Grid1 features an interview with Jennings Anderson who works as a Software Engineer for Meta, has done research on OpenStreetMap (OSM) and is currently interested in the Overture Maps Foundation (OMF) (of which Meta is a founding member).
From the interview:
The literal meaning of overture is “an introduction to something more substantial” or “a piece at the beginning of an opera”. Is Overture an introduction to something bigger?
(…) It’s about doing what hasn’t been done before: combining various open data sets into a consistent schema, which could lead to a new ecosystem of map services and tools built around a high-quality base map of open data. It’s the start of a new era of map tooling, where data is easier to use and more interoperable.
Overall an interesting (albeit, clearly inside) view on OMF, OSM, and the evolution of geodata in general.
Footnotes
Grid (tagline: “is not a journal”) has been published since fall 2024 and describes itself as “deal[ing] with the mutual transformations of society, technology and space in the age of digital media, infrastructures, data and algorithms”. The aim of grid is to create a publication format that enables an exchange among scientists, but also makes this exchange accessible to a broader public.↩︎