[Osmf-talk] Losing faith

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 5:09 AM, Oliver Kühn <oliver.kuehn at skobbler.com> wrote:

> 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 leads to the fact that too much energy is
> put in "dealing with ourselves" rather than looking outwards and fight and
> outperform our competition from Google and co.

Oliver,

I agree with your sentiment entirely and have been saying for years
that OSMF needs to evolve its role and take a more active role in the
community. That said, instead of calling him out, we Steve (and any
others) , who are clearly frustrated with the changes, to work in this
 new environment. For Steve especially this must be a difficult time,
moving from active community leader to elder statesman. But it's clear
from your email that you understand this situation intuitively and can
help Steve make the transition more smoothly than what's happening
now.

In other words, I applaud your efforts and see the role for folks like
yourself, who are close to Steve, and see the needs of the project
clearly to help him work through these issues and help smooth out
these growing pains for Steve's evolving role in the community.

Thanks again for your hard work and clear passion for both OSM as it
was, and in the direction its progressing.

- Serge