[Osmf-talk] Nomination for Board

[Eugene Usvitsky]

Hello everyone!

I'm announcing my intent to run for the OSMF Board.

I've been with the project for almost 4 years now, first contributing
anonymously and then as a registered user since February 2008. During
that time I've seen Russian community growing from several dozens of
people to over 7000 members. I took an active part in this process,
explaining and promoting the project, buying openstreetmap.ru domain
name and running website for OSM newbies there. I've started the
discussion with satellite imagery provider Scanex which eventually
lead to close collaboration with it and donation of more than 5
million square kilometers of 6 m IRS imagery. I served as a contact
person during Rambler Internet holdings hardware donation negotiation
between it and OSMF Board.

I rather quickly (in 2009) became a member of OSMF believing that it
will help the project grow. Since the first days of Strategic Working
Group work I took part in it and now I'm one of 3 people who are
actively preparing a new version of Articles of Association.

As a member of Board, I will support the following:
- OSM long-term strategy creation and implementation
The project needs to find its place in developing neogeography area to
stay successful. Most activities in the OSM community are more related
to fun like mapping, inventing new tags or coding than to the success
of the project itself. While the OpenStreetMap project attracts more
and more users, most activities are not compared against a long-term
strategy. The vision, mission and values of the project need to be
distilled and transformed into words so they could serve as guideline
for short- and mid-term decisions as well as inspire even more people
to join the OpenStreetMap project as active contributors.

- lowering entry barriers for new members and users, improving
communication between existing
This well-known problem is still here and there's no need to describe
it. In order to let the project live well we need to do a lot: explain
license for potential data users, improve software, provide more
information. But besides that, we need better support of community
projects and communication between them and we need to support local
chapters and non-English-speaking communities in general.

- making OSMF an important and recognized representative of the project
Since more and more people are using OSM, someone needs to be its
representative and contact person. Obviously, OSMF serves as such
organization. It has to negotiate new data donations with governments
and imagery providers, provide 24/7/365-working hardware, do a lot of
other administrative work and be transparent at the same time. What is
also important, it has to protect OSM data in potential case of
license violation. THis amount of tasks can be fulfilled only by hired
staff. Hiring staff makes OSMF management more easier and at the same
time gives additional expertise in problem areas.

I would like to thank Henk Hoff for his support of my nomination.

Good luck to everyone!

Best wishes,
Eugene.