The
presentation at the meeting held at MIT last night, on GIS Day, was about OpenStreetMap. No one seemed to know it was GIS Day, nor Geography Awareness Week. I didn't tell them, either. This was perhaps the geekiest bunch I'd shared a lecture hall with in quite a while (and I say that with affection). Many had a laptop open and typed during the entire talk; others had both a laptop and handheld in action. It was a good thing Chris Schmidt of MetaCarta was there; he answered many of the questions the presenter could not. I respect a presenter that says "I don't know."
While I know a bit about
OSM, I did learn a few things:
AND shared its map of the Netherlands with OSM. But, apparently, doesn't use OSM's maps (there'd be a licensing issue since OSM is currently under CC Share Alike). Basically, AND provided a "snap shot" of its database for OSM to use, then continued on updating and selling its own version. (
press release)
AND also shared maps of India and China, too, but they are were not too populated. They have however prompted more on the ground work in those two countries by the OSM faithful.
OSM is working on a
new license that will mesh better with European ones.
OSM participation in the U.S. is still quite low, but growing.
It's still a good bit of work to capture and tag data - but it can be done with a simple GPS and a pad of paper. Alternatively, folks use digital cameras, voice recorders and other tools to capture then tag attributes onto points, lines and polygons.
As usual, the locals pointed out errors in the local map and the presenter made it clear it was their job to fix the map!
Two hot topics were trap streets (the "fake streets" used to protect mapmakers against theft) and data updates (both how to "do them" and how to keep ones version of OSM up-to-date.
