[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Future Look

[Clifford Snow]

I've been a mapper for just a short while. A little over 1 and a half.  I'm
surprised how much I like mapping in OSM. There is a real empowerment. For
example, at our last mapping party, I met the mayor of the town we held the
meetup. He was getting ready to kick of their Centennial celebration. I was
able to help by mapping the brand new visitor's center that they were
getting ready to open the following day. At the same event I ran into to
folks that were changing the name of their mobile home park to a brand new
co-op. With their help I was able to enter in the boundaries of the park
along with the new name.

I wonder about the future of OSM, where it is going and how it's getting
there. I've been a Fedora (linux) user since the inception of Fedora. I
like how Red Hat provides the employees to work with the community to solve
problems. How does that happen in OSM? In my short time I see some
weakness. For example, our last mapping party, it would have been nice to
invite local mappers to join us. But there isn't an easy way. Since OSM
doesn't have a regular announcement means, there is no real easy method to
reach out. It would be nice to be able to use the OSM mail application to
announce meet ups within x distance of the meetup location. We're mappers,
how hard can it be to run a query?

Another concern I have is the OSM main map. We have Wikipedia and website
links as well as telephone numbers. Shouldn't our flagship home page have
links for points of interest?

Those are just two areas that need work. As I read this mailing list there
are other global issues similar to mine.

It seems to me that OSM needs a full time staff that can work with the
community to build OSM for the future. I would think that at the rate we
are growing, we need to be planning for a much bigger future.

-- 
Clifford

OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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