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This is great, but I'm surprised to see Apple featured so prominently in the title here alongside Facebook and Microsoft. Apple has an internal volunteer progr

This is great, but I'm surprised to see Apple featured so prominently in the title here alongside Facebook and Microsoft. Apple has an internal volunteer programmer whereby employees can choose to spend their time contributing to OSM—part of employee benefits (which is nice), whereas Microsoft and Facebook are actually contributing mapping data the company has created/collected to OSM. Furthermore, just 2 of the 3 listed companies are major sponsors of OSM events: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2018#Sponsorship https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/State_of_the_Map_2018#Sp...

thinkingemote 8y ago
Apple now employee their own teams to do mapping
- lucideer 8y ago
  Do you have a source? I'd be interested to look at the work they're doing.
  - mtmail 8y ago
    https://github.com/osmlab/appledata https://github.com/osmlab/appledata
    - lucideer 8y ago
      Thanks for that. I see now that it's linked from the article—I'd previously overlooked it as the article seemed to imply it was the product of their volunteer programme, but it seems it isn't: > The building information was developed with sensors from low altitude aerial imagery. > The building footprint and height information was captured and developed in 2013. There's also Atlas[0], not mentioned in the article, which seems to be a (open-source/non-free??[1]) tool released by Apple for use specifically with OSM data. Really interesting stuff. [0] https://github.com/osmlab/atlas https://github.com/osmlab/atlas [1] https://github.com/osmlab/atlas/blob/dev/LICENSE https://github.com/osmlab/atlas/blob/dev/LICENSE
      - mtmail 8y ago
        I got the link from my notes of the StateOfTheMap conference where an Apple representative was speaking. They have full-time staff now, claim 1 month training. It sounded like a dozen people.
Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
> just 2 of the 3 listed companies are major sponsors of OSM events Don't assume that because a company isn't listed, it doesn't/hasn't contributed.
- lucideer 8y ago
  > Don't assume that because a company isn't listed, it doesn't/hasn't contributed. That is the list of all sponsors for that particular event. Apple did speak at the event, though their talk[0] was the only one not recorded, photos were forbidden, and they uploaded no slides afterward. The topic was their employees' volunteerism. [0] https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Community/ https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Co...
  - Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
    Yes, I was there. You might remember from the Q&As afterwards that Apple is a corporate member of OSMF but not listed as such, for example. The topic wasn’t principally volunteering, though that was mentioned.
donalhunt 8y ago
The missing maps (https://www.missingmaps.org/ https://www.missingmaps.org/) project is very popular in CSR programs around the world even if it's a bit "mechanical turk" for tech crowds. Even google employees have contributed to the project by running internal mapathons in conjunction with organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières... Will be running some events in my current company in the coming weeks which will be fun!

thinkingemote 8y ago

Apple now employee their own teams to do mapping

lucideer 8y ago
Do you have a source? I'd be interested to look at the work they're doing.
- mtmail 8y ago
  https://github.com/osmlab/appledata https://github.com/osmlab/appledata
  - lucideer 8y ago
    Thanks for that. I see now that it's linked from the article—I'd previously overlooked it as the article seemed to imply it was the product of their volunteer programme, but it seems it isn't: > The building information was developed with sensors from low altitude aerial imagery. > The building footprint and height information was captured and developed in 2013. There's also Atlas[0], not mentioned in the article, which seems to be a (open-source/non-free??[1]) tool released by Apple for use specifically with OSM data. Really interesting stuff. [0] https://github.com/osmlab/atlas https://github.com/osmlab/atlas [1] https://github.com/osmlab/atlas/blob/dev/LICENSE https://github.com/osmlab/atlas/blob/dev/LICENSE
    - mtmail 8y ago
      I got the link from my notes of the StateOfTheMap conference where an Apple representative was speaking. They have full-time staff now, claim 1 month training. It sounded like a dozen people.

Doctor_Fegg 8y ago

> just 2 of the 3 listed companies are major sponsors of OSM events Don't assume that because a company isn't listed, it doesn't/hasn't contributed.

lucideer 8y ago
> Don't assume that because a company isn't listed, it doesn't/hasn't contributed. That is the list of all sponsors for that particular event. Apple did speak at the event, though their talk[0] was the only one not recorded, photos were forbidden, and they uploaded no slides afterward. The topic was their employees' volunteerism. [0] https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Community/ https://2018.stateofthemap.org/2018/T081-Working_with_the_Co...
- Doctor_Fegg 8y ago
  Yes, I was there. You might remember from the Q&As afterwards that Apple is a corporate member of OSMF but not listed as such, for example. The topic wasn’t principally volunteering, though that was mentioned.

donalhunt 8y ago

The missing maps (https://www.missingmaps.org/ https://www.missingmaps.org/) project is very popular in CSR programs around the world even if it's a bit "mechanical turk" for tech crowds. Even google employees have contributed to the project by running internal mapathons in conjunction with organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières... Will be running some events in my current company in the coming weeks which will be fun!