art, design and stunning architecture such as the Duomo – one of the biggest and grandest Gothic cathedrals in the world. This year we are delighted to be hosted at Politecnico di Milano (Polytechnic University of Milan), home of the PoliMappers and we will be based in the building shown above. This year’s logo was designed by Angelica Braccia and can be seen in all its glory on our website.

A look back at the conferences of 2017

Mappy New Year! 2017 has been an eventful year for OpenStreetMap. The communities across the globe not only hosted some amazing State of the Map conferences but also plenty of meetups, mapathons, mapping parties, workshops and much more that brought us, mappers, together and celebrated the essence of OpenStreetMap.

The State of the Map (SotM) conference is the annual, international conference of OpenStreetMap. Organised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation it has been held each year since 2007 (except 2015). There are also many other regional and local conferences named “State of the Map”. Please note that these regional SotMs are organised exclusively by local teams, which run their own sponsorship programs and have separate budgets from the OpenStreetMap Foundation. The main aim of these conferences is for them to become a platform for the exchange of information and experiences between old and new or potential users.

In this review, we have also included some non-SotM conferences that also focus a lot on OpenStreetMap.

Cheers to all the organisers and participants who made these conference a success, as well as contributing to making OpenStreetMap what it is!

FOSS4G Italy, 8th-11th February 2017

2017 started with this Italian conference on Free and Open Source Software and Geographic Data “FOSS4G-IT 2017” held in Genoa.

Group photo (Source: Website)

FOSSGIS, 22nd-25th March 2017

The 2017 FOSSGIS Conference was organized by the non-profit FOSSGIS eV and the OpenStreetMap Community with the support of the University of Passau. Users and developers gathered for a common exchange about application and work opportunities as well as the latest developments in this field.

Group photo (Source)

SotM France, 2nd-4th June 2017

The OpenStreetMap community in France organised a regional  State of the Map conference for the 5th time. This was the first regional State of the Map conference of the year and it took place in Avignon.

Some of the 250 attendees of State of the Map France (source)

SotM Africa, 8th–10th July 2017

The first State of the Map in Africa took place in Kampala, Uganda. It was inspiring to see so many passionate OSM volunteers from different parts of Africa altogether.

Group photo from the first SotM Africa (Source)

International SotM 18th-20th August 2017, Japan

This year the international State of the Map conference, organised by the SotM Working Group of the OpenStreetMap Foundation together with the local community, took place in  Aizuwakamatsu. Everyone enjoyed three days in, Japan with talks, discussions and workshops all around the free and open map of the world. You can read about the experiences of our scholars here and we hope to see you at international SotM 2018, which will take place on the 28th-30th of July 2018 in Milan, Italy!

Group photo from SotM (Source)

SotM Asia, 23rd-24th September 2017

State of the Map Asia, the annual regional conference of OpenStreetMap took place in Kathmandu, Nepal. The conference brought together about 175 Open Mapping enthusiasts from 16 countries in Asia, two countries in North America and two countries in Europe. The event provided an opportunity to share experiences, learn from each other and think collectively about the future development of OSM in Asia.

Different OSM communities across Asia came together at the State of the Map Asia 2017 conference (source)

SotM United States, 19th-22nd October 2017

State of the Map US took place in Boulder, Colorado. This was a platform for mappers, businesses, government agencies, and non-profits, to collaborate around OpenStreetMap.

Group photo from the State of the Map US 2017 (Source – CC-BY 2.0 Justin R. Miller)

FOSS4G + SotM Argentina, 23rd-28th October 2017

The OpenStreetMap and FOSS4G communities met at the combined event in Buenos Aires,   with six days full of geomatics workshops, presentations, exhibitions and interactions.

Group photo at the conference

SotM CZ, 4th-5th November 2017

This year’s SotM Czech Republic took place as part of OpenAlt conference.

A presentation on OSM for Location Intelligence during the conference (source)

SotM Latin America, 29th November – 2nd December 2017

This year’s SotM LatAm took place in Lima, the capital city of Peru. There were many interesting sessions that took place at the conference. You can read more about it here.

SotM Cameroon, 1st–3rd December 2017

This first SotM Cameroon brought together the actors of Geomatics in Cameroon. There was great participation from the community in making this conference a success.

A group photo of the OSM community in Cameroon taken in 2015 (Source)

SotM Tanzania, 8th–10th December 2017

Over 150 people from 10 countries came together at SotM TZ to explore how mapping can help develop Tanzania, people working in this field, and learn GIS and mapping skills at introductory and advanced levels.

Attendee Innocent Maholi captures a picture (Source)

These were a few of the many amazing conferences that happened in 2017. Let’s make sure that 2018 sees more such events for OpenStreetMap and continues to help communities network and grow!

Using the “State of the Map” Name

Interested in hosting a regional conference and want to have in the name “State of the Map” or “OpenStreetMap”? Please notify the OSM Foundation as soon as possible. This is to ensure that there are no timing conflicts with the International or other SotMs nearby. It also gives us some protection of our trademarks.

Are you far into the planning stage for your regional SotM conference in 2018? No need to worry, but please notify us immediately too. Note that the updated policy does not affect people organising mapping parties. We will tell you more about our updated trademark IP policy soon, so stay tuned!