About OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative project, founded in July 2004 by Steve Coast, to create a free editable map of the world. The maps are created from data collected and shared from portable GPS devices, aerial photography, other free sources or simply from local knowledge. OpenStreetMap was inspired by sites such as Wikipedia; the map has an 'Edit' tab and OSM maintains a full revision history.

Users need to register but can then upload GPS track logs and edit the vector data. In Dec 2006, Yahoo confirmed that OpenStreetMap could use their aerial photography and in April 2007, Automotive Navigation Data (AND) donated a complete road dataset for the Netherlands and trunk road data for India and China to the project. In January 2008 functionality was made available to download map data into a GPS unit for use by cyclists.

Earthware and OpenStreetMap

Whilst it lacks the elegance and completeness of Bing and Google products, it makes up for it with an enthusiastic community of contributors and free licensing for both commercial and non commercial use. It makes integrating mapping a viable proposition for smaller companies where the implantation would attract a license fee from other mapping APIs (CRM and named user environments for example).

Please contact us to find out more about how you might create amazing mapping experiences using OpenStreetMap.