2026-03-17 –, Room Auditorium
Over the last 20 years the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project has collected an enormous amount of data about our planet and written a lot of Open Source software. OSM-based maps and apps are everywhere. How do you organize two million contributors in a mostly volunteer project to work on a common goal? And what exactly is that common goal?
OpenStreetMap creates, collects and delivers Open Data about our world. But it is more: It is a worldwide community and a human cultural endeavour. The OSM community, that is millions of volunteers, but also companies large and small, and organisations from the UN down to the local hiking club. How do we organize all of this with an extremely slim (and maybe too slim?) governance structure that is still mostly based on volunteer work? Where does this work and where are the problems? What makes it similar to other digital commons projects and what makes it different? What can we learn from other communities like ours?
Jochen Topf is a freelance software developer and consultant who has written Open Source software for more than 25 years. He joined the OpenStreetMap project early on and has contributed data and software, talked and written about it, and helped organize the community. He works part-time for the German chapter of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, the FOSSGIS e.V.