[Osmf-talk] TomTom and OSM

[Steve Coast]

Hi

Running for the OSMF was entirely my decision and I didn’t ask permission from anyone.

Steve

________________________________
From: Eugene Alvin Villar <seav80 at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 6, 2019 11:28:14 AM
To: Steve Coast <steve at stevecoast.com>; OSMF Talk <osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: TomTom and OSM

Hi Steve,

I would like to know more about your relationship with TomTom and the company's role with respect to OSM.

In your answers to questions and your manifesto, you never mentioned that you are currently employed as a VP at TomTom since April 2019. And in your answer to the CoI question, you also never mentioned anything about any potential conflicts of interest with TomTom.

I am curious about this. While TomTom is generally known as a manufacturer of GPS devices similar to Garmin, TomTom is also nominally a competitor of OSM ever since they bought Tele Atlas (one of the two commercial providers of global mapping data together with Navteq and before Google Maps entered the market) for €2.9 billion back in 2007-2008. Tele Atlas is now a subsidiary known as TomTom Maps[1]. TomTom has even acknowledged OSM as a competitor back in 2012 when they released an article[2] disparaging open source maps (in other words, OSM) for being unreliable, incomplete, and dangerous. (Richard Fairhurst then wrote a response saying TomTom is peddling in FUD[3].)

So what changed? Is TomTom now embracing OSM? After you joined TomTom, two other former OSMF Board members have since joined TomTom: Martijn van Exel in June[4] and Matt Amos in July[5]. In addition, TomTom became a minor sponsor of State of the Map US this year[6]. I do not believe that you, Martijn, and Matt would actually do anything against OSM's best interest so my only conclusion is that TomTom is quietly embracing OSM. Can you confirm if this is the case?

Whatever the case, I do think that TomTom being the parent company of TomTom Maps still presents a potential, if not clear, conflict of interest between your employer and OSM.

Regards,
Eugene


[1] https://www.tomtommaps.com/
[2] http://web.archive.org/web/20120528113811/http://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/licensing/newsletter/201205/didyouknow/
[3] http://blog.systemed.net/post/2
[4] https://www.linkedin.com/in/mvexel
[5] https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-amos-94175ba0
[6] https://twitter.com/sotmus/status/1168540837426470912
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