In this episode of the Spatial Stack, Matt sits down with Jake Low, software developer at OpenStreetMap US and maintainer of MapRoulette, OSMCha, Field Papers, and Layercake.
Jake explains how a map that anyone can edit takes in about 40,000 changesets a day, and why his job is building tools for the community rather than gatekeeping it. He walks through every way people contribute, from StreetComplete on your phone to JOSM on the desktop to Field Papers, a pen-and-paper workflow used in disaster response and elementary school classrooms.
The conversation also covers getting data back out of OpenStreetMap, from Layercake's thematic GeoParquet extracts to Sourdough, a new vector tile schema inspired by CSS Zen Garden. Jake breaks down the ODbL license in plain English, how companies like Amazon are paying contractors to map rural driveways, and why 80% of maintaining open source infrastructure is just keeping it alive.
Whether you're making your first edit tonight or pulling the planet file into DuckDB, this conversation shows you how the world's open map actually runs.
Connect with Jake:
Website:
https://www.jakelow.com/GitHub:
https://github.com/jake-lowOSM US Slack:
https://slack.openstreetmap.usOpenStreetMap US:
https://openstreetmap.usSUPPORT
Support OSM US:
https://openstreetmap.us/get-involved/donate/LEARN MORE
Field Papers:
https://openstreetmap.us/our-work/field-papers/Layercake:
https://openstreetmap.us/our-work/layercake/OSMCha:
https://openstreetmap.us/our-work/osmcha/MapRoulette:
https://openstreetmap.us/our-work/maproulette/CHAPTERS:
00:00:00 – Intro
00:02:03 – Welcome and Jake's background
00:03:44 – 40,000 changesets a day and OSMCha
00:07:28 – What OpenStreetMap US does
00:11:19 – Contributing at every scale: StreetComplete to JOSM
00:13:11 – Mapping with pen and paper: Field Papers
00:15:56 – Start tonight: MapRoulette and 10,000 duplicate reservoirs
00:19:32 – Gamification, paid mapping, and Amazon driveways
00:22:49 – Sourdough and the CSS Zen Garden idea
00:28:11 – Layercake: OpenStreetMap as GeoParquet
00:31:58 – The ODbL license in plain English
00:34:53 – Keeping open source infrastructure alive
00:41:21 – What people get wrong about OpenStreetMap
00:43:45 – Rapid fire: DuckDB, WebGPU, and Yesterdays
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