Linux, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft want to break the Google Maps monopoly

Enlarge / The Overture Maps logo. (credit: Overture Maps Foundation)

Google Maps is getting some competition. The Linux Foundation has announced Overture Maps, a "new collaborative effort to develop interoperable open map data as a shared asset that can strengthen mapping services worldwide." It's an open source mapping effort that includes a list of heavy hitters: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Meta, Microsoft, and TomTom, with the foundation adding that the project is "open to all communities with a common interest in building open map data."

The Linux Foundation has a press release about the project and a new website for the Overture Maps Foundation. The press release outlined the scope of the project, which aims to deliver:

• Collaborative Map Building: Overture aims to incorporate data from multiple sources including Overture Members, civic organizations, and open data sources.
• Global Entity Reference System: Overture will simplify interoperability with a system that links entities from different data sets to the same real-world entities.
• Quality Assurance Processes: Overture data will undergo validation to detect map errors, breakage, and vandalism to help ensure that map data can be used in production systems.
• Structured Data Schema: Overture will define and drive adoption of a common, structured, and documented data schema to create an easy-to-use ecosystem of map data.

If you're saying, "Wait! isn't there already an open source map community out there?"  There is, and it's called "OpenStreetMap," the Wikipedia of maps that anyone can edit. The Overture press release says, "The project will seek to integrate with existing open map data from projects such as OpenStreetMap and city planning departments, along with new map data contributed by members and built using computer vision and AI/ML techniques to create a living digital record of the physical world."