Stewart Russell via talk wrote on 2022-12-15 07:01:
The Linux Foundation, a global nonprofit organization enabling innovation through open source, today announced the formation of the Overture Maps Foundation <https://overturemaps.org/>, a new collaborative effort to develop interoperable open map data as a shared asset that can strengthen mapping services worldwide.
The thing is, we already have a mature global map database with interoperable data and services: OpenStreetMap
It sounds like OSM data *structures* are the issue, and "Overture data will be available for use by the OSM community..."
One of the Overture site FAQs asks about OpenStreetMap and its relationship to Overture: "Overture is a data-centric map project, not a community of individual map editors. Therefore, Overture is intended to be complementary to OSM. We combine OSM with other sources to produce new open map data sets. Overture data will be available for use by the OpenStreetMap community under compatible open data licenses. Overture members are encouraged to contribute to OSM directly."
It sounds like the Overture Foundation is unhappy with the OpenStreetMap data structure and wants to clean things up, saying, "Open map data can lack the structure needed to easily build map products. Overture will define and drive adoption of a common, well-structured, and documented data schema to create an easy-to-use ecosystem of map data."
As anticipated, Ars has a write-up about it: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/linux-amazon-meta-and-microsoft-want...