I’m Minh Nguyễn, a self-employed developer from San José, California. I’m serving on the MapLibre Governing Board with the goal of helping us deepen our ties to the user community and sustain our impact as the environment for digital maps continues to evolve.
Experience
I’ve been contributing to OpenStreetMap as a volunteer since 2008. I served on the OpenStreetMap U.S. Board of Directors from 2019 to 2023, most of that time as president. Since then, I’ve been co-leading OpenHistoricalMap and also facilitating OSM core software development (on contract with the OpenStreetMap Foundation and as a member of the Engineering Working Group). In both roles, I serve as a liaison to the community, consult with them to develop a strategic direction for the project, and create an environment that enables the team to execute on that vision. (In both projects, that vision includes MapLibre.)
You may have seen my handle come up embarrassingly often when blaming MapLibre’s Git repositories. From 2015 to 2023, I was the tech lead for Mapbox’s iOS map and navigation SDK teams. My responsibilities included designing and building much of the functionality, cross-functional collaboration with engineers working on other platforms and other parts of the stack, and direct developer and customer engagement.
Since then, I’ve been volunteering to develop OpenStreetMap Americana as the OSMUS reference implementation for integrating MapLibre GL JS with OpenMapTiles and OpenStreetMap data. This led me back to MapLibre, where I have participated in design discussions, contributed new features (particularly related to font management), and created multiple plugins. My contributions will continue regardless of what happens in this election. I realize it can be awkward to be on either side of a maintainer as both a contributor and a board member. I have some experience managing this situation with OHM.
Priorities
My first priority would be to ensure that the team is looked after, that they have a healthy work environment and the resources they need to serve the community. I’m confident that this will be a collaborative effort among all the board members.
MapLibre has dual challenges of bringing forward mature codebases and breaking new ground. I would support efforts to take a hard look at where we could redirect resources from underused functionality to areas of more active development. Admittedly I still know more about the inner workings of Objective-C and JNI than about Rust or Vulcan. Consider this a guarantee that I will lean on our team for the subject matter expertise.
I would support the project’s strides toward improving developer experience. Long-term, that is what will set MapLibre apart from the multitude of other mapping options. Developer experience generates the goodwill we need to attract contributors and make inroads in organizations.
Disclosure
My involvement in MapLibre would be on a volunteer basis. This engagement would fall outside the scope of my current contract with the OSMF.
I hold a small number of heavily diluted options in Mapbox from back when I first joined the company. This gives me effectively no say in Mapbox affairs and has never prevented me from giving back to MapLibre where possible. Nevertheless, I would responsibly recuse myself from decisions that would pose a potential conflict of interest.