Open Source maps

14-May-2006

[ Open Source , Open Content ]
A new initiative in the UK is creating maps that are free for anyone to use for any purpose

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | A sidestep in the right direction:

I love the creativity of the new breed of projects seeking to use geomapping technologies of open content. In the UK the main mapmakers are the Ordnance Survey, now a privatised concern, who guard their copyright over data. Now there is a new initiative to create maps in the public domain.

It is also raising interesting questions about how we look at maps and other forms of digital data and how up to date data needs to be.

"Steer is taking part in an attempt to map the Isle of Wight's roads in one weekend for OpenStreetMap.org, a website that helps create maps free for anyone to use for any purpose (See http://tinyurl.com/ny84m). If Ordnance Survey and other national agencies will not make their data freely available, then OpenStreetMap, developed over the past two years, will re-collect it from scratch."

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Graham Attwell; 14-May-2006 08:54:59;