The Linux Foundation has announced the formation of the Overture Maps Foundation, a non-profit association aimed at creating a neutral and company-independent platform for the joint development of tools and a unified storage scheme for map data, as well as maintaining a collection of open maps that can be used in your own map services. The founding members of the project included Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom.
The data will be distributed under the ODbL (Open Database Licence) copyleft license (used in the OpenStreetMap project) and under the CDLA (Community Data License Agreement) permissive license, developed for data by the Linux Foundation. The licenses are designed specifically for database distribution and, compared to Creative Commons licenses, take into account a number of legal subtleties and nuances associated with mixing data from different sources and abstracting the structure of the database to preserve the terms of the license when the structure or order of records changes. The source code for the Overture Maps tools will be released under the MIT license.
The difference between the new project and OpenStreetMap is that OpenStreetMap is a community for creating and editing maps, while Overture Maps is aimed at aggregating existing open maps from various sources, including maps prepared in OpenStreetMap and maps that are ready to share various companies and organizations. At the same time, since both projects use the same license, Overture Maps developments can be transferred to OpenStreetMap, moreover, Overture Maps participants intend to participate directly in the development of OpenStreetMap.
The data included in the Overture Maps collection will be checked for validity, possible errors and inaccuracies will be identified. The data will also be updated to reflect actual changes. For data distribution, a unified storage scheme will be defined to ensure information portability. To link the same real objects that intersect in different data sets, a unified system of links will be proposed.
The first iteration of the Overture Maps set, slated for release in the first half of 2023, will only include base layers that include buildings, roads, and administrative areas. Future releases will improve accuracy and coverage, as well as adding new layers such as places of interest, directions, and 3D building representations.
Source: opennet.ru