[Osmf-talk] What is the OSMF?

Tom Chance tom at acrewoods.net
Mon Oct 1 13:54:47 UTC 2012


A poll sounds simple, but what question would you pose? Would people be
able to agree on what the result actually meant?

One might just say that the members recently elected members to the Board,
each of whom made their views about the purpose of the OSMF quite clear. A
prominent laissez faire person topped the elections this time around.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/AGM12/Election_to_Board#Candidates_and_results

There has never been - much to be disappointment - a strong majority of
OSMF members calling for a more proactive approach, nor for a more formal
democratic structure to avoid endless discussions that go in circles.

Given the preference for a do-ocracy, I'd suggest you get on and start your
consortium.

Regards,
Tom


On 1 October 2012 12:55, Mikel Maron <mikel_maron at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Yes, another model is to federate. And communities are not only local ...
> they can be thematic like HOT (which has worked well representing OSM in
> the humanitarian communities).
>
> But we still need to set up a structure. Local Chapters were discussed
> forever. There were a lot of legal questions, and a lot of opinions about
> how the OSMF and chapters relate. In the end, the actual relationship
> between OSMF and other local chapter organizations got increasingly
> minimalized, nothing much binding, just a recognition. So still a lot of
> work to do to define this.
>
> But if that's the way the OSMF _seriously_ starts to go, great. Then I'd
> advocate starting something like an OSM Trade Consortium (or something
> similarly dull sounding :)
>
> * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Daniel Kastl <daniel at georepublic.de>
> *To:* Mikel Maron <mikel_maron at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* "osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org" <osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, October 1, 2012 1:46 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Osmf-talk] What is the OSMF?
>
> HI Mikel,
>
> I think there are quite a few people who prefer the "minimal" of OSMF.
> Well, I have no strong opinion about this.
>
> But in my opinion OSMF (or what you propose) doesn't need to be so much
> "centralized" organization. Because often centralized means based in
> North-America or Europe with often the same people involved. That's not
> only the case for OSM but for many open source projects as well. And there
> are reason for this, for example the language barrier.
>
> There are "global" cases like Apple, but most promotion is done locally:
> local communities in France, Germany, Japan, Philippines, etc. do a lot or
> promotion and are quite successful, I think. So better let local chapters
> act on behalf of OSMF and help them if they need support.
>
> Daniel
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 8:08 PM, Mikel Maron <mikel_maron at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Thinking about this more broadly, there are clearly two main positions
> about the role of OSMF, the laissez-faire and the proactive. There's
> definitely a more sensible reality in between, but the discussion of
> anything in particular polarizes the outlooks.
>
> I'd really like to know what we really think. But we have no way of
> understanding our own views on this systematically. No way to survey
> membership, or an agreed strategy. It would be great to have these
> processes.
>
> But perhaps we should just accept the OSMF is what it is. Minimal
> organization to legally and technically hold OSM resources.
>
> And start another organization, with a real mandate to promote OSM. Maybe
> one among businesses, another governments. Just a thought.
>
> * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron
>
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>
> *To:* Mark Iliffe <mark at markiliffe.co.uk>
> *Cc:* osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
> *Sent:* Monday, October 1, 2012 11:49 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [Osmf-talk] a receding opportunity
>
> Hi,
>
> On 10/01/12 11:38, Mark Iliffe wrote:
> > It would all be too easy for an inquisitive journalist to start to look
> > deeper - "Maybe Apple was good, the data is at fault...". We can't talk
> > for the other data users, but we can speak for ourselves, not doing so
> > just seems the wrong thing to do. In that we could also help prevent
> > minor licence violations in future.
>
> I didn't want to write a posting that said we should remain silent about
> anything. If it came across like that then it was a mistake.
>
> I was arguing against any special or even proactive treatment of Apple by
> ourselves. Mikel sounded as if he wanted to invest time in investigative
> work: What does Apple do exactly, how could we perhaps help them, they may
> not talk to us but if we try hard enough maybe we can pry open some kind of
> channel to them.
>
> Whereas my position is: We're here, we're listening, but if you don't
> wanna talk then you don't have to. That's why I mentioned the license;
> unlike with commercial geodata, where I'm pretty sure someone like Apple
> will talk to those they buy data from before using it, Apple is within
> their rights to take our data and not talk to us if they so please.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> -- Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09"
> E008°23'33"
>
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>
> --
> Georepublic UG & Georepublic Japan
> eMail: daniel.kastl at georepublic.de
> Web: http://georepublic.de/
>
>
>
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-- 
http://tom.acrewoods.net   http://twitter.com/tom_chance
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