03 August 2010, 17:13

Bing Maps adds OpenStreetMaps layer

Bing Maps with the OpenStreetMap layer in Safari. Following an announcement at this year's State of the Map conference, which took place from the 9th to the 11th of July in Spain, Bing Maps has officially added a new OpenStreetMap (OSM) layer to its online mapping service. OpenStreetMap is an open source project that is building free online maps, not based on any copyright or licensed map data. It was founded by Steve Coast in August of 2004 and is run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

According to a blog post Microsoft Bing Maps Technical Evangelist Chris Pendleton, the new map app, simply dubbed "OpenStreetMap", loads the open source maps as a new map style option. Pendleton says that users can still perform searches on top of the new map layer as they always have and that it uses the Mapnik style from OSM. The Bing Maps web app requires Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in, which currently only supports Windows XP or later and Mac OS X.

Those interested in helping OpenStreetMap can create a new account to start contributing. Further details can be found in the OpenStreetMap Beginners' guide. The OpenStreetMap maps are released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 2.0 license.

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