[Osmf-talk] false Microsoft "big dollars" rumour

Jaak Laineste jaak at nutiteq.com
Tue Apr 10 06:24:05 UTC 2012


Hi,
 I second Kate on creating a list of last 3 year major corporate supporters to http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donations page, and possibly making press release about it. So it would be not direct reaction to bad press (which is hopeless) but positive thank-you message, which has couple of extra values: invites also other big corporates to support OSM and demonstrates that we have no other secret corporate supporters who just use OSM as a tool to promote their own bigcorp. 

Something like:
|Name | Year | Donation type | Amount | Specifics |
|Microsoft | 2010 | Data | Access to Bing aerial imagery | none |
|Yahoo | 2006-2011 | Data | Access to aerial imagery | none |
|Mapquest | 2011 | Monetary | 40000 USD | Sponsorship of SOTM and OSMF |
|ESRI | 2012 | ...
|CloudMade | 2009, 2008 | ... |SOTM|
...

See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funding as sample

Jaak

On 10.04.2012, at 6:19, Kate Chapman wrote:

> All,
> 
> Honestly, how many times of your seen a news article that is right
> about anything you are intimately involved?  Heck has anyone given
> "big dollars" to OpenStreetMap really?
> 
> I think it is important to balance the importance of being right, but
> also not make it appear that OpenStreetMap is a hostile environment
> for companies to actually help.  Maybe a more positive approach would
> be to list donors/supporters somewhere (if this doesn't already
> exist)?
> 
> -Kate
> 
> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 8:02 PM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> 
>> On 04/10/2012 12:11 AM, Steve Coast wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> "OSMF has not received any donations or support, monetary or
>>>> otherwise, from Microsoft" (adorned with language that says of
>>>> course the community is thankful for their imagery and that of
>>>> course were they offer money we'd gladly take it etc etc)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> That's not the case. Microsoft sponsored SOTM 2011. Microsoft also
>>> hosted the OSMF in-person board meeting in, I think, November?
>> 
>> 
>> Right. But these don't really justify the press speaking of "big dollars".
>> So maybe our announcement should be that we haven't received, or been
>> promised, anything in 2012.
>> 
>> 
>>> Responding to every press article is sub-optimal.
>> 
>> 
>> I agree. I wouldn't have brought up the matter if this had been an isolated
>> incident. Sadly, as soon as one of the big players is involved, the press
>> seem to be even more careless than they usually are, in their frantic bid to
>> be the first to report about "Microsoft's secret weapon" or whatever they
>> make up.
>> 
>> A one-paragraph blog posting that explains our relationship with Microsoft
>> would really help to clear this up.
>> 
>> Bye
>> Frederik
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"
>> 
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> 
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