[Osmf-talk] Losing faith

[Richard Fairhurst]

On 16/01/2013 10:09, Oliver Kühn wrote:
> (2) There are long-standing people who are very active in OSM. Those who
> made OpenStreetMap what it is today. However, some of these people seem
> to have tried to escape the real world and find "their" world in the OSM
> project - with the intentions to find a world of real democracy,
> politics-free, competition-free, free of bad habits of big corporations
> - an isolated world that is much better than the real world.
>
> And instead of adapting to current situation, accepting that competition
> has evolved for volunteers in the mapping space from Google and co and
> therefore trying to improve an environment for volunteering mappers and
> map data users at the same time - these people fight for keeping the
> organization as they found it in the beginning.

This is an idée fixe shared by yourself and Steve, but is not anchored 
in any reality.

The entire reason this brouhaha has sprung up is that CWG is aiming to 
give OpenStreetMap a _more_ professional, outward-facing social media 
presence, with a consistent message that appeals to new mappers, and 
helps us compete on equal terms the slick PR of Google Map Maker and 
Waze. The 2013 campaign that was being planned at Monday's CWG meeting 
is another example of this. (Replacing Potlatch as the default editor 
with something more user-friendly is yet another.)

To describe this as "keeping the organization as they found it in the 
beginning" stretches credulity.

Richard