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<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Christoph, by that
logic nobody should use the iD editor, OSM's default editor (and
I suspect most used editor), which has been heavily supported by
private companies. By that logic we should also reject
corporate sponsorship of tile caches.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Corporate involvement
in OSM is a fact of life. OSM has evolved away from only being
a hobby for craft mappers dependent on cast-off equipment into
something else. We can ignore that evolution at our peril, or
we can seek to deal with the evolution, retaining as much of the
spirit of individual do-ocracy as possible while acknowledging
that corporate involvement is not going to go away.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">One other point--the
corporations have made clear in my conversations with them that
local knowledge from volunteer mappers is the key to the value
of OSM to them, and they therefore have no interest in "taking
over" the project or indeed in activities that would discourage
local craft mappers. Some of them are in fact supporting local
communities of volunteer mappers in Asia. I believe the threat
to OSM emanates not from the corporations supporting us now, but
rather from external actors who either view OSM as a competitor
or simply may want ownership of the current very valuable data
without concern for potentially damaging or killing the
project. I do not believe it is useful for us to denigrate our
current corporate sponsors and supporters, who appear to grok
OSM, while ignoring more realistic potential threats.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">apm</font><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/17/2020 6:28 AM, Christoph Hormann
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202004171228.01035.chris_hormann@gmx.de">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On Thursday 16 April 2020, Rory McCann wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
OSM is a do-ocracy. 😉 FOSSGIS (or others) hasn't set up or arranged
an alternative. We have one option. Ergo that options wins. 😉😉
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I am sorry for drifting a bit off-topic in this thread - but the above
indicates potentially a rather problematic mixing of two things that do
not mix well. I am not sure if this is meant ironically - but to make
sure, even if it is, that it is not widely read and taken at face
value - the following comment.
OSM can in the long term only work as a do-ocracy as far as volunteer
work of individual independent volunteers is concerned. Mixing in
organized and especially corporate activity into the do-ocratic domain
would destabilize the whole thing. A company like Google could
essentially take over the project by donating sufficient manpower and
resources if do-ocratic principles are interpreted to apply to
organized and corporate activities as well.
People are much less likely to volunteer their personal time and
resources if they see these being just used and purely valued as a
cheap substitute for commercial services. Saying: "We take whatever
option is offered to us according to 'Einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man
nicht ins Maul' and - should that fail at some point we will take money
to buy a substitute" is much less likely to motivate volunteers than
saying "We use this commercial service for testing now but in the long
term we would rather use and depend on volunteer provided and managed
services - even if that means we cannot just use our checkbook to make
them do what we want them to do".
Again - this comment is not meant to criticize what has been done, it is
meant to raise problem awareness for the future.
</pre>
</blockquote>
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