Weekly OSM Summary #79 & #80

September 23rd, 2013 – October 21st, 2013
Special issue – A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

Simon Poole wrote an announcement about the “PD checkbox” which maybe some of the long-time contributors see in their personal OSM profile.
Paul Norman published a list of upcoming OSM main website features.
Please participate in this rework of the local OSM chapter agreement.
New OSM flyers can be ordered at the OpenCycleMap shop.
The results of the OpenStreetMap US Elections 2013 have been published. Congrats to Mele, Kathleen, Ian, Martijn and Alex!
Will Skora about the new HOT OSM map style. The CartoCSS code has been published on GitHub. More information in a presentation and a blog post. The new style is also available at fieldpapers.org.
Some new stats about the OSM street network of Switzerland.
KeepRight seeks volunteers to help with maintaining the website.
Werner Hoch about the transition from OpenStreetBugs to OSM Notes.
Martin Dittus wrote a blog post about “Changing the Ratio: OpenStreetMap Community Diversity at SotM 2013“.
Mele Sax-Barnett provides some useful information about “Getting what you want out of OpenStreetMap“.
Matthew Kenny wrote a blog post about “Generate [Topo|Geo]JSON Vector Tiles“.
Jochen Topf wrote a blog post about “Preventing the Flooding of the Planet” due to broken OSM coastlines.
Keiko Tanaka wrote a short blog post about OpenStreetMap contributors who helped to create a crisis map of Izu Oshima island.
Chris Hill wrote a blog post about the “open” UK Land Registry polygons.
Carol Kraemer about her personal experience as a new OSM member and data contribution attempts.
The OpenSeaMap switched to GitHub. Also a new forum is online here.
“My Opening Hours” a new and simple Android application that maintains a list of places and their corresponding opening hours.
The Navit project is looking for translators. Navit is an open-source car navigation software capable of using OSM data.
Norway offers different open datasets on their own geodata portal. Read more here. The potential import to OSM is coordinated here.
The videos of the FOSS4G in Nottingham are online at Youtube. Also the videos of the State of the Map Scotland are available here.

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

Weekly OSM Summary #78

September 9th, 2013 – September 23rd, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

Andy Allan wrote some guidelines about the default layer style at the OSM main page.
The next OSM US #editathon will take place on October 18th and 19th 2013.
Imposm3 is completely rewritten in the Go programming language. It also supports diff-updates now. The entire development is sponsored by the guys at omniscale.
A website (by tyr_asd) that generates different types of quality assurance feeds for a specific area of interest.
Manuela Schmidt created a poster about “Barriers for Contributing to VGI projects“.
Sven Geggus wrote a blog post about “A simple way to localize (latinize) an Openstreetmap style“.
Ed Freyfogle wrote a blog post about “Giving up on mapstraction“. Mapstraction is a JS library that provides a single, common interface for a wide variety of JS map APIs.
Aaron Lidmann has published OSMLY as a simple browser based importer for OSM. You can get the source code at github. He also published some code that converts between OSM XML and GeoJSON.
OpenSnowMap improved its ski routing.
Proj4Leaflet adds support for different projections in Leaflet. Leaflet is a modern OS JS library for mobile-friendly interactive maps.
Canada and Switzerland have some new Geodata-portals.

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

The “PD checkbox”

If you sign tickbox-distorted ed up for an OSM account after May 2010 you may have noticed a check box with the label

“in addition to the above agreement, I consider my contributions to be in the Public Domain”.

Many years ago when the discussion started on the new licence for OSM data, one of the larger issues was if we should not adopt a very liberal (as in free) stance and use something close to a public domain distribution instead of the share-alike provisions we had in the existing CC by-SA licence. In the end, as you know, last year we switched to a licence with strong share-alike provisions, the ODbL, We did however add the “PD checkbox” in an attempt to span the gap between the two camps.

Unluckily what ticking the box would actually imply was, and continues to be, rather unclear; interpretations range from participating in an informal survey to actually giving permission to use the data on PD (or similar) terms. On top of that, at least for some time, there was a design issue with the specific page that potentially led to new contributors selecting the option inadvertently. Not to mention that the explanatory text changed multiple times in different locations.

To make a long story short: it is a mess.

In June MapBox asked the board for a list of the users that had checked the “PD checkbox” on sign up or later, see board minutes 2013-06-20. After some discussion and feedback from the LWG WG minutes 2013-06-25 the board decided to publish overall numbers on the one hand to give an answer to a not unreasonable information request and further to try and lay this issue at least partly to rest:

Data per 19th September 2013

“PD check box selected” all active accounts: 37%

“PD check box selected” active accounts with at least one edit: 44%

As outlined above, the numbers can at best be taken as an indication of sentiment.

If it wasn’t clear from the discussion of the quirky history of the checkbox and the legal uncertainty that surrounds it: this does not imply that an extract could be made from OSM data that contains a substantial amount of “PD” data. Outside of the already mentioned issues, edits from accounts with this flag set are intermingled with edits of those that don’t have it set, and as the statement from the licence working group says: there is no guarantee that a user actually only contributed and continues to only contribute data from sources that are compatible with a PD distribution.

To conclude: while a significant minority of our contributors would prefer a less restrictive licence, and this will not be ignored in future discussions, we are currently obliged to operate within the spirit and letter of our current licence.

New Humanitarian Style

We’ve added a new map style option to the OpenStreetMap front page. Feast your eyes on the new “Humanitarian” style:

This style has been developed by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team to support their work, highlighting features they are most interested in, as well as just providing a contrasting stylisation of the map. The developer Yohan Boniface explains:

“OpenStreetMap data is as rich and varied as the real world. And, just as when you look through a window you can’t take in the whole world, so it is with a map based on OSM data: you can’t show it all. This is why we decided to provide the view from another window, through our own map and cartography, focusing on the world as seen through HOT’s community.”

“You may have noted that the colour scheme is light and pastel. This is certainly an aesthetic choice offering a nice contrast with the “standard” OpenStreetMap style. Consistency in the colour is also key to the readability of a map. But there was another goal for this. Now maps are everywhere, whether it is online or printed. But a generic map like the one we are building is generally only part of the message: whether it is online or printed, maps are often used with some custom data on top of them. For example, markers can be added to an online map to show specific points of interest. But also, more simply, they can be printed in order to draw on top of them. This could be details of a trip, a vaccination campaign, or additional map data when mappers are surveying. In all those situations, the map should do its job, providing geo information, but also leaving visual space for the main message.”

You can access this new style along with our other featured tiles any time you’re browsing the front page map, by clicking the layer icon on the right hand side.

Weekly OSM Summary #77

August 26th, 2013 – September 9th, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

OSMF board election results: Dermot McNally and Oliver Kühn were both re-elected and Kate Chapman was elected as a new board member. Congratulations!
The next US #editathon will take place on October 19th and 20th.
The first virtual SotM has taken place in Kathmandu, Nepal.
First ideas on the upcoming OSM Groups API which will be available at the main OSM webpage.
Mikel Maron about his work on Zaatari Camp Data in OSM.
How is OSM relevant to journalism?
JEO Demo: A WordPress parent theme for interactive maps and journalism.
£25,000 prize for developing a gaming solution that “integrates open street map data with existing game engines“.
A map full of “Vaguely Rude Place Names Of The World” by Gary Gale.
An OSM map with Comic Sans by Alex Barth.
DIY OSM PBF vector tiles by ikonor.
Data visualization based on an OSM map and leaflet.
ImageInOsm: a photomapping mobile application is now available on github.
Photon is a new OSM Open Source Geocoder, which has been published at the SotM in Birmingham.
Mercedes Benz uses the OSM JOSM editor in a promo for its new S-Class.

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

Foundation AGM and board election results

The State of the Map conference in Birmingham is winding down (although today there’s a very lively room full of fifty OpenStreetMap hackers in way number 32637693) We’ll bring you a summary of all the SotM excitement soon. But before that… some OpenStreetMap Foundation business.

On Saturday we held the Foundation Annual General Meeting.

Simon Poole, chairman of the board, conducted proceedings and gave his summary of the past year’s foundation news, and then we held a vote.

Board election results:

As Frederik announced on the mailing list, Dermot McNally and Oliver Kühn were both re-elected to the board. Congratulations to them. And they are joined by Kate Chapman.

Kate Chapman said in her manifesto: “Generally I would like to see the OSMF assist OSM in becoming more diverse, I think my experience through the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (H.O.T.) can help make that happen”. Welcome to the board Kate!

The vote counts looked like this:

Kate Chapman 114
Dermot McNally 85
Oliver Kühn 57
Roland Olbricht 54
Kai Krueger 42
Gregory Marler 40
Marek Strassenburg-Kleciak 13

Thank you to all of the candidates for taking part in this process.

Articles of Association

We also voted on adoption of new Articles of Association, and 92% voted in favour, and so this is accepted.

On the issue of whether to allow corporate members to vote, opinions were a little more divided. The count was: For:75; Against:59; Abstain:14. This means a 58% yes vote, and the target of 75% has not been reached, so the amendment is not accepted.

You can read a little more about the points discussed at the AGM, in the draft meeting minutes.

Weekly OSM Summary #76

August 12th, 2013 – August 26th, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

September = Maptember. Read more about this year’s special month.
The Annual General Meeting of the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) will take place at the State Of The Map (SotM) 2013 conference.
The “Articles of the OSMF Association” have been revised. Read more in a blog post by OSMF chairman Simon Poole.
The new OSM iD editor is the default editor on the main page now. Furthermore John Firebaugh wrote a blog post about the latest changes made to the main OSM website.
Do the Golden Rules of OSM need an update?
Several videos of the SotM Baltics 2013 have been published on Vimeo and Youtube.
At October 5th and 6th, 2013 a Hack Weekend will take place in Karlsruhe (Germany).
The Red Cross asks for your help with mapping tasks in Northern Haiti.
Roland Olbricht provides some information about the new version of a popup layer for the main OSM webpage.
Eric Fisher created an OSM and TIGER comparison map for the US.
Jochen Topf works on a new Osmium version. Osmium is a fast and flexible framework for working with OSM data. He will present the new Osmium version in more detail at the upcoming SotM conference in Birmingham.
Create your own Photo Map based on OSM and flickr, a tutorial by Mikel Maron.
The free of charge iPhone app “I Bike CPH” has been released. It uses OSM data, the OSRM routing engine and is so far only available for Copenhagen, Denmark. However, the source code of the app is available on github. Also, a new version of OSRM has been released.
A Windows App that gives you the latest OSM news has been published by Henk Hoff.

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

Last chance to vote by email

Today is your last chance to vote by email for this year’s foundation board elections. If you are a member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, and you are not planning to vote at the annual general meeting in Birmingham this Saturday, then please read the proxy voting information and follow the instructions carefully to send a proxy vote request by email.

As well as voting for three board candidates, we are also asking members to vote on the Articles of Association. See Simon Poole’s previous blog post explaining this.

Proxy voting closes today at 22:00 UTC, but final votes will be accepted in person if you’re coming to Birmingham.

Weekly OSM Summary #75

July 29th, 2013 – August 12th, 2013
A summary of all the things happening in the OpenStreetMap world.

The default OpenStreetMap.org “standard” map switched to a new server. Additionally, the rendering server also uses the new “openstreetmap-carto” stylesheet. Comparison.
GeoSprocket released the results of the “Tiled Basemaps Survey 2013“.
Brittag about her first experiences as a new OSM contributor.
Pascal wrote a new “OSM Contributor Activity Report 2013“.
Foursquare users can directly edit OSM data now.
A new version of the OSM Android editor Vespucci has been released. A video with all new features is available on Youtube. The language files of the GUI are hosted on Transifix.
The Overpass API supports a new difference operator. What is the Overpass API?
Geo5 is a new Javascript library that creates HTML5 mapping applications.
Dodocase offers iPad cases based on Stamens OSM maps.
ScalableMaps provides OSM maps as a PDF or Adobe Illustrator file, check out Manhattan.

Authors: Pascal & Dennis – (thx @ “Wochennotiz”)

iD In-Browser Editor Now Default on OpenStreetMap

The State of the Map 2013 venue in the new iD editor

If you click the edit button today on OpenStreetMap, you will find a new, easier to use in-browser editor.

With OpenStreetMap rapidly becoming the go-to map for thousands of mobile apps and websites, more and more users are seeking an easy way to add their local knowledge to the map – without the technical background of OpenStreetMap’s early adopters. The new all open source web editor, named iD, was launched last May as an additional option to make the editing experience much easier for first-time mappers.

Since then, the iD developers have worked hard to close feature gaps and improve performance such that it can now take its place as the default editor for OpenStreetMap.org. iD offers a walk-through tutorial for first-time users, inline documentation for tags, and a more comprehensive help system than previous in-browser editors.

Potlatch, the existing online editor, continues to be developed for intermediate-level users and will remain as an option in the edit dropdown. For a full list of available editors, take a look at our wiki. You can configure your personal default in your user settings.

Head over to OpenStreetMap.org and give the new editor a spin.

Data per 19th September 2013

Board election results:

Articles of Association

OpenStreetMap Blog