Slashgeo

Last weekend was the first OpenStreetMap conference called The State of the Map. OMS has been mentioned quite a few times before. The opening keynote was given by Google's Ed Parsons which shares his slides. You can read comments from Dan Karran, high earth orbit, Maemo and Brain Off blog. From this last link: "We’re nearing consensus in the nature of the challenges facing OpenStreetMap as it’s growing, the approaches to take, and bit by bit heading towards solutions. Even the extremely contentious legal debate is moving towards actions — drawing up a concise list of questions for presentation to a (paid for) lawyer. The foundation is starting to get more financially comfortable, so there’s also money for servers and a recognized conduit for donations."

SlashDot is currently having a discussion on the aforementioned topic. At a glance, it seems to be about OpenStreetMap. Here is part of their summary : "Goodchild's paper looks at volunteered geographic information as a special case of the more general Web phenomenon of user-generated content. It covers what motivates large numbers of individuals (often with little formal qualifications) to take part, what technology allows them to do so, how accurate the results are and what volunteered geographic information can add to more conventional sources of such information." Head on over there to discuss and get the link to the original story.

Here's a wrap-up of last month's geonews regarding OpenStreetMap. First is a long discussion on the licence attributed to data contributed to the OpenStreetMap project, an exert: "Many of the problems arise because Creative Commons (the “CC” of our licence), as the name suggests, is largely concerned with “creative works” - music, literature, art, and so on. OpenStreetMap, on the other hand, produces data: a factual, uncontroversial recording of the world around us. [...] In the [Science Commons initiative] protocol, Creative Commons restates the problem that copyright simply does not apply universally to factual information." Then there's an update on Nestoria, the first commercial application now using exclusively OSM data. We also have Google's Ed Parsons discussing the differences between data in Google Maps and OpenStreetMap. Other OSM entries include a short discussion on the community surrounding OSM vs "old timers", a mention of OSM during the KDE 4 keynote, a visual comparison of Google data vs OSM + OpenAerialMap data over China, a short account of using JOSM, the advanced OpenStreetMap editor, and finally, the announcement of this year's State of the Map 2008 conference will be held in Ireland. See also the numerous related stories below (more if you search the Slashgeo archives). On a personal note, I used to say about OSM that data is particularly useful in Europe, but not in North America yet... after a quick peak today at the status of OSM completion in NA, I admit I'm impressed, data has been added very rapidly and this is obviously great news for public domain data.

The Mapping News Blog gives us an update on the TIGER data import into OpenStreetMap. From their blog : "OpenStreetMap (OSM) has completed the bulk import of comprehensive street and highway data for the United States, months ahead of the project's original estimates. The massive data set originated with the US Census Bureau's public domain map database, and importing it required a dedicated upload process running around the clock since August 2007. The imported data will still require human editing and error-correction, but the completed task is a major milestone for the OSM project."

For a very detailed summary as well as example links to the imported dataset, please visit the Mapperz blog link above.

Nick Black writes "The call for papers The 2nd OpenStreetMap Conference, The StateoftheMap 2008 is now open. We’re inviting papers and demonstrations from anyone who contributes to OpenStreetMap or uses OpenStreetMap or other open geodata. Would you like to demonstrate uses of OSM data or run a Tricks and Tips session? Maybe you’ve got the best routing engine around and your itching to show it off? Is tagging driving you crazy? There are a few different ways you can participate in the State of the Map 2008 — giving a talk, holding a workshop or giving a lightning talk.

For more information, check out the SOTM site or email registration@stateofthemap.org." Related stories copied below.

Jani Patokallio writes "Another step down the road of merging together open content: OpenStreetMap maps and Wikitravel travel guides have now been combined together into Wikitravel Paris , a 185-page guidebook to the City of Light. Like all Wikitravel Press books, the entire tome is updated monthly and printed on demand when you order. Expect to see many more OSM/WT books like this in the future!" I copied below some related stories, but a search will reveal how often we cover OpenStreetMap, including it's other commercial applications.

Nick Black writes "We’re pleased to announce that registration for the State of the Map 2008 is now open. Go to this page to sign up. The State of the Map is OpenStreetMap's conference — covering all aspects of using and producing open geodata. Speakers at last year's conference included Google's Ed Parsons, Multimap founder Sean Phelan as well as a host of OSMers, including Steve Coast, Barry "bouncing maps" Crabtree and many more. This year's conference is taking place in Limerick, Ireland on the 12th and 13th July 2008 with even more home-brew-GPS-slippymap-bicyclemapping fun than last year."