[Osmf-talk] Death and evolution

[Simon Poole]

Am 26.09.2014 18:38, schrieb Clifford Snow:
>
> On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 7:45 AM, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch
> <mailto:simon at poole.ch>> wrote:
>
>     In the past two years the OSMF has not received a single funding
>     request, project proposal or similar. In my book that doesn't really
>     amount to trying hard at all.
>
>
> Doesn't the lack of a single funding request raise some concern? Have
> we asked why? Do we have barriers that we are not even aware of?

As I wrote this is not new and I've pointed it out here before.

Obviously we could only fund very small projects without going outside
either for specific donations, or getting funding from an outside source.

For a typical company there is likely no real benefit in funnelling such
funds through the OSMF, but if an individual developer has this killer
idea, at least asking the OSMF would not seem to be very outlandish.
 
>
> I agree with Pawel. There is obviously a need for development as shown
> by the success of iD. Why didn't we fund that project?

Because MapBox already had secured funds to do something in that
direction? I would have found it very difficult to argue for a parallel
development out of spite, in the end MB built on something that had
already been started by the community so the question did not arise .
Don't forget that this goes back more than two years.

And I would further note that we actually have a deployed new editor,
something the "other way of doing things" aka the WMF has not yet
managed to pull off yet.


> We complain about Mapbox, yet what have we done?

Zverik was complaining about MapBox, not "we". Historically large parts
of OSMs central system software has been written by developers employed
by companies in the OSM ecosystem, no change there, the main difference
is that MapBox's marketing is better.

> Having an active Board that sets direction with clear goals to me is a
> preferred to the current state of evolution.
You forget that there are people from many different cultural
backgrounds that participate in OSM, many do not subscribe to your
specific wishes.


>
> I think a number of us are looking for candidates to step forward to
> lead OSM.
See above.

> Recent emails point to challenges that OSMF should be tackling, such
> as diversity.

OSM is, by its very nature, a very diverse project with people
participating around the world with very many different cultural
backgrounds, descent and value systems (of which the English speaking
part of the community is only a small minority).

OSM is at its best when the contributors are real locals and not
helicoptered in. Given that, it is only enlightened self-interest to
keep any barriers to entry as low as reasonably possible.  We are not
perfect and the likely very low female participation (~3%) implies that
we are not tapping in to the largest potential source of contributors. I
would suggest studying the publications on
http://cartography.tuwien.ac.at/fem2map/  yourself on barriers to
participation in OSM and not rely on third hand interpretations.

> Instead of waiting for for profit corporations to develop tools, we
> fund that development. 
>
I don't think "waiting" characterizes the situation correctly, there is
a number of essentially finished developments in the queue for
integration that have bunched up a bit due to reasons not directly
related to developing the features. In any case for-profits,
non-profits, individual and groups can all contribute on the same terms
and do. And while just a gut feeling, I suspect that we never have had
such a wide contributor base to the core systems as we have now. 

Simon


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20140926/4ab6ff71/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 473 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20140926/4ab6ff71/attachment.sig>