[Osmf-talk] seeking feedback on needs summary

[Mikel Maron]

To avoid having to mess around with Google Docs permissions, I'm pasting in the text below.




1.    Organization purpose
OpenStreetMap is a 5 year old open initiative to create and provide free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them.


The OpenStreetMap Foundation is an international non-profit organisation supporting but not
controlling the project. It is dedicated to encouraging the growth,
development and distribution of free geospatial data and to providing
geospatial data for anybody to use and share.

2.    Anticipated social impact
Geographic
data underlies almost every activity on Earth. OpenStreetMap is aimed
to be as big or bigger than Wikipedia in this regard. An open,
up-to-date map available to all for zero cost. This will both
revolutionalise access to such information and the mapping industry
itself.

Specific instances include the response to Haiti
earthquake, in which OSM's voluntarily collected data became the base
map for the relief effort by all actors, from UN to NGOs to civil
society. OSM has impacted government policy towards data, such as
data.gov.uk, and wide interest in OSM in US federal government (to name
just two). In the technology world, OSM underlies hundreds of iPhone
Apps, and is in and supported by startups and established
organizations. Some of the most celebrated and boundary pushing web
applications are based on OSM, such as http://oakland.crimespotting.org/ and http://opencyclemap.org/. People
who have never before been involved in map data collection now have
accessible means to represent themselves on the map, such as http://mapkibera.org.


3.    Brief overview of the following:•    Problem organization is trying to solve

Map
data is globally out of date, expensive and proprietary. OpenStreetMap
is designed to create Free geographic data, support communities and
individuals interested in it's creation and to scale up it's use to new
communities.

•    Solution (describe value proposition)

OpenStreetMap
is as its name implies open. The unique solution it embodies mirrors
wikis in that any individual or organisation from it's 230,000 member
(and growing exponentially) userbase anywhere can contribute, edit and
fix map data anywhere on Earth using the simplest open source tools
possible.

•    Why now (e.g. what trends make this the right time for this solution)?

With
the advent of cheap off-the-shelf GPS units and loosely licensed aerial
imagery, the creation of open maps becomes possible by citizen
cartographers from Kansas to Kenya. With GPS accuracy restricted in the
past and lack of open source tools and a strong internet ecosystem
OpenStreetMap would not have been possible. Today, with over 200,000
users around the world, OSM is on the verge of critical mass in it's
mission to map the world for Free.

•    Market Opportunity

Today,
maps are made in a traditional manner by employing many people to drive
around in cars loaded with computers and GPS equipment. This is slow,
expensive and a logistical problem. The high costs created a barrier to
entry and a duopoly in the form of NavTeq and TeleAtlas based on
top-down ideas and expensive hard-to-obtain licensing models, much like
the encyclopedias of yesteryear. OpenStreetMap similarly to Wikipedia
is the wind of change in this industry, threatening to turn the very
data collection mechanisms and licensing models on their head, removing
the value from the maps themselves and up the value chain to services
and more based on those maps.

Outside of the western
world where maps are hard to find and out of date when found,
OpenStreetMap is becoming the base map of choice simply because it's
faster, better and cheaper to create than a traditional map. This is
happening everywhere from Haiti to Georgia to the Philippines.

•    Competition, competitive advantage

OpenStreetMap
is unrestricted by old business models, proprietary software,
proprietary data and only allowing 'professionals' to create maps. By
removing these barriers OpenStreetMap is able to create a more up to
date map that is deeper and broader than current non-profit or
commercial offerings. By being open and 'getting out of the way of the
people', OpenStreetMap does not need expensive infrastructure (hundreds
of trucks, thousands of employees) and thus backward licensing of the
data to support that infrastructure. Thus the maps are low-cost (Free)
and by relying on crowd-sourcing are generally more up to date and
higher in quality that commercial maps.
•    Product/service description

OpenStreetMap
at its core is an open, full history database of geographic information
that anyone can contribute to, and use. A simple Application
Programming Interface, simple tagging scheme, and frequent full
database dumps, have contributed to a very large ecosystem of open
source, and proprietary, data editors, visualization tools, routing
engines, and mobile applications. These new tool sets have pioneered
new techniques in map data collection (http://walking-papers.org/), and
made map making much more accessible to non-experts. 

Around
this technical infrastructure, OSM employs communication tools like
wikis, mailing lists, and IRC to support the community. Unlike many
online communities, OSM contributors often meet in person, at mapping
parties, conferences, and other events, building a very strong social
network. It could be said that the success of OSM is entirely due to
the passion of thousands of people who dedicate their spare time and
sometimes entire careers, to the pursuit of creating free geographic
data.

•    Business model


OpenStreetMap is a
not-for-profit focused on the core mission of creating and maintaining
open map data. That said, much like the availability of Linux and the
software stacks around it this leads to many opportunities for
companies to monetise the data. Many companies have been set up to do
this such as CloudMade, Geofabrik and ITO World. Loosely, these
companies are analogous to RedHat which packaged and maintained Linux
distributions. In the same way, OpenStreetMap data while Free itself
gains value when hosted on the internet in specific colors, projections
and formats in a reliable QC/QA'd way. These companies and many more to
follow them provide those services.

Beyond the immediate
services they provide, many hundreds of their customers and others who
use OpenStreetMap data directly benefit from the map. Many iPhone
applications which use maps base their service on OpenStreetMap. This
is because the map is more up to date, zero in price and on far better
licensing terms than traditional maps allow.
•    Team


The
OpenStreetMap Foundation consists of a UK-based non-profit with a
volunteer, elected, 7-person Board. The OSMF maintains ownership of the
infrastructure such as servers, trademarks and domain names. Its
vibrant community of circa 300 members comprise interested individuals
from all over the world who represent the very core of OpenStreetMap.
The membership vote on all activities from electing board members,
helping with licensing issues to choosing the logo for the Foundation.

Beyond
this core there are the tens of thousands of contributors around the
world. These are divided in to a typical long-tail distribution of many
thousands editing on an active basis and many more who are less active,
as seen in most large web communities. These individuals most obviously
help complete and maintain the map data, however a core of perhaps 20
individuals help build, fix and maintain the software and hardware
stacks which OpenStreetMap relies on to function.

4.    Use of proceedsOpenStreetMap
is on the threshold of extremely rapid growth. We are nearing 235,000
registered users, and 12,500 users contributing every month, and if the
past few years exponential increase continues, we could see over 1
million registered users by the end of 2010. The project is gaining
wide attention in the media, and in governmental circles, attracting
the interest of new kinds of communities in new places. We must prepare
to scale up to meet this increase.

OpenStreetMap is a volunteer
community. We have no forgone conclusions on what funding might cover,
or if it's absolutely necessary, so the details here are only a rough
sketch of things. These are things we'd like to do, may or may not
require additional resources, but certainly do require coordination and
time. The process of thinking about OSM growth and the potential
resources and advice available to us, this process is essential as we
bootstrap into a more responsive organization.

Our technical
infrastructure is solid, but will need to grow ... more servers, larger
hosting capacity. The core software platform is maintained by
volunteers, but may need support. And our heroic sysadmin crew will
certainly need to grow.

Much of OSM's community comes from the
open source and other technical communities. Non-techies often do climb
the learning curve, but contribution to OSM certainly does remain
beyond the reach of many. We have great need to invest in the user
experience of OSM. Our documentation and training materials need work
to be accessible in new communities. Efforts to introduce the
OpenStreetMap approach into government may need considerable
investment. Curriculum development could rapidly increase uptake in
academia. Many parts of the world face considerable social and economic
challenges which may require focused efforts. Local chapters may need
assistance in their own OSM advocacy strategy and projects.
Communication between dispersed parts of this global project can
benefit from more facilitation and outreach.

The OSM Foundation
itself has grappled with many organizational questions, and the Board
and Foundation membership overloaded with duties. Much of the
constitution of the Foundation needs examination. Legal questions arise
often. Financial questions arise often. OSMF can well benefit from
advice and support to build an organization capable of handling the
coming growth, and effectively disperse responsibility.


5.    Major risksThere
are no signs today, however, the large community of volunteers may one
day show signs of fatigue and stop mapping. So far as a place gets
mapped (say roads and buildings) our volunteers only map more, in
greater depth (for example points of interest, address data) rather
than moving on to other projects. There is of course churn in the
userbase, however we believe OSM will continue to grow successfully.


Based
on OpenStreetMap's success some commercial entities have built similar
but flawed competitors. Google have built MapMaker - a way for
volunteers to help build and update Google Maps. This is a controlled
community, restricted in what and how it can edit and with data
released back only under a very draconian non-profit license. Similarly
the startup waze is doing essentially the same thing, releasing a free
GPS navigation app for phones which allows users to edit the map.
However, the data here too is closed and the methods of editing and
community interaction are severely limited. These may provide
competition for the attention of mappers, and thus draw them away from
OSM however the core motivation of many OSMers is not met by creating
another proprietary map database.
OpenStreetMap is hosted for
free by a London university. This infrastructure consists of tens of
computers which draw space, power and bandwidth. There is no known
reason why this hosting would stop, however at some point in the future
we may be asked to move on.
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