That is absolutely NOT what he means about the keys!
“to avoid key sharing”. Every program having its own key. However a coordinated approach that can be used with Microsoft to get your own key. Thus avoiding everyone approaching Microsoft using different channels and different methods with resultant duplication of effort and duplication of research on how to actually get hold of the keys.
Just to point out the obvious: with perhaps the exception of iD / Potlatch likely everybody has a non-enterprise account and associated key.
With other words the clock is ticking and the EWG would already seem to be stretching things for many projects as this change needs to be done and fit in to a release cycle by end of June.
How are those keys being managed and distributed? Is there one account/key for all those, or different ones?
Is there a list of editors that use Bing Maps services, and the key they use?
This following list is most likely incomplete, but should contain the most popular editors that have support for a Bing Maps background layer.
Every Door — a personal account key as well.
Folks, time to get your credit cards out: Bing Imagery Glitch in JOSM (Error: Attribution is not loaded yet) and blank tiles - #25 by SimonPoole
Bing imagery is sometimes the only reasonably-resolution imagery available. I would be severely impacted if we were to lose access to it.
60 days left.
Discussion with Microsoft have stalled on this topic. The last substantial update from them came in February. Several OSM developers working on editors explained the issue facing JOSM, and other OSM editors, with several Microsoft people. The issue is well understood on their side, and we were told that solutions were under discussion internal to Microsoft. I’ve pinged several times (including just now) directly to the designated point person at Microsoft for the topic, as well as on the side to individual contacts. I’m still hopeful we’ll get clarity from them one way or another.
But with 2 months til non-enterprise usage is shut off, we need to consider other options. I said as much to the OSMF Board in a message this week. One would be to making more noise to get the attention of Microsoft. Another would be to go ahead and share the existing key provisioned to iD with other editors. That could be managed by EWG, with some cut off set based on usage level. Anyway options to consider, would be good to hear from the community and Board on this matter.
I’ll add updates if any come in.
Why don’t you get the treasurer to create an Azure account and then hand out keys from that? With the danger that MS might charge the OSMF something, but that is far better than individual devs carrying the same risk.
PS: as I pointed out earlier in one of the threads on this topic, getting confirmation that we can use the Azure service on the same terms as Bing would be a good thing too, outside of the financial aspects.
Bing Enterprise is supposed to go through 2028, so our first hope is for that.
We have not gotten confirmation that MS would cover costs of the Azure account, so it seems premature to do that.
We should make more public noise. You, @mikelmaron, tried your best on non-public channels bit you did not achieve anything.
We, both the Foundation, the Local Chapters and organisations like HOT, should make press releases that our most important source of imagery will go away soon. We should ask people to focus on tracing stable features in areas where we lack alternatives to Bing and name those regions. As a side effect, this “remapping campaign” (see ODbL migration) might attract new mappers (and reactivate inactive former contributors).
In Germany, we face a significant downgrade in those states which have open data aerial imagery but incompatible attribution requirements. But that is a separate topic and should be discussed in a separate thread.
If we did go this route of something more public, we need to be clear about the objectives. I think the main one is to get attention of Microsoft to resolve the issue.
I don’t think a mapping campaign would be effective. First, at the minimum, Bing imagery is not going away for iD until 2028. iD has an enterprise token and it will be good for years. Secondly, JOSM users are experiencing a lot of difficulty accessing Bing imagery already, without a search of usage.
There’s a few ways to interpret the lack of response. They are busy with other higher priority things. They are trying to figure out a solution but it’s complicated. They don’t have good news and hope it goes away. Any is possible.
That’s why we should craft any potential communications from the Foundation (which could be echoed by other entities and people in the community), with the purpose of getting positive resolution with Microsoft. Explain how valued their contribution is, and how we want to work with them to figure out how it can continue across editors, and that time is ticking.
I got an email from Bing yesterday:
Hello Richard,
My name is Jacob with Bing Maps. I am sure you are aware by now that the Free Basic account customers will be able to use Bing Maps enterprise services until June 30th 2025. After that a purchased enterprise license will be needed. Roughly 60 days from now.
I can assist with you getting set up for a new paid enterprise license. So there will be no interruption or disruption in your service or business.
Please let me know if you are interested. I am happy to help.
This statement seems to fly in the face of the above expressed believe that the ID license continues into 2028 - CORR. That’s an enterprise basic tokened license 
. Any imagery but that is legal to use in JOSM is just not remotely close to acceptable for my regular region of mapping. Any mapping after would just will become landcape GI, landscape GO.
MS is BAAAD. Have a subscription and the day before the renewal date my mailbox was garnered by a messagel telling that the annual fee had been increased (43%), Ladidah including AI feature addition. That gave enough time to cancel… not, saw the mail the day after as that very AI had relegated the message to the spam box of outlook.
So the iD license is an Enterprise license, but it seems to be only an Enterprise Basic or Free license, which ends on June 30, 2025?
Only paid Enterprise licenses are valid until June 30, 2028.
• Customers using Bing Maps for Enterprise Basic or Free license will no longer be able to use Bing Maps for Enterprise services beyond June 30, 2025.
(a) Basic / Free Licenses customers who would like to continue using enterprise maps from Microsoft are encouraged to move to Azure Maps before June 30, 2025.
(b) Existing Basic / Free Licenses customers who would like to continue using Bing Maps for Enterprise until the service end date of June 30, 2028, can upgrade to a paid Enterprise License by contacting maplicq@microsoft.com before June 30, 2025.
• Bing Maps for Enterprise services will retire, and support will end on June 30, 2028, and customers will no longer be able to use any of the Bing Maps for Enterprise services.
Since the email was sent to me, it was for the Potlatch licence which I believe JOSM also uses. iD appears to have another licence.
HA! This looks like a classic symptom of disorganized bureaucracy. Having seen how this works (or not) in much smaller tech companies, I suspect that someone ran an automated query, and sent out automatic emails to drive sales conversations. I think it’s safe to ignore directly.
Indirectly, this is useful as another means to get attention from Microsoft. It’s certainly silly to have this happening to us.
This has nothing to do with iD’s Bing account, which has been confirmed as ok through to 2028.
… that they turn off aerial imagery access in the editor that most contributors use as well as Josm and P3. Yes, I’m sure that those users using Josm make more changes per user than those using iD, but you did ask “what was the worse thing that can happen”. 
In addition to whatever the OSMF can do perhaps now is a good time for communities and groups that rely only on Bing imagery for their mapping to consider a “plan B” for a couple of month’s time. It might involve just switching to iD, or looking at what other aerial sources are or could be made available, but surely must also include more actual survey where possible, either by the mappers themselves or with the aid of people who live in the relevant area.