<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Frederik Ramm <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org">frederik@remote.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
Hi,<div class="im"><br>
<br>
Dermot McNally wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Clearly every potential user of OSM is different, but for me, a key<br>
benefit when I discovered the project what "hey, vector data, that can<br>
be used for routing!". If we think that others discovering the project<br>
would thing likewise then a prominent path from project home page to a<br>
routing engine (and I really couldn't care less whose) would be a Good<br>
Thing. As long as it works acceptably well, of course...<br>
</blockquote>
<br></div>
But isn't this angle one where the open/closed distinction gains weight again? Currently, you can (and I've done this a number of times) tell potential OSM users: "Everything on <a href="http://openstreetmap.org" target="_blank">openstreetmap.org</a> is free software and free data - you can build the exact same site for yourself with all its functionality from our database and our svn" *). With non-free routing or geocoding services that would stop.</blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>If we want OSM to grow and become more successful than it is then we have to get over the idea that the only people who matter are software developers. There are around 12 - 17 million software developers in the world. How many of those developers know how to use SVN? Maybe 1%. How many are FLOSS developers? How many care enough about OSM to learn how to use it? If 1% of software developers care about OSM, which is very optimistic estimate, then we have a total pool of people who could do as you suggest of around 170,000 people. Not very many. </div>
<div><br></div><div>How do people discover OSM? Their friend tells them or they find it through a Google search. They take a look at the front page of the site and within 2-5 seconds they make their minds up about it. I don't have the numbers, but I'd guess that we have between a less than 1% conversion rate from unique visitors to OSM to people who sign-up for an account. Imagine if we could increase that rate by 5x. 5x more people sign up for an account, 5x more people mapping, 5x more people submitting patches to JOSM and Potlatch. 5x more people at SOTM, 5x more Foundation members. </div>
<div><br></div><div>We really need to think about what is more important to OSM. The most important thing in my view is creating the best free map of the world. To do that we need to encourage more people to join OSM - people who do not know or care what SVN is or why a routing algorithm does its thing.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Surely the biggest victory for any open source project is to squash its competitors and completely change the game? Few open source projects have achieved this. In 5 years time, the entire concept of proprietary maps created by guys in vans could be a thing of the past. OpenStreetMap and our way of doing things will have completely wiped the floor with our competitors. We can only get to this point if we stop thinking of ourselves as a small, specialist community and start to think of ourselves as a mainstream movement that caters for the needs of everyone - not just the free software world. </div>
<div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br>
<br>
Bye<br>
Frederik<br>
<br>
*) And add in fine print "if you're willing to devote a few man-months to get to grips with the finer details of Ruby, PHP, Python, PostGIS, Mapnik and others"<br><font color="#888888">
<br>
-- <br>
Frederik Ramm ## eMail <a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org" target="_blank">frederik@remote.org</a> ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>-- <br>Nick Black<br><a href="http://twitter.com/nick_b">twitter.com/nick_b</a><br>