Ten years of OpenStreetMap (O'Reilly Radar)

O'Reilly Radar has posted a retrospective look at the OpenStreetMap (OSM) project on the occasion of OSM's ten-year anniversary. Tyler Bell calls the project "the most significant development in the Open Geo Data movement" outside of GPS; noting that before OSM's creation, "map data sources were few, and largely controlled by a small collection of private and governmental players. The scarcity of map data ensured that it remained both expensive and highly restrictive, and no one but the largest navigation companies could use map data." Particularly interesting are the various comparisons between the state of the map in 2007 and today; the project's 1.5 million registered users do not seem to be slowing down, even if today's emphasis has shifted somewhat to less-visible features: "nodes are getting connected and turn restrictions added to facilitate navigation, while addresses are being sourced to help with geocoding and place finding."