OSM–GB: Using Open Source Geospatial Tools to Create OSM Web Services for Great Britain

A use case of integrating a variety of open-source geospatial tools is presented in this paper to process and openly redeliver open data in open standards. Through a software engineering approach, we have focused on the potential usability of OpenStreetMap in authoritative and professional contexts in Great Britain. Our system comprises open source components from OSGeo projects, the Open Street Map (OSM) community and proprietary components. We present how the open data flows among those components and is delivered to the Web with open standards. Apart from the cost issues, utilizing the open-source tools has offered some distinct advantages compared to the proprietary alternatives, if any was available. At the same time, some technical limitations of utilizing current open-source tools are described. Finally a case study is shown for the usability of the developed solution.