[Live-demo] OSM intro

Cameron Shorter cameron.shorter at gmail.com
Sun Jul 10 16:17:42 PDT 2016


Hi Marco,

Thanks for your text, and sorry for delayed response.

My initial thoughts are that you write well, but the structure of the 
document doesn't fit well with our OSGeo-Live template format.

Have you had a look at our documentation writing guidelines, linked from:

https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_Disc#Documentation ?

In particular, have a look at the comments in the PostGIS Project 
Overview or UDig Quickstart source RST files.


On 7/07/2016 11:22 PM, mbranco2 wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> please find attached a first draft of OSM intro (thanks Luca for the 
> assistance).
>
> Let me know if I could help more.
>
>   Marco
>
> P.S. Luca wrote me he is offline till next monday (July 11)

“OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative project to create a free 
editable map of the world” [wikipedia].
The project started in 2004, and to date there are nearly 3 million 
people around the world who have contributed to the OpenStreetMap 
database, which is the collector of all geolocalized information 
(updated statistics here).
The impressive growth of the OSM phenomenon is well documented in this 
animation , and to appreciate the level of detail of OSM information 
compared to other maps (i.e. Google ...) you can use this web page : 
choose a location you well know, and then zoom more and more…  lacking a 
bench, a basket for garbage, a tree?   Well, map it!
OSM is not only an excellent example of open data, but also its 
community gives an impressive boost at the increasing trend of open data 
request: local OSM community indeed is putting pressure on (local and 
central) government agencies to make public and freely reusable their 
geo-localized data. On the other hand, more and more public agencies 
have adopted OSM data and services for their activities.
On the social side, another major project is HOT (Humanitarian 
OpenStreetMap Team): “…when a disaster or political crisis happens, HOT 
leaps into action to map the affected area with a global network of 
volunteers. Disaster responders, such as the Red Cross and Doctors 
without Borders, are using these detailed maps in the response to these 
crises”.  
Since the Israeli-Gaza conflict (2008),  several disasters 
had the prompt support by the HOT team: Haiti  earthquake (2010),  West 
Africa Ebola Epidemic (2014) and Nepal Earthquake (2015),  just to name 
a few.

OSM data are freely reusable, both for no profit and profit 
organizations: you can start from switch2osm.org to plan your 
activity.
To learn more about license subject please visit these pages:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright/
http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/License
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Legal_FAQ

The main entrance to OSM world is at www.openstreetmap.org : here you 
can browse the Map, and you can also begin to contribute (after 
registration to join the community), directly inserting geolocalized data.
In the Web there are tons of guides, tutorial, etc. to learn to use OSM 
and the numerous OSM-related tools, the OSM wiki (available in almost 
all languages) and learnosm.org are good starting points: here you can 
find for example a list of software applications using OSM data and 
services (for desktop, mobile devices, …), or the portal to the many OSM 
mapping projects, and various OSM-tools learning guides.
help.openstreetmap.org is the main question-and-answer site, but there 
are a lot of mailing lists  (in various languages) where you can ask 
questions or search answers: here is the full list.


-- 
--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
Jirotech
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 8099 9000,  M +61 419 142 254, W www.jirotech.com



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