MapLibre: An Introduction to Its Use and Its Community

One of the most useful things to come out of the modern technology stack is real-time maps. They help keep people from getting lost, help them find restaurants and shopping, and can give people a spatial context of the world around them.  Originally, maps were provided by commercial services such as Google Maps and Mapquest, but those services could be limiting and expensive.

In 2010 a company called Mapbox created a project to provide mapping libraries using an open source development method. It was adopted by a large number of applications until 2020, when the license was changed to one that is proprietary. This caused a number of people in the Mapbox community to fork the project into MapLibre, and since then the project has continured to grow as well as to attract support from some of the largest companies in technology today.

This session will cover two things. First, it will provide a basic introduction on how to use MapLibre to add or improve the maps that already exist in web pages and mobile applications, and second it will show how MapLibre was able to successfully fork Mapbox by creating a welcoming and self-sustaining community. In addition, the session closes with a roadmap of where MapLibre is headed in the future.