[Osmf-talk] OSMF and Evangelism
Nick Black
nick at blacksworld.net
Mon Aug 3 12:03:19 UTC 2009
On 31 Jul 2009, at 19:59, Peter Miller wrote:
>
> On 31 Jul 2009, at 18:46, Nick Black wrote:
>
>> Rafael - you have lots of good points. It would be great to get
>> some of these ideas channeled into an OSM-F working group that
>> focussed on supporting mapping in developing countries. I agree
>> that the work we saw at SOTM was inspirational. OSM can do a lot
>> of good in a lot of parts of the world and I firmly believe that
>> its part of the OSM-F's agenda to promote OSM to people who have
>> not had the same opportunities that most other OSMers have had.
>
> The Local Chapters work seems to be potentially very important for
> out-reach to new countries. Personally I think the aim of the
> foundation should be to 'enable' rather than to 'do' and I think
> that the Local Chapters work group should be aiming to do that
> minimum work, saying, yes, you can use the name and trademark, and
> yes, when someone asks if you have authority you can say yes I do
> and show them a bit of paper. Personally I think there is more work
> needed by the foundation to get the Local Chapters (and I hate that
> phrase!) up and running well and more discussion. There is no need
> for someone to use the Local Chapter mechanism in any particular
> county - I can't see it being picked up in Germany for instance.
> Personally I see no reason for the foundation to ask for £10 per
> member of the local chapter because I think that would kill it in
> many countries where it is most needed. I do also note that the only
> chapters currently proposed are for the USA and for part of the UK
> so it isn't working yet to full potential. I could make other
> comments, but they are best made by other people and in another forum.
>
> When there is a vibrant community building around local chapters
> then the foundation could help raise some funds to support that
> work, but personal again, I suggest that the work of the local
> groups in discussion with each other to get together to raise that
> money, not the foundation. The foundation's job it is initiate the
> processes and communication and should not be the big benevolent
> grand-father who sorts it all out. I think that this grouping of
> local chapters should take responsibility for 'gps-to-go' and
> deciding where the GPS units go and when they come back, it is not
> the job of the foundation to do stuff that can be done by others or
> it will get too top-heavy and slow.
>
> Btw, I did an pretty big edit of the Local Chapters page yesterday
> to clean it up and provide a bit more structure. Could you please
> check it Nick to ensure I haven't misrepresented anything?
Looks good, Peter. Thank you for you efforts. There are many more
local chapters interested than those represented on the wiki. Setting
up an email list seems like a good idea.
Did anyone on this thread get a list of the people who attended the
local chapters meeting at SOTM?
--
Nick
>
> Personally I would suggest that we create a email-list for
> interested parties to discuss local chapters and outreach and get it
> moving. When it is moving we can talk about what further input is
> required from the foundation if any.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Peter
>
>
>>
>> --
>> Nick
>>
>>
>> On 30 Jul 2009, at 21:09, Rafael Morales wrote:
>>
>>> I agree that the foundation cannot be expected to evangelize the
>>> entire world on the "goodness of OSM," to quote Nick, but I do
>>> feel strongly that the OSM Foundation should bring leadership and
>>> guidance to the project. As members of the OSM Foundation, we
>>> should then have an opportunity to weigh-in/vote on the
>>> Foundation's goals, and by consensus decide what if will focus on.
>>>
>>> I personally feel strongly that should include among its primary
>>> goals, actively promoting OSM in parts of the world were there is
>>> little map data (and I'm referring to the developing world). It
>>> is in those regions that access to quality maps could be most
>>> empowering; think Palestine mapping project and humanitarian
>>> crisis assistance. After all, it was Hurricane Katrina in 2005
>>> that launched Google Earth into the day-to-day lexicon of the
>>> common American, and I would argue that OSM's work in those areas
>>> could do much more to promote the project, than mapping every
>>> single power line in Germany. (Sorry German OSM mappers, I give
>>> you incredible props for the completeness of your map, it is
>>> amazing, but I'm just making a point here).
>>>
>>> That said, this does not necessarily mean that the foundation has
>>> to devote huge amounts of resources to achieve this. There are
>>> certainly a lot of low-cost, high-impact projects it could
>>> support, such as setting up micro-grants to support mapping
>>> initiatives in the developing world; partnering with companies to
>>> provide hand-held GPS units (ex. Garmin) and laptops (ex. One
>>> Laptop Per Child) to mappers in those countries; working with
>>> microfinance organizations in those countries to expand the use of
>>> OSM in the field; asking OSM mappers from the developed world to
>>> donate their old GPS units when they upgrade; setting up challenge/
>>> matching grant programs to encourage the OSM community itself to
>>> support some of these initiatives; etc., etc. My point is that
>>> the cost need not be extravagant in order to achieve real and
>>> significant results.
>>>
>>> As those of us that attended SOtM saw, there are a lot of folks
>>> doing amazing work in their home countries with access to
>>> literally one or two GPS units, imagine what could be done if we
>>> can provide some of these mappers with additional resources! The
>>> foundation needs to by servers to allow for the massive amounts of
>>> detail in OSM, I understand that, but give people a reason to feel
>>> good about contributing to the map and they will participate. If
>>> they think their contribution to the map is only going to make
>>> private companies and developers wealthy, where's the incentive?
>>>
>>> My two cents,
>>>
>>> Rafael Morales
>>> San Francisco, CA
>>>
>>> From: Nick Black <nick at blacksworld.net>
>>> To: Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>
>>> Cc: osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
>>> Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 10:00:29 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [Osmf-talk] OSMF and evangelism (was: Conflict of
>>> interest)
>>>
>>>
>>> On 30 Jul 2009, at 16:28, Frederik Ramm wrote:
>>>
>>> > Hi,
>>> >
>>> > This is developing into a nice discussion on the very question
>>> of what
>>> > OSMF should be and what it shouldn't. I wish we had had this
>>> long ago.
>>>
>>> Agree :-)
>>>
>>>
>>> >
>>> > Nick Black wrote:
>>> >> I want a project that actively goes out,
>>> >> finds mappers who don't know they are mappers yet and helps them
>>> >> learn
>>> >> how to map.
>>> >
>>> > Nice if individuals do this - but it cannot be, in my eyes, the
>>> job of
>>> > OSMF. We (OSMF) are not there to preach to the world about the
>>> > goodness
>>> > of OSM. We are not there to carry OSM into countries that are not
>>> > interested.
>>>
>>> Just because someone hasn't heard of us doesn't make them not
>>> interested. Its up to all of us to evangelize our community to the
>>> world.
>>>
>>>
>>> > We are not in the business of selling OSM to the world.
>>>
>>> I think we are :-)
>>>
>>> > If
>>> > there are places where OSM doesn't work as good as it could,
>>> then our
>>> > natural reaction should be to just wait until they're ready rather
>>> > than
>>> > spending time and money to inseminate them with something that
>>> didn't
>>> > come to them naturally. (You of all people should know that this
>>> is a
>>> > difficult undertaking at the very least.)
>>>
>>> I think this attitude is completely at odds with what OSM is all
>>> about. If Steve had sat around waiting for everyone in the UK to
>>> realize that there were better ways for people to make and share
>>> maps,
>>> where would we be. I can safely say that I would not have invented
>>> OSM myself - I'm incredibly glad that someone came to me and told me
>>> about OSM. The same argument can be made for any of the big
>>> contributions to OSM.
>>>
>>> Surely all the guys in Germany who got a leaflet through their
>>> door of
>>> in their pizza box are glad that someone took the time to reach out
>>> for them and we're glad that they are now contributing the project.
>>>
>>> The point of spending time and money is a good one though. The
>>> OSM-F
>>> needs to look at how best to spend its funds.
>>>
>>> >
>>> > We, OSMF, are in the business of helping OSMers reach *their*
>>> goals -
>>> > but it is *them* who set these goals, not us.
>>> >
>>> >> A project that helps as many people as possible join the fun.
>>> >
>>> > No, not really my thinking. Once they knock on our door and
>>> *want* to
>>> > join the fun - yes. But I don't see *us* knocking on doors to tell
>>> > people how great OSM is.
>>>
>>> But how do they find us? And what if our door is actually the
>>> drawbridge of a medieval castle. The castle is gleaming in the
>>> sunlight, but getting through the doorway is too intimidating.
>>> That's
>>> the way OSM and the OSM-F appear to a lot of people. Even the
>>> sign-up
>>> process for the OSM-F scare the life out of a some people and plain
>>> confuses others. I want OSM to lower its drawbridge, go out into
>>> the
>>> villages and share the feast :-)
>>>
>>> >
>>> >> When you've got great news isn't it natural to want to share it
>>> with
>>> >> people?
>>> >
>>> > Too much PR speak for my taste.
>>>
>>> ^ see above for PR speak ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>> > *If* OSM project members want to go out
>>> > and share their good news with the world - all right, it's
>>> something I
>>> > do all the time. If someone comes to OSMF and says "I'm a lone
>>> mapper
>>> > here in Kenya and can you help me to get some leaflets printed"
>>> - I
>>> > wouldn't hesitate for a moment to allocate funds and find people
>>> to
>>> > help
>>> > him. But that's where I draw the line. If I see that the map in
>>> Kenya
>>> > leaves things to be desired, I would *not* want OSMF to allocate
>>> funds
>>> > to go search for people we can send to Kenya to improve mapping
>>> there,
>>> > or whatever.
>>>
>>> Ok, there's a source of mis-understanding perhaps. What I would
>>> advocate - and I'm being quite serious - is that we reach out to a
>>> few
>>> Kenyan mappers (there are some on the OSM Dev list for example) and
>>> see if they need any help. The Foundation could sponsor some of the
>>> lead mappers to attend SOTM. The Foundation could develop an
>>> educational syllabus for Kenyan university students so that they can
>>> use OSM data and OSM tools in the classroom. The Foundation could
>>> put
>>> its support behind renderings of the map in Swahili, or provide
>>> money
>>> so that Kenyan mappers can host tile servers in Nairobi, rather than
>>> pulling tiles from the OSM London tile server - and suffering from
>>> terrible latency.
>>>
>>> All of this, I believe, is in the roll of the OSM Foundation. Maybe
>>> not today, but in the future.
>>>
>>> >
>>> > I believe the OSMF must be a catalyst - helping out where OSM
>>> project
>>> > members are active and ask for help. Also, if we go away from the
>>> > regional thinking into thematic areas: If there are some people
>>> in the
>>> > community who say "we should really do a hacking weekend to get X
>>> > done",
>>> > and they ask OSMF for help in organising the event or perhaps
>>> stepping
>>> > in for some of the travel costs or whatever - good idea. I would
>>> not
>>> > want OSMF, however, to try and second guess, or even lead, the
>>> project
>>> > ("we really think the community should work more on X so let's
>>> sponsor
>>> > them a hacking weekend they haven't asked for").
>>>
>>> I agree that the OSM-F should be community lead - absolutely. So we
>>> should offer support to the events you describe. But I don't think
>>> giving a talk to the Nairobi Linux Users Group is trying to second
>>> guess the community at all. Its what OSM is all about.
>>>
>>>
>>> >
>>> > OSMF can afford to let the community lead and simply follow
>>> whereever
>>> > they go. A business couldn't, or at least would be expected to
>>> be more
>>> > in control than OSMF ever has to be.
>>>
>>> There's a big difference between leading and controlling. I don't
>>> think the OSM-F should control. I do think it should lead, but be
>>> lead by the community.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Nick
>>>
>>> >
>>> > Bye
>>> > Frederik
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Frederik Ramm ## eMail frederik at remote.org ## N49°00'09"
>>> > E008°23'33"
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > osmf-talk mailing list
>>> > osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
>>> > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>>>
>>> --
>>> Nick Black
>>> twitter.com/nick_b
>>> nick at blacksworld.net
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
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>>
>> --
>> Nick Black
>> twitter.com/nick_b
>> nick at blacksworld.net
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> osmf-talk mailing list
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>> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>
--
Nick Black
twitter.com/nick_b
nick at blacksworld.net
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