The Linux Foundation is partnering with some of the world's biggest technology companies to develop interoperability and open map data in order to counter the dominance of Google in the mapping realm.
The new effort is hosted by the Linux Foundation, but the program is driven by Amazon Web Services, Facebook, and Microsoft.
With each member throwing their own data and resources into the mix, the ultimate goal of the Overture Maps Foundation is to power new map products through openly available datasets that can be used and reused across applications and businesses.
Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, said that mapping the physical environment and every community in the world is a massive challenge. This needs to be done for the benefit of everyone.
Map and location data is used to power everything from the internet of things to self- driving cars. Not to mention the costs involved in licensing it, having all that data under the auspices of just one or two mega-firms can be very restrictive.
Meta is heavily invested in emerging technologies such as those that require spatial mapping.
Immersive experiences, which blend into your physical environment, are critical to the embodied internet of the future. The foundation for an open metaverse is provided by Overture's interoperability open map data.
The founding members of the Overture Maps Foundation did not include the internet giant. Indeed, that such big names and rivals from the technology sphere are coming together in partnership is likely to be a testament to the dominance that Google has on the world of mapping.
With the arrival of the iPhone around the same time, a combination that brought maps and navigation into the pockets of millions of people globally, this had a monumental impact on incumbents such as TomTom, which had built a substantial business off the back of physical navigation devices.
The graph shows how TomTom's share price fell with the advent of the modern smartphone era.
Since the launch of the two operating systems 15 years ago.
In the intervening years, TomTom has tried to evolve, striking map and data partnerships with the likes ofUber and Microsoft, while it has also targeted developers with SDKs and hit the acquisition trail to bolster its self driving ambitions. This new collaboration will go a long way toward addressing the fact that the mapping empire is still in control of most of the roost.
The framework to accelerate our goals is provided by the Overture Maps Foundation. A continuously integrated and quality-controlled product that serves a broad range of use cases, including the most demanding applications like advanced navigation, search, will be offered by the maps platform.
The emergence of this new foundation is in line with trends across the technology spectrum, with a growing push toward consensual social networks. The OpenWallet Foundation was recently announced by the Linux Foundation to push back against the closed payment ecosystems fostered by tech giants.
The broader trend is very much in line with today's announcement.
The founding companies are planning to engage in collaborative map-building programs, meshing data from plethora of open data sources and knocking it into a format that's consistent, standardized, and fit for use in production systems and applications. This will include data from long-established projects such as OpenStreetMap.
There are only four member companies at launch and there are plans to expand in the future to include any company with a vested interest in open map data.
Basic layers such as roads, buildings, and administrative information will be included in the first half of the next decade, according to the Overture Maps Foundation. This will grow to include more places, navigation, and 3D building data.
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