Linux.com: Spend your vacation getting started with OpenStreetMap

I don’t usually do drive-by link postings, but I’ll make an exception for this excellent linux.com article on OpenStreetMap.

We have written about the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project many times, but we have yet to explain how to get started with it as a contributor. Since it is the vacation high season in the Northern Hemisphere and many more people will be hitting the maps, this is the perfect time. You can contribute a lot to the project even if you don’t own a Global Positioning System (GPS) device — or even a compass.

This is not meant to be an authoritative guide to the project; OSM maintains a detailed wiki with extensive documentation for newbies and experts alike, in multiple languages.

OpenStreetMap is an awesome endeavor: trying to create a free (as in freedom) street atlas of the planet, and make it all available under a Creative Commons license for anyone to use (for instance, the KDE globe application Marble uses OpenStreetMap data). No small potatoes. But you can help. There’s a ton of raw data in the form of census maps, Yahoo aerial photography, and just about every other freely licensed map data they’ve been able to get their hands on, so the base is there. All you have to do is make an account and help map your city, your town, your neighborhood. Put in landmarks, make sure the one-ways are pointing the right way. Easy stuff, and if enough people do it, amazing results. Give them twenty minutes, and they’ll give you the world.

-p.