The Linux Foundation announced the creation of a non-profit group, the Overture Maps Foundation, aimed at establishing a neutral and company-independent platform for the collaborative development of tools and a unified framework for storing geospatial data, as well as maintaining a collection of open maps that can be used in proprietary mapping services. Founding members of the project include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom.
The data will be distributed under the copyleft ODbL (Open Database Licence, used in the OpenStreetMap project) and under the permissive CDLA (Community Data License Agreement, designed for data within the Linux Foundation). These licenses are specifically crafted for the sharing of databases and, compared to Creative Commons licenses, take into account various legal nuances and peculiarities related to the mixing of data from different sources and abstracting the database structure to preserve licensing conditions when altering the structure or order of records. The source texts of Overture Maps tools will be provided under the MIT license.
The distinction of the new project from OpenStreetMap lies in the fact that OpenStreetMap represents a community for creating and editing maps, while Overture Maps is focused on aggregating existing open maps from various sources, including maps prepared in OpenStreetMap and maps that various companies and organizations are willing to share. Since both projects utilize the same license, contributions from Overture Maps can be transferred to OpenStreetMap; moreover, participants in Overture Maps intend to directly engage in the development of OpenStreetMap.
The data included in the Overture Maps collection will be verified for accuracy, with potential errors and inaccuracies identified. The data will also be updated to reflect changes occurring in reality. A unified storage schema will be determined for data distribution, ensuring the portability of information. A unified system of references will be proposed to link the same real-world objects that overlap in different datasets.
The first version of the map set from Overture Maps, scheduled for release in the first half of 2023, will only include basic layers with information about buildings, roads, and administrative units. Subsequent releases will improve accuracy and coverage, as well as add new layers, such as information on points of interest, routes, and 3D representations of buildings.
Source: opennet.ru
