Happy Birthday OpenStreetMap | Hacker News Reader

Happy Birthday OpenStreetMap

blog.openstreetmap.org

424 pointsmolly_radstowe60 comments

My job uses OSM for route planning, and contributes back changes, road closures etc. as that directly benefit us when planning the next day. It's a great system where everyone benefits.

On the private, I've lately been biking/hiking lots of trails with a 360 camera, and uploaded to Mapillary as CC-BY-SA (and google street view). To make a kind of street view, but also to use the data to improve trail/mtb/biking routes in OSM. I hate planning a route and ending up having to carry my gravel bike. Or someone taking their stroller for a leisure hike on a gravel road in the woods suddenly finds out some part of it is unwalkable. Or the opposite, taking the mtb for a ride and not getting any fun. It's quite fun, a good excuse to try new roads every time I'm out just to map it.

I've been thinking of recording imagery too with an action camera, using a phone for that purpose hasn't been too good in my experience because it's shaky, especially on forest trails.

Also what do you think of KartaView? I'm not sure whether to trust the Meta owned Mapillary, even though the current data has an open license.

I use a gopro max, a 360 camera. Not the best quality since it's 5.6k pixels shared in all directions, but quite nice. A 360 video gives "true" streetview navigation compared to uploading pictures.

My problem with KartaView is that there is no new images in my city since ~2019, and very little is covered. So no one here uses it. While someone needs to start, I guess, it wont be me. The municipality where I live has however mapped >800 km of city streets themselves in Mapillary, so it's a good source to expand on and where I can fill in the gaps with cycling related stuff.

https://www.mapillary.com/app/user/BYM_OlaJuulHolm?lat=59.92...

Thanks, that makes sense. In my town the usage of either one is so marginal I don't think it matters which I use. And even if I decided to visit the nearest city and start from scratch with KartaView, more recent data wouldn't obviously hurt. And I've got time hah.

As I'm just a beginner I don't think a 360 camera is worth it just yet, they are quite expensive compared to regular ones. And I can imagine putting it on my helmet would get some attention from bypassers, unlike a normal camera mounted on the handlebar.

Yeah, lots of attention, hehe. Especially since when I'm filming for street view usage, I in addition have it on a pole sticking a bit up from the helmet, such that the helmet+myself covers as little of the nadir as possible. So quite some looks!

Duscussions I have seen recently suggested that KartaView has been abandoned by its corporate owner.

KartaView itself was never free of Meta. One reason it was never accepted on F-Droid is that it required Facebook libraries to build.

Along with Wikipedia and Linux maybe the top three projects of the open source movement. The most solid indicator that alternative, benign, do-no-evil visions for organizing our information landscapes not only exist, but are extremely effective.

Long live and prosper and may thousand more siblings follow in the paths OSM has opened up.

Adding to the list, some things are greater than just standalone projects. In this case, the Wikimedia community does a lot more than just Wikipedia, which is also greatly beneficial for everyone, same with the Linux Foundation, Apache Software Foundation and more.

To celebrate OSM's birthday this week's guest on the Geomob podcast was long-time contributor Andy Allan (amongst much else, maker of the OpenCycleMap rendering of OSM) to reminisce about the early days.

https://thegeomob.com/podcast/episode-193

OSM is 19 years old: we're launching an online fundraising campaign to support its future

Happy birthday. What's the easiest way to contribute data to it using my phone? I want to start mapping my city but I really have no idea how to do this. Any google maps style app that asks you questions about your surroundings?

Street Complete!

https://github.com/streetcomplete/StreetComplete

StreetComplete is fun! I was riding the bus the other day, and I opened the StreetComplete app. I noticed that most of the bus stops had incomplete information, so as we rode by I answered questions like "does this bus top have a shelter" for each stop as we went by. It's very easy to use, and I get a feeling of making the world a tiny bit better.

This is awesome, thanks! I just got started mapping my neighborhood. I'm gonna have a lot of fun during downtime at work.

Would be wonderful if something similar exists for iPhone. There seems to be a few apps that are trying to make something in that direction but aren't as polished/nice to use as Street Complete.

Have you tried Every Door? It's a similar micro-editor for iOS:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Every_Door

For more complete editing, I like to use "Go Map!!"

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Go_Map!!

Go Map!! recently introduced “Quests”, which are a bit like StreetComplete.

Not google maps style questions, but it's quite easy to add POIs using OsmAnd.

You need an OpenStreetMap-account, then long tap on the place, "actions", "Create POI" - enter the name and the type (restaurant, wastebin, whatever...) and save it.

If you're used to it and know the categories it takes maybe 30 seconds to do it everytime you visit a new restaurant or to add a new shop when you're waiting for the bus.

Every Door (Flutter, so either Android or iOS) is superb for mapping POIs. I polished off an entire mall in an hour or two last year.

Doesn't OSM have corporate donors? (I'd be happy to know it's not reliant on them)

Hello, I'm the OSM Foundation chairperson. Indeed, we benefit from the support of corporate donors, and their contributions are immensely valuable. This support often aligns with mutual interest in free maps, and sometimes extends to participation in working groups, such as the communication or licensing working group.

What sets OpenStreetMap apart from other map or data providers is its diverse and rich community. You're right that relying solely on a few large corporate donors could lead to challenges in maintaining OSM's strength, resiliency, and independence. That's why we're trying to attract a diverse income stream, including a broad base of support from individual donors. Every small donation reaffirms that OSM will remain a collective effort, which all contributors play a part in shaping and preserving.

https://supporting.openstreetmap.org is our fundraising site.

It's called corporate members https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Corporate_Members Goes from 750 Euro per year up to 30.000 per year. Those prices were raised in 2023. (disclaimer: I work for a silver sponsor)

even if it does, a bunch of accessible data you can develop with is a godsend. Even if it were a completely commercial service, i'd still be happy to have some competition over the couple of monopolies that are left in this space.

I'm just hoping it doesn't turn into the Wikimedia Foundation, yearly begging for substantial funds whilst its many thousands of diligent contributors continue to work under the impression that they're doing a public good, but instead are enriching someone else's product

Wikimedia has about 350 employees. OpenStreetMap foundation afaik 2: one remote office admin and one system administrator. No offices. It’s very lean budget wise.

If anyone is interested in general budget see https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Minutes/2023-02/Bu...

For paid staff see https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Contractors_and_employee... (note that for example accountant is not contracted full-time)

(and yes, donations are welcome! See https://donate.openstreetmap.org/ if you want to help)

disclaimer: I am an unpaid volunteer on OSMF board

Hi, I'm the OpenStreetMap Foundation chairperson. We have one employee (our site reliability engineer), one external admin assistant, one external developer for the iD editor, and one external bookkeeper. We do indeed run very lean, thanks to our amazing volunteer community.

Here it says 8 [1]. Still very interesting, I did not know!

[1]: https://www.datanyze.com/companies/openstreetmap/353811364

Hi from the OpenStreetMap Foundation chairperson. We have one employee (our site reliability engineer), one external admin assistant, one external developer for the iD editor, and one external bookkeeper. The "8" on that site probably counts the board of directors, who are seven volunteers.

Yes, 8 might be correct. https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/images/3/3c/FY2021_Full_acc... "The average number of employees during the year was 7 (2020 - 7)"

I doubt the 12.4 million revenue. The 2021 financial report listed turnover of £350,000 with surplus of £160,000 and £740,000 in reserves.

One can't do public good without enriching someone else, it comes with the territory. It's ok.

Maybe one would prefer to enrich those with limited resources like students and low-income people, without economically enriching a bunch of elites encroaching some non-profit organizations.

This also comes up regularly and I believe it is completely mistaken: wikipedia does ask for more funds than necessary, which is actually a sane tactic when you can never know what will happen a year later and when you don’t have any other kind of income.

Also, how is it not public good, and how does it enriches someone else’s product? I’m fairly sure the world’d biggest encyclopedia that is freely available to anyone on the Earth can be considered a public good, can’t it?

Wikimedia is mostly Creative Commons licensed. Not sure that "enriching someone else's product" is entirely fair?

The two are not mutually exclusive. It's not like corporations are paying the Wikimedia Foundation to deprive others of your contributions. And you are also benefiting from the fruit of corporate donations.

Now worries. OSM have open data. Just mirror PBF files. Once something bad happen to OSM itself, you can easly respawn new instance. All building blocks are open source.

That was also the first thing that came to my mind, but then I realised the same goes for Wikimedia

The power is in the brand/execution, not the code/idea

Either way, I'm glad that it's both open data and open code (Wikipedia: creative commons; OpenStreetMap: open database license; both: some open code license) so that we at least have options, should it be necessary, even if it's an uphill battle to divert attention from a spoiled brand

Sadly, coordination problems are not so easy to solve.

"Just mirror PBF files." is easy, mirroring community is harder.

But, yes it reduces some risks. And enables for example https://www.opengeofiction.net/ and https://www.openhistoricalmap.org/ which use OSM stack for fantasy and historical mapping.

And OSM open data is used very widely.

Tangential, but does someone knows which data Apple map uses, and at which frequency it’s updated? It’s plainly outdated by some months for some streets of my city, but unable to report it directly via the app, so wondering if fixing OSM would have the same effect (I’ve not yet checked if the errors are also on OSM)

Seems there is a bunch of different sources, but mainly TomTom:

> The main provider of map data is TomTom, but data is also supplied by Automotive Navigation Data, Getchee, Hexagon AB, IGN, Increment P, Intermap Technologies, LeadDog, MDA Information Systems, OpenStreetMap, and Waze.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160118101039/http://gspe21.ls.... (Original: http://gspe21.ls.apple.com/html/attribution-8.html)

The data Apple uses depends on the country. In Denmark, for example, it's OpenStreetMap.

OpenStreetMap asked Apple what it would take for them to use OpenStreetMap elsewhere. "Make it the best data there."

If you're using or benefitting from OSM data, you should make a donation. The project has grown so large, that more money is needed for improvements and site stability. It's not just the data, either, it's the API, the tile service. etc.

https://supporting.openstreetmap.org/donate/

Probably offtopic, but is there a good way to use OSM for on-the-fly route finding on Android (pref bike)?

I like to fiddle with stuff just like the next HN commenter, but last time I tried this with OsmAnd I quickly gave up, it's not in the same league as Google Maps, it's not even the same sport. What I want: "Open the app, search for a destination, hit a button and get shown a route from my current location". Did I just hold it wrong?

Maybe Organic Maps? https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.organicmaps/

Just want to point out that this user is the creator of the wonderful tool MapComplete (https://mapcomplete.osm.be) which helps you adding more information to the data available in the OSM database. If you have some free time and have local knowledge of your area, I really suggest giving this tool a try, you can choose between multiple themes (which will show different quests) and add info that you know the most.

You could try Organic Maps, then. It's way simpler than OsmAnd, but it lacks some features for bike routing (and routing in general).

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.organicmap...

cycle.travel’s Android app is in beta testing at the moment - it should be ready at the end of the month, and that’s exactly its UI. (My app and I’ve been doing things with OSM for 18.75 of those 19 years!)

GraphHopper has an app in fdroid store including navigation: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.graphhopper.maps/

Unlike most OSM apps it requires an internet connection but has the advantage of an address search with auto complete and alternative routes. And on bigger or wide screens you get lots of details about the path in an elevation widget in the bottom right.

It also comes with a custom model editor (gear button in the top left) where you can tweak the routing preferences to your liking like preferring more official bike networks or elevation or a slower speed etc ...

Or you can use the website https://graphhopper.com/maps/

(disclaimer: I'm one of the founders of GraphHopper)

Gave it a quick spin today, looks awesome. Thanks!

The app is super responsive and the routing almost instant. Great work, I just knew about the website before I read this comment.

Thanks, the app is basically the website with CapacitorJS https://github.com/boldtrn/graphhopper-maps-capacitor

It's prety easy to do this on Organic Maps. Open app, search for destination, select "Route To" and then select bike option.

Searching isn't as accurate as Google and I would guess the routing doesn't consider the same real-time data as Google does, but in terms of UI at least it's easy to get there.

I love http://brouter.de/brouter-web/ though it is website without a reasonable offline install on phone.

I do just that on a regular basis with OsmAnd+. It's not Google Maps, has its rough edges but does it's job, provided your area is well covered.

For me two main drawbacks are no traffic and slow route [re]calculation, because it happens on device.

OsmAnd generally has decent routing if the underlying OpenStreetMap data is good.

Last I looked at it, the search didn't really support the obvious 'keyword near me' sort of query that most people are going to want to do.

Later: just took a look and it does a lot better. OSM POI data can be pretty hit and miss though.

Any solution to provide live traffic overlay on OSM?, that Google does via crowdsourcing (I think).

I wonder if posting photos from Kabul celebration three years ago may be incriminating for its participants in the current political climate.

Mapping is still happening in Afghanistan. The political climate is certainly not making things easier for mappers there, but the biggest problem seems to be the recent loss of free and open Maxar imagery, which my numbers say was used by about 90% of edits to the map there.

https://osmstats.neis-one.org/?item=countries&country=Afghan...

Posting may be OK, but I hope thay those two ladies in the picture found their way out.

What are you insinuating?

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