[slackline]

OpenBeta is an opensource  database for climbing.

Good on-boarding process for those wishing to contribute.

The various repositories that underpin it are open source and hosted on GitHub.

The proposed inclusion of Local Climbing Organisations (e.g. clubs, bolt funds etc.) is a really good idea.

Newsletters via Substack


As noted certain existing databases aren't going to be happy (Mountain Project have already tried suing but failed, I bet UKClimbing won't like it either).

Related links

• Mountain Project, OpenBeta, and the Fight Over Climbing Data Access
• Free as in Climbing: Rock Climber’s Open Data Project Threatened by Bogus Copyright Claims | Electronic Frontier Foundation
• The Future of Climbing Guides Must Be Open Source

[abarro81]

What's the idea behind it? It doesn't look very user friendly or like it has the ability to log things so I struggle to see how it would rival 8a or ukc..?

[remus]

I assume it's aiming to be an open source database for climbs, then they (or anyone else) could build UKC style logging on top of that data. The idea being that by having the data available under a more permissive licence it enables new use cases. As a concrete example, in theory you could build climbing-history.org on top of something like this.

I like the idea. It's a shame that the core info about routes and boulders are currently in commercial databases (e.g. 8a.nu) as they don't have to be. Making it open source is a tricky challenge though, by there nature companies can more easily afford to put money in to building and maintaining a database. It's also very tricky building communities around these things, much more so than building the underlying technology in my opinion.

[petejh]

U.S. climbing writers do love a bit of third person to open a story don't they:
''Viet Nguyen sipped his coffee as he scanned the weather outside his window in Madrid. There were no ominous clouds. It had been a bad week and he wanted to climb. Then the email came.''

''Viet Nguyen was wandering around the yawning labyrinth of Indian Creek in 2017 when it dawned on him that what climbing really needed was an open-source API, similar to OpenStreetMap, but for route and crag information.''


Pete was having a lazy Sunday afternoon at home doing a tax return, then he noticed Slacker's post about openbeta...

Thanks Slackline, looks a good idea and I hope it grows into something big. But... the incentive to share data with UKC / MP / 8a etc. is that once data is shared it, almost instantly, becomes useable in a user-friendly format because of work/expense that's been put in to build a user-friendly interface (ukc logbooks and rockfax app, less so 8a.nu but still useful).
Whereas the incentives to share data with openbeta seem a bit less immediate and more long term 'moral' reasons, in the hope the data can be used in a free topo app (?) or the openbeta itself is transformed into a more user-friendly interface (?). People being people, I know which I'd place my money on but hope I'm wrong.

I put all of NW limestone into a free app, this was pre-rockfax app and the first time a whole guidebook was available in app format (Steve Golley the engine behind it). I then failed to advertise it and I think hardly anyone used it. It was pretty good though I think. Maybe you can use Steve's app format (if he's still in the game) with openbeta's data? Steve's apps were easy to do dataentry and topo-build. Could be a pretty juicy combination.


edit: can't actually remember if the NWL app was free or paid. I know I was free though as I took nothing from it!

[highrepute]

Pretty sure I paid for it