The OpenStreetMap Foundation (abbreviated OSMF) is a

non-profit foundation A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

whose aim is to support and enable the development of freely-reusable

geospatial data Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also call ...

. It is closely connected with the

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...

project, although its constitution does not prevent it supporting other projects.

History

The OpenStreetMap Foundation was registered in

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

on 22 August 2006 as a

company limited by guarantee In British, Australian, Bermudian, Hong Kong and Irish company law (and previously New Zealand), a company limited by guarantee (CLG) is a type of corporation used primarily (but not exclusively) for non-profit organisations that require legal pe ...

. In 2007, it held the first State of the Map conference in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

. In October 2009, the foundation announced that its members, rather than the OpenStreetMap contributors at large, would vote on changing OpenStreetMap's data license from

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...

to the

Open Database License The Open Database License (ODbL) is a copyleft license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use a database while maintaining this same freedom for others. ODbL is published by Open Data Commons, which is part of Open Kn ...

. In September 2013, the foundation began accepting corporate memberships in an "associate member" (nonvoting) category. The initial corporate members were Geofabrik,

Geotab Geotab Inc. is a privately held company that provides telematics hardware solutions ( In-Vehicle Monitoring Systems aka IVMS) which it presents as Internet of Things (IoT) devices. These devices feed their software as a service analytics platform. ...

Naver Naver (Hangul: 네이버) is a South Korean online platform operated by the Naver Corporation. It was launched in 1999 as the first web portal in South Korea to develop and use its own search engine. It was also the world's first operator to in ...

, NextGIS, and

Mapbox Mapbox is an American provider of custom online maps for websites and applications such as Foursquare, Lonely Planet, the ''Financial Times'', The Weather Channel, Instacart Inc. and Snapchat. Since 2010, it has rapidly expanded the niche of cus ...

. In June 2021, the foundation stated that the effects of

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

have prompted them to consider a move back into the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

due to issues with

database right A database right is a ''sui generis'' property right, comparable to but distinct from copyright, that exists to recognise the investment that is made in compiling a database, even when this does not involve the "creative" aspect that is reflecte ...

s, difficulties with getting charitable status for the foundation, and the increasing difficulty of using

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

and banking in the United Kingdom. The foundation has not announced the location of its new headquarters.

Governance

The OpenStreetMap Foundation is a

membership organization A membership organization is any organization that allows people or entities to subscribe, and often requires them to pay a membership fee or " subscription". Membership organizations typically have a particular purpose, which involves connecting p ...

. Membership in the foundation is separate from a user account on the OpenStreetMap website: a user account is required to contribute to the map, while foundation membership entitles one to vote at a general meeting. The foundation is run by a board of seven members, including the foundation's officers: chairman, secretary and treasurer. The board is elected by the foundation's dues-paying members. , the board consists of Guillaume Rischard (Chairperson), Amanda McCann (Secretary), Roland Olbricht (Treasurer), Eugene Alvin Villar, Jean-Marc Liotier, Mikel Maron, and Tobias Knerr. Former board members include retired U.S. ambassador

Allan Mustard Allan Phillip Mustard is a retired American agricultural economist and career diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Turkmenistan from 2014 to 2019. He was the chair of the OpenStreetMap Foundation (2019-2021), and advises the ...

. Several working groups, composed mostly of volunteers, carry out day-to-day operations on behalf of the foundation: * Data Working Group countervandalism and dispute resolution * Communication Working Group * Engineering Working Group * Legal or Licensing Working Group trademark and licensing issues * Local Chapters Working Group * Membership Working Group * Operations Working Group * State of the Map Organizing Committee Several local chapters are affiliated with the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

Programs and initiatives

The OpenStreetMap Foundation promotes and supports the

project but does not formally own the project or its contents. The foundation's relatively low profile in OpenStreetMap's development has been contrasted with the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

's relationship to

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

. In addition to day-to-day operations within the OpenStreetMap project, the foundation and its working groups run several initiatives to promote the project's growth. Its annual State of the Map conference is the flagship conference within the OpenStreetMap community. The GPStogo program lends

GPS receiver A satellite navigation device (satnav device) is a user equipment that uses one or more of several global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) to calculate the device's geographical position and provide navigational advice. Depending on the s ...

s to mappers in developing countries.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Open Street Map Foundation 2006 establishments in England Companies based in the West Midlands (county) Free software project foundations International geographic data and information organizations Open content OpenStreetMap Organizations established in 2006 Private companies limited by guarantee of England Sutton Coldfield

History

Governance

Programs and initiatives

See also

References

External links