<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div><span>Thank you Kai, well said.</span></div><div> </div><div>== Mikel Maron ==<br>+14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font size="2" face="Arial"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Kai Krueger <kakrueger@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Frederik Ramm <frederik@remote.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> osmf-talk@openstreetmap.org<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, November 12, 2011 11:28 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight:
bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [Osmf-talk] Elections: Avoid Mandate Creep<br></font><br>
On 11/11/2011 11:08 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote:<br><br>> Quote: "There's no shortage of projects that changed the world and then<br>> met reality, hard"<br>> <br>> My interpretation: "No matter how successful OSM is, we'll still find<br>> reason to meddle."<br>> <br>> Of course, once one paints the ghost of decline onto the wall, the rest<br>> comes naturally - we have to act!!!!!!<br><br>I think it is more than a ghost. Although the current situation by far<br>isn't a decline, the community size is now nearly moving sideways<br>rather than the rapid growth people still claim. This limited growth<br>period is now probably nearly 2 1/2 years long since about mid 2009.<br><br>E.g. The number of active mappers per month has only grown by ~20% in<br>the last 2 1/2 years (<br>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats4A.png ). The number<br>of new mappers per week is at a complete standstill since 2 1/2 years
(<br>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Contributor_signup.png ). The<br>growth rate of nodes and ways has gone from a exponential growth to a<br>linear growth and is starting to show signs of sub-linear growth (<br>http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats2.png ), which is<br>reflected in an actual decline of the number of nodes and ways added per<br>day ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats7B.png )<br><br>Those stats imho indicate that there is still a healthy turn around and<br>it can attract sufficient newcomers to (more than) compensate natural<br>attrition, but only to a limited degree to continue to grow the (active)<br>community size.<br><br>Also, in perhaps the second most active community the UK, after 6 1/2<br>years road completion is only at about 85%, even to some degree with the<br>help of open government data. Most other countries are in a considerably<br>worse situation unless they have had imports, and then
there is the<br>issue of keeping those up-to-date.<br><br>So yes, I think there is a certain justification for "we have to act!"<br>to resume a more healthy growth again.<br><br>> <br>> Quote: "... insular community, lack of direction, and no innovation.<br>> That's what we have to avoid."<br>> <br>> My interpretation: "We have to provide direction else those<br>> simple-minded mapper ants won't know what to do!"<br><br>That is a very negative and imho unwarranted accusation of how the board<br>sees the community.<br><br>My interpretation: "These are the issues other projects have faced and<br>caused them to fail. The OSMF board has the chance to provide the<br>necessary support and resources to help the community to innovate to<br>find (multiple) directions and bond mappers into a diverse, but<br>cooperative community."<br><br>Without the help of the support of the OSMF it is perhaps more likely<br>that the community will hit those
limits for the lack of resources and<br>the board should work towards avoiding that.<br><br>> <br>> Quote: "We are the Board! Shape the project!"<br>> <br>> My comment: Pure hubris. Our board is not the board of a corporation;<br>> our members and those who do most of the work are not our employees to<br>> be shaped into whatever we'd like.<br>> <br>> Quote: "To meet goals, we can take action, we can guide and steer, we<br>> can spend money."<br><br>Of cause it is always an important discussion to make sure resources and<br>money are spent in the right way and it is rather difficult and<br>controversial what the right way is in a diverse community. But in the<br>past (without wanting to degrade the great contributions many have made)<br>one sometimes had the impression OSMF spent more effort in trying to<br>avoid responsibility and to push all duties as far away as possible,<br>than to actually support the project, its
community and its wishes.<br><br>If I am not mistaken OSMF has a not inconsiderable amount of resources<br>by now and that even without attempting (outside of SoTM) to do any form<br>of fund raising (since January 2009). Both people and companies are<br>willing to donate to OSM(F) if only it would a) accept the donations and<br>b) use them.<br><br>So I think it is good that the board is actively seeking opportunities<br>of where the available resources are best spent to help support and grow<br>the community and the project instead of ignoring them in order to try<br>and stay as invisible as possible.<br><br>> <br>> My comment: Again, this is a typical management idea - that things go<br>> nowhere if they are not driven by clever people at the top. Sure we can<br>> have goals but if we don't accomplish them then who cares - maybe they<br>> were the wrong goals, or we'll accomplish them next year. It's not as if<br>> our bonuses were
linked to our percentage of goals reached.<br>> <br>> It sounds to me as if this whole meeting was based on the misconception<br>> that OSMF was somehow something like a startup that has to reach<br>> maturity before the venture capitalists lose patience.<br><br>Although there is no risk to loose venture capitalists, there is a risk<br>of loosing the community if OSM does not expand to capture their needs<br>and wishes.<br><br>OSM is now big enough for (nearly) everyone in the mapping industry to<br>acknowledge that crowd sourcing can work and provides a real<br>opportunity. However, in most countries OSM is imho not yet well known<br>enough to be self sustainable. If a company like e.g. Google or Waze<br>comes and creates a closed crowd sourced, but user oriented mapping<br>platform, it has imho the opportunity to quite rapidly outgrow OSM and<br>take away a lot of the potential mappers from OSM, making it much harder<br>for OSM to achieve
its goals of a great, up-to-date open dataset.<br><br>So growing quick enough to achieve critical mass is important for a<br>project like OSM as well.<br><br>> <br>> For example, the first "goal for 2012" mentioned is clearly to beat<br>> Google maps although it is vaguely worded as "The world's most used<br>> map". I'll dwell on this a bit, although I could use any other goal just<br>> as well.<br>> <br>> Why?<br><br><br>> <br>> Why do we have to be "the world's most used map"? Would the second-most<br>> used map not do? And why in 2012? Is it really important if we reach<br>> this goal a little slower or a little faster?<br><br>Yes, it is important how quickly one reaches those goals in a rapidly<br>changing environment. If by the time OSM has the complete road network<br>everyone else has detailed indoor mapping and 3D maps, then OSM becomes<br>obsolete.<br><br>OSM is in a competitive environment and so the rate of
innovation and<br>achievement is relevant to become or remain competitive.<br><br>Furthermore, the aim of OSM is to be as up-to-date as possible. If it<br>takes 10 - 15 years to do one pass of mapping, it won't achieve this<br>goal in most parts of the world. It takes a lot more mappers to keep the<br>map up-to-date than it does to get an initial version.<br><br>[...]<br>> <br>> I am almost certainly overreacting, and possibly reading things into<br>> words that weren't intended to be said (but sometimes words can also<br>> accidentally reveal something that was not intended). Still: Setting<br>> goals and making decisions while in a state of fear, or believing that<br>> one was at a brink and needed brisk decision and steady resolve,<br>> deciding things while under real or perceived pressure, is not exactly<br>> the mode I was hoping our board to operate in.<br><br>It is to early to say and the blog post is scarce on specifics,
but the<br>overall idea (of how I interpret the blog post) of trying to use more of<br>the available resource to actually do something and support the project<br>and help it grow, is imho applaudable. If the board can listen into the<br>community, identify the issues it has and then act with its resources as<br>well as lead to improve the situation by distilling the views of the<br>community into actionable items, then that can be a very productive<br>interaction between an efficient organised structure and a diverse<br>community.<br><br>At least for the board members I know, I have a lot of confidence that<br>they will not over reach their powers and do take the community serious<br>rather than treat them as "those simple-minded mapper ants that don't<br>know what to do".<br><br>So I think showing some good faith towards the new board to try and help<br>solve real problems together with the community would be good, rather<br>than once again start
dismantling any opportunity for the board and OSMF<br>to do anything at all. Not all decisions will be good or agreeable in<br>such a diverse community as OSM, but sometimes decisions have to be made<br>to have progress and as long as on average they are beneficial to the<br>majority, mistakes should be acceptable.<br><br>That said, of cause these issues should be discussed both on OSMF-talk<br>as well as on the wider communications channels, as with out exchange of<br>constructive ideas, even or especially if one doesn't agree with each<br>other, such a complex project as OSM can't be managed.<br><br><br>Kai<br><br>> Bye<br>> Frederik<br>> <br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>osmf-talk mailing list<br><a ymailto="mailto:osmf-talk@openstreetmap.org"
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