The map is a little smaller...and less chill
January 6, 2018 4:56 PM Subscribe
Mapzen, providers of open-source cartography/GIS tools, have suddenly announced their shutdown down at the end of the month, and provided a brief guide to migrating to other tools or downloading their code.
Former senior dev Dan Phiffer:
And now that Mapzen is shutting down—what happens to all of that work?
The vast majority of the code and data will remain online in our public GitHub repos. Each team operated as a kind of independent city-state in the larger Mapzen kingdom, and each team has had a different approach post-shutdown. ... In each case, the code and data were always designed to outlive the company. Specifically what that will look like in practice is still shaking out. Aside from the code that runs the metered API system, each service was always designed to run without there being a Mapzen company behind it.
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Samsung Next/Samsung Research America were the incubator that partnered with Mapzen, founded in 2013.
A hackernews comment said Mapzen Flex was the first time they'd charged for services, starting sometime last spring. [Note: Mapzen's origins are a bit fuzzy, but seem to trace back to the early Samsung funding/several months before that. There was also a Mapzen tool suite from CloudMade a few years earlier, which appears to be entirely separate.]
“This is certainly the hottest mapping has ever been,” [CEO Randy] Meech says. He’s confident his soon to be ex-employees will do just fine, working on similar projects for other outfits. “Just the sheer volume of recruiting from different companies and outreach from people, it’s mind-boggling.”
Reasons for the shutdown, and its sudden onset, have not been disclosed.
Some services that Mapzen has run:
Who's On First, a gazeteer/naming service [certificate warning in browser, website works fine]
Tangram, renders maps based on vector tiles from Open Source Street Map data
Mapzen's vector tile service
Metro Extracts, a searchable, user-friendly way to download specific ares of OSM data
Elevations
Former senior dev Dan Phiffer:
And now that Mapzen is shutting down—what happens to all of that work?
The vast majority of the code and data will remain online in our public GitHub repos. Each team operated as a kind of independent city-state in the larger Mapzen kingdom, and each team has had a different approach post-shutdown. ... In each case, the code and data were always designed to outlive the company. Specifically what that will look like in practice is still shaking out. Aside from the code that runs the metered API system, each service was always designed to run without there being a Mapzen company behind it.
============
Samsung Next/Samsung Research America were the incubator that partnered with Mapzen, founded in 2013.
A hackernews comment said Mapzen Flex was the first time they'd charged for services, starting sometime last spring. [Note: Mapzen's origins are a bit fuzzy, but seem to trace back to the early Samsung funding/several months before that. There was also a Mapzen tool suite from CloudMade a few years earlier, which appears to be entirely separate.]
“This is certainly the hottest mapping has ever been,” [CEO Randy] Meech says. He’s confident his soon to be ex-employees will do just fine, working on similar projects for other outfits. “Just the sheer volume of recruiting from different companies and outreach from people, it’s mind-boggling.”
Reasons for the shutdown, and its sudden onset, have not been disclosed.
Some services that Mapzen has run:
Who's On First, a gazeteer/naming service [certificate warning in browser, website works fine]
Tangram, renders maps based on vector tiles from Open Source Street Map data
Mapzen's vector tile service
Metro Extracts, a searchable, user-friendly way to download specific ares of OSM data
Elevations
Never used it, but I firmly believe that open source allows for some serious innovation, and any time a company based on open source closes, it makes me a little sadder.
posted by Samizdata at 5:48 PM on January 6, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Samizdata at 5:48 PM on January 6, 2018 [3 favorites]
RIP: Mapzen had a bunch of excellent people - many alums from Stamen, good thinkers. They made good stuff. I hope all the folks find places that can foster creativity & allow them to work in the open. To clarify a bit about the ownership: Mapzen was a business unit of Samsung Research America, according to their ToS. Possibly Samsung had hopes to spin them out if the project got more market penetration - we can't be sure.
posted by tmcw at 6:08 PM on January 6, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by tmcw at 6:08 PM on January 6, 2018 [5 favorites]
> tmcw:
"RIP: Mapzen had a bunch of excellent people - many alums from Stamen, good thinkers. They made good stuff. I hope all the folks find places that can foster creativity & allow them to work in the open. To clarify a bit about the ownership: Mapzen was a business unit of Samsung Research America, according to their ToS. Possibly Samsung had hopes to spin them out if the project got more market penetration - we can't be sure."
I figured as much. Samsung has always had a weird thing about *zen for some of their more open source projects.
posted by Samizdata at 6:49 PM on January 6, 2018
"RIP: Mapzen had a bunch of excellent people - many alums from Stamen, good thinkers. They made good stuff. I hope all the folks find places that can foster creativity & allow them to work in the open. To clarify a bit about the ownership: Mapzen was a business unit of Samsung Research America, according to their ToS. Possibly Samsung had hopes to spin them out if the project got more market penetration - we can't be sure."
I figured as much. Samsung has always had a weird thing about *zen for some of their more open source projects.
posted by Samizdata at 6:49 PM on January 6, 2018
I'm sad North by North West.
posted by tilde at 7:25 PM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tilde at 7:25 PM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sigh, I just discovered them (in combination with OSM) for cycle route planning. Better than Google and a lot better than the other routing option OSM has, which suggests very direct routes that will kill me.
Ride the city, which was excellent, shut last year as well, I hope it's not a renewed squeeze on open source mapping projects.
posted by deadwax at 12:36 PM on January 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ride the city, which was excellent, shut last year as well, I hope it's not a renewed squeeze on open source mapping projects.
posted by deadwax at 12:36 PM on January 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by Nelson at 5:05 PM on January 6, 2018 [2 favorites]