6 ms·

A Growing OpenStreetMap Needs Your Support

242 points by Doctor_Fegg 10y ago

Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
It's not widely appreciated how efficient OSM is: the whole project runs on roughly $170k a year. Wikimedia spends around $65m (there are, obviously, many differences in what the organisations do, but it's an interesting comparison).
- SteveCoast 10y ago
  By design :-)
  - mtmail 10y ago
    To put the comment in context: Steve Coast started OpenStreetMap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Coast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Coast
- drej 10y ago
  It's astonishing that a project like this runs on a budget similar to what it costs to get one (!) software engineer in the Valley. Well done to everyone involved!
- mrec 10y ago
  That's very impressive. I'd have thought bandwidth costs alone would be high, but thinking about it a bit more I suspect map tiles cache incredibly well even without any special tricks, since most tile requests will be from locals hitting the same few ISP caches.
  - sp8962 10y ago
    Except, naturally, that openstreetmap.org is mainly aimed at OSM contributors, which typically are actually changing the data and by that invalidating the tiles created for our standard style (which update in minutes). See: https://www.mapbox.com/mapbeat/ https://www.mapbox.com/mapbeat/
- NelsonMinar 10y ago
  The flipside to this is how limited OSM is. There are many more things it could be doing, IMHO, but the organization has made the choice to stay small and lean. It does what it is doing quite well though and the folks who run it are impressively efficient.
  - rmc 10y ago
    Rather than the OSMF doing everything, and having one official geocoder, or one official routing engine, instead there is an ecosystem of software and 3rd party companies around OSM who provide that
mtmail 10y ago
The Operations Working Group, the sysadmins holding the servers together, are all volunteers. http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Operations_Working_Group http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Operations_Working_Group and keeps a list of hardware and open issues. https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations (more help always welcome). A frequent question is why the hardware bought and not rented hourly/yearly with a PaaS. First of all the bandwidth requirement are huge and it would put too much pressure on the organization to reach donation goals every year. Besides the donation runs you can also become a member (https://join.osmfoundation.org/normal-membership/ https://join.osmfoundation.org/normal-membership/) or you company a corporate member (http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Corporate_Members http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Corporate_Members). Unlike wikipedia the donation drive won't need months. If I remember correctly last year two companies gave 20.000 USD each. That said: donate now please. disclaimer: work at https://geocoder.opencagedata.com/ https://geocoder.opencagedata.com/, we're a corporate member
buro9 10y ago
This is one of those reminders I'm glad that is posted to HN. I've just donated, it's a great project, if you value it too you should give what you are able to.
- projektir 10y ago
  Yeah, I'm happy it got posted here because I sadly forgot about it.
- Twisell 10y ago
  And it reminded me to donate to Qgis too! http://qgis.org/en/site/index.html http://qgis.org/en/site/index.html Kudo to all FOSS GIS developers!
andyfleming 10y ago
OSM powers this JavaScript library that was shared earlier: http://leafletjs.com/ http://leafletjs.com/ Here's the related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12589447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12589447
- harry-wood 10y ago
  There's some complicated nuance in the word "powers" in that sentence. LeafletJS is an open source javascript library for displaying maps on the web. This usually involves bringing in a base-map, and you can get this from a whole myriad of different providers who do the stylising, rendering, and hosting of raster map tiles. They in turn may or may not be doing all of this using vector map data from OpenStreetMap. It's all nicely de-coupled, although for a typical web developer, when you look to "use OpenStreetMap" it will mostly just involve learning how LeafletJS works. Also regardless of which OpenStreetMap-powered tile server you choose to use, you must give credit to OpenStreetMap on your map display. But to illustrate the de-coupling... you might also choose to use "OpenLayers" instead. It's another open source javascript map display library!
rmc 10y ago
As well as giving money, it's also useful to become a member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation. You get voting rights for the board, which helps set policy directions, and (possible) licence changes.
Tharkun 10y ago
Paypal only? Not happening. Sorry guys.
- denis1 10y ago
  The page says that Paypal is the payment processor and you don't actually need an account with them, still [0] lists other ways to donate. [0]https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations
- stronsay 10y ago
  They accept Flattr, Bitcoin, bank transfer and credit cards (through PayPal, but not requiring a PayPal account). https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations
  - jasonkostempski 10y ago
    Does PayPal get a cut of the donation?
wAllDueRespect 10y ago
and here is where i have a problem with "Open..."anything. the belief that a non-profit model is the sole method for maintaining ideologically directed development is a fallacy. look to Mozilla, which at times has strayed far from the best interests of its users. look at the wounded soldier project. the belief that making a profit will cause for corruption of the ideological drive of an organization is a fallacy. look at SpaceX which has made more progress in a shorter period of time than just about anyone else to date. the problem i have with the "please send us money" routine is that it ignores certain basic, fundamental economic and financial realities. if an organization is creating value, then they should be able to exchange value for value. if they are not creating value, then it should be considered R&D or a hobby, and should be funded as such. OpenStreetMap is creating value. there is no reason they shouldn't be able to utilize the freemium model. the freemium model could be coupled with a california style "benefit corporation". by acknowledging that we all must sing for our supper, we are forced to face the realities of the marketplace, of limited resources, of special needs, and so on. by continuing to deny this fact these organizations will constantly be either over or under funded compared to their needs. said more plainly, by staying totally blind to the economic realities of ones marketplace you're gonna make worse business decisions than if you put it all on the table. every time. bottom line, there is no free lunch, and until the open-source community fully acknowledges and embraces this reality it will be at a disadvantage to other players. and, frankly, it will be lying to itself. disclaimer: i'm a die-hard open-source software advocate. i just want to see it succeed.
- qwertyuiop924 10y ago
  The freemium model would effectively defeat the whole point of OSM.
  - wAllDueRespect 10y ago
    How so..? Open-source is twice free. Free as in beer. Free as in speech. So, OSM could give away the map, but provide value added services to city planners, sell api tokens to advertisers, sell services to private developers. Oh wow, I just thought up three possibilities in a minute which still allow it to be kept free for individuals. Last week I began working on a bicycle routing app for android, and there is no obvious way to have unlimited calls to OSM, even if I paid. So, what I must do is host my own instance of it. That's a lot of overhead for most use cases. This is pretty much the opposite way app development has been going, where I build off an api as a service. If I'm using OSM wrong in this case, I'd sincerely appreciate being pointed in the right direction. side note, I'm assuming you down-voted me, but thank you for at least saying why. other down-votes received, because i guess they are right. feels like high-school popularity contests all over again when receiving anonymous down-votes. heck, maybe it's possible to have a dissenting comment without a down-vote. HN obviously believes this mechanism is good enough for letting the best stories rise to the top. not sure why HN feels that people's comments should be down-voted but stories shouldn't...
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
OSM is an incredibly impressive and useful project. It's gotten to the point where it is, at least for some locations, competitive with Google Maps.
e3ak0jlf5ybdeah 10y ago
OpenStreetMap needs more than money. There are a number of challenges that come with success as those with different ideologies converge. * Paid mappers * Automatic edits/bots/craftmapper debate * CoC/inclusiveness/diversity arguments I think this is a critical juncture and care should be taken and lessons learned from communities like Wikipedia who have had their quality lessened by the difficulties of managing human communities.
jnagro 10y ago
what is the best OSM powered navigation app for Android?
- msolujic 10y ago
  IMHO it is Maps.me by far
cmurf 10y ago
Doesn't Apple Maps use openstreetmap? Are they donating?

242 points by Doctor_Fegg 10y ago

It's not widely appreciated how efficient OSM is: the whole project runs on roughly $170k a year. Wikimedia spends around $65m (there are, obviously, many differences in what the organisations do, but it's an interesting comparison).

SteveCoast 10y ago
By design :-)
- mtmail 10y ago
  To put the comment in context: Steve Coast started OpenStreetMap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Coast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Coast
drej 10y ago
It's astonishing that a project like this runs on a budget similar to what it costs to get one (!) software engineer in the Valley. Well done to everyone involved!
mrec 10y ago
That's very impressive. I'd have thought bandwidth costs alone would be high, but thinking about it a bit more I suspect map tiles cache incredibly well even without any special tricks, since most tile requests will be from locals hitting the same few ISP caches.
- sp8962 10y ago
  Except, naturally, that openstreetmap.org is mainly aimed at OSM contributors, which typically are actually changing the data and by that invalidating the tiles created for our standard style (which update in minutes). See: https://www.mapbox.com/mapbeat/ https://www.mapbox.com/mapbeat/
NelsonMinar 10y ago
The flipside to this is how limited OSM is. There are many more things it could be doing, IMHO, but the organization has made the choice to stay small and lean. It does what it is doing quite well though and the folks who run it are impressively efficient.
- rmc 10y ago
  Rather than the OSMF doing everything, and having one official geocoder, or one official routing engine, instead there is an ecosystem of software and 3rd party companies around OSM who provide that

mtmail 10y ago

The Operations Working Group, the sysadmins holding the servers together, are all volunteers. http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Operations_Working_Group http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Operations_Working_Group and keeps a list of hardware and open issues. https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations https://github.com/openstreetmap/operations (more help always welcome). A frequent question is why the hardware bought and not rented hourly/yearly with a PaaS. First of all the bandwidth requirement are huge and it would put too much pressure on the organization to reach donation goals every year. Besides the donation runs you can also become a member (https://join.osmfoundation.org/normal-membership/ https://join.osmfoundation.org/normal-membership/) or you company a corporate member (http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Corporate_Members http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Corporate_Members). Unlike wikipedia the donation drive won't need months. If I remember correctly last year two companies gave 20.000 USD each. That said: donate now please. disclaimer: work at https://geocoder.opencagedata.com/ https://geocoder.opencagedata.com/, we're a corporate member

buro9 10y ago

This is one of those reminders I'm glad that is posted to HN. I've just donated, it's a great project, if you value it too you should give what you are able to.

projektir 10y ago
Yeah, I'm happy it got posted here because I sadly forgot about it.
Twisell 10y ago
And it reminded me to donate to Qgis too! http://qgis.org/en/site/index.html http://qgis.org/en/site/index.html Kudo to all FOSS GIS developers!

andyfleming 10y ago

OSM powers this JavaScript library that was shared earlier: http://leafletjs.com/ http://leafletjs.com/ Here's the related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12589447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12589447

harry-wood 10y ago
There's some complicated nuance in the word "powers" in that sentence. LeafletJS is an open source javascript library for displaying maps on the web. This usually involves bringing in a base-map, and you can get this from a whole myriad of different providers who do the stylising, rendering, and hosting of raster map tiles. They in turn may or may not be doing all of this using vector map data from OpenStreetMap. It's all nicely de-coupled, although for a typical web developer, when you look to "use OpenStreetMap" it will mostly just involve learning how LeafletJS works. Also regardless of which OpenStreetMap-powered tile server you choose to use, you must give credit to OpenStreetMap on your map display. But to illustrate the de-coupling... you might also choose to use "OpenLayers" instead. It's another open source javascript map display library!

rmc 10y ago

As well as giving money, it's also useful to become a member of the OpenStreetMap Foundation. You get voting rights for the board, which helps set policy directions, and (possible) licence changes.

Tharkun 10y ago

Paypal only? Not happening. Sorry guys.

denis1 10y ago
The page says that Paypal is the payment processor and you don't actually need an account with them, still [0] lists other ways to donate. [0]https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations
stronsay 10y ago
They accept Flattr, Bitcoin, bank transfer and credit cards (through PayPal, but not requiring a PayPal account). https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  Does PayPal get a cut of the donation?

wAllDueRespect 10y ago

and here is where i have a problem with "Open..."anything. the belief that a non-profit model is the sole method for maintaining ideologically directed development is a fallacy. look to Mozilla, which at times has strayed far from the best interests of its users. look at the wounded soldier project. the belief that making a profit will cause for corruption of the ideological drive of an organization is a fallacy. look at SpaceX which has made more progress in a shorter period of time than just about anyone else to date. the problem i have with the "please send us money" routine is that it ignores certain basic, fundamental economic and financial realities. if an organization is creating value, then they should be able to exchange value for value. if they are not creating value, then it should be considered R&D or a hobby, and should be funded as such. OpenStreetMap is creating value. there is no reason they shouldn't be able to utilize the freemium model. the freemium model could be coupled with a california style "benefit corporation". by acknowledging that we all must sing for our supper, we are forced to face the realities of the marketplace, of limited resources, of special needs, and so on. by continuing to deny this fact these organizations will constantly be either over or under funded compared to their needs. said more plainly, by staying totally blind to the economic realities of ones marketplace you're gonna make worse business decisions than if you put it all on the table. every time. bottom line, there is no free lunch, and until the open-source community fully acknowledges and embraces this reality it will be at a disadvantage to other players. and, frankly, it will be lying to itself. disclaimer: i'm a die-hard open-source software advocate. i just want to see it succeed.

qwertyuiop924 10y ago
The freemium model would effectively defeat the whole point of OSM.
- wAllDueRespect 10y ago
  How so..? Open-source is twice free. Free as in beer. Free as in speech. So, OSM could give away the map, but provide value added services to city planners, sell api tokens to advertisers, sell services to private developers. Oh wow, I just thought up three possibilities in a minute which still allow it to be kept free for individuals. Last week I began working on a bicycle routing app for android, and there is no obvious way to have unlimited calls to OSM, even if I paid. So, what I must do is host my own instance of it. That's a lot of overhead for most use cases. This is pretty much the opposite way app development has been going, where I build off an api as a service. If I'm using OSM wrong in this case, I'd sincerely appreciate being pointed in the right direction. side note, I'm assuming you down-voted me, but thank you for at least saying why. other down-votes received, because i guess they are right. feels like high-school popularity contests all over again when receiving anonymous down-votes. heck, maybe it's possible to have a dissenting comment without a down-vote. HN obviously believes this mechanism is good enough for letting the best stories rise to the top. not sure why HN feels that people's comments should be down-voted but stories shouldn't...

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

OSM is an incredibly impressive and useful project. It's gotten to the point where it is, at least for some locations, competitive with Google Maps.

e3ak0jlf5ybdeah 10y ago

OpenStreetMap needs more than money. There are a number of challenges that come with success as those with different ideologies converge. * Paid mappers * Automatic edits/bots/craftmapper debate * CoC/inclusiveness/diversity arguments I think this is a critical juncture and care should be taken and lessons learned from communities like Wikipedia who have had their quality lessened by the difficulties of managing human communities.

jnagro 10y ago

what is the best OSM powered navigation app for Android?

msolujic 10y ago
IMHO it is Maps.me by far

cmurf 10y ago

Doesn't Apple Maps use openstreetmap? Are they donating?