Trends for the future of map design in OpenStreetMap

After having looked at the history of digital map design in general in the first part of this short series and at the current situation of map design in OpenStreetMap in the second part, i am now, in this last part, going to specifically look at what the OpenStreetMap Foundation seems to be pursuing in that field at the moment and in what direction that is likely going to go.

The OSMF has for some time followed a quite erratic course with regards to rendering and providing maps for the OSM community. Historically, a significant percentage of the OSMFs IT resources have gone into rendering the standard map layer on openstreetmap.org. And while there has been discussion and ultimately a policy was developed on who is allowed to use that tile service under what conditions, the OSMF has never really stated a clear purpose for that tile service or the conditions for choosing OpenStreetMap Carto as the style for it. There is a set of requirements for tile layers to be included on osm.org – which are mostly hosted externally – but nothing to this date defines what qualifies OSM-Carto to be the style the OSMF invests substantial resource in to render as a map. I have, as an OSM-Carto maintainer, repeatedly criticized this omission, because it also means the OSMF takes no responsibility for the decision to do that.

Back in 2021 a poll the OSMF board made of the OSM community included the question about the future of map services provided by the OSMF, for the first time indicating to the OSM community that they are contemplating making changes in that field. The question was very vague and ill-defined (which i criticized back then) and the answers were accordingly inconclusive. The term vector tiles had already become a magic word back then without much of a well defined meaning but where everyone seemed to project their hopes and dreams into.

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