The Open Mobility Foundation is a free and open-source software foundation that manages the Mobility Data Specification (MDS). These guidelines will help you understand how to to contribute and what is involved.
MDS is an open specification and anyone can contribute to its development. Because MDS supports a growing ecosystem of mobility services, policies, and tools, there are some key stakeholders whose participation is particularly encouraged:
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Public agencies: As licensing authority and regulator, public agencies are the ultimate customers for MDS and the data flowing through it. The public agency role is to ensure that MDS effectively supports program management and offers a flexible foundation for policy implementation. Public agencies of all levels of technical capacity are encourage to participate in the evolution of MDS, whether by submitting pull requests and issues, or simply by providing feedback during release cycles.
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Mobility Service Providers: Providers are often required to implement MDS in order to comply with permitting requirements for their services. Providers can inform the development of MDS with real-world operating experience and to offer input on specification design that maximizes data quality, reliability, and utility.
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Public agency software partners: Serve as a key bridge between public agencies and mobility service providers by offering tools that turn MDS data into useful insights. The public agency software partners help ensure that MDS will enable real-world product development, reflects the needs of their public agency customers, and encourages private investment in the MDS ecosystem.
Contributions can come from many places, including individuals, companies, non-profits, and governments, and work is done both online and via regular video conference calls. As such we want to make this community welcoming and ensure participants know a little about the people contributing and ensure transparency. To that end, we recommend every contributor has an up to date Github Profile, including:
- Name
- Bio
- Company/Organization/City
- Location
- Profile Picture
- Website Link
- Social Media Links
See this profile for an example of the kinds of information you can add to your profile.
Contributions should be offered through GitHub issues and pull requests. Please review the MDS Release Guidelines for details on the release process, schedule, and communications channels.
In general, you may open an issue or make a pull request at any time. Once the issue or pull request is associated with a particular Milestone, it will be included for review within the process for that release.
All contributors must agree to the Open Mobility Foundation's Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA) and Participation Policies. Pull requests will not be merged without a signed ICLA. If a contributor is working on behalf of a company or other organization, that organization must also agree to the Entity Contributor License Agreement (ECLA). These agreements clarify the intellectual property status of work that is contributed to OMF projects. They apply to all contributions, including source code, documentation, and comments.
MDS is a tool to facilitate data exchange between mobility service providers, public agencies, and public agency software partners. Although providers are often required to support MDS as part of mobility permits or policies, MDS is intended as a neutral mechanism for information exchange. It is not intended to force or foreclose any specific policy options that a public agency may choose to pursue.
MDS is built as an interface between local governments and mobility service providers. Access to MDS APIs should be restricted, and is not intended to directly support public consumption or consumer-facing applications.
MDS is an evolving specification with a regular release cycle. Please review the MDS Release Guidelines to understand the release process.
See our CODE OF CONDUCT page.