[Osmf-talk] do-ocracy and volunteering (was: OSMF & Video Chat | Re: Next OSMF board meeting on Friday 17 April 2020, at 17:00 London time)
Allan Mustard
allan at mustard.net
Fri Apr 17 15:19:50 UTC 2020
The fact that emergency services now use online maps generated from OSM
data to respond to fire, police, and ambulance calls is a strong
indication that OSM is more than only a hobby at this point. Yes, it is
a hobby, still, but not exclusively or purely.
On 4/17/2020 11:05 AM, Mikel Maron wrote:
> > Corporate involvement in OSM is a fact of life. OSM has evolved
> away from only being a hobby for craft mappers dependent on cast-off
> equipment into something else.
>
> I know I keep repeating myself on this point Allan. Companies and
> organizations have been a part of OSM since practically day 1. There’s
> been evolution and major growth, but not ever from a pure hobby endeavor.
>
> Mikel
>
> On Friday, April 17, 2020, 10:50 AM, Allan Mustard <allan at mustard.net>
> wrote:
>
> Christoph, by that logic nobody should use the iD editor, OSM's
> default editor (and I suspect most used editor), which has been
> heavily supported by private companies. By that logic we should
> also reject corporate sponsorship of tile caches.
>
> Corporate involvement in OSM is a fact of life. OSM has evolved
> away from only being a hobby for craft mappers dependent on
> cast-off equipment into something else. We can ignore that
> evolution at our peril, or we can seek to deal with the evolution,
> retaining as much of the spirit of individual do-ocracy as
> possible while acknowledging that corporate involvement is not
> going to go away.
>
> One other point--the corporations have made clear in my
> conversations with them that local knowledge from volunteer
> mappers is the key to the value of OSM to them, and they therefore
> have no interest in "taking over" the project or indeed in
> activities that would discourage local craft mappers. Some of
> them are in fact supporting local communities of volunteer mappers
> in Asia. I believe the threat to OSM emanates not from the
> corporations supporting us now, but rather from external actors
> who either view OSM as a competitor or simply may want ownership
> of the current very valuable data without concern for potentially
> damaging or killing the project. I do not believe it is useful
> for us to denigrate our current corporate sponsors and supporters,
> who appear to grok OSM, while ignoring more realistic potential
> threats.
>
> apm
>
> On 4/17/2020 6:28 AM, Christoph Hormann wrote:
>> On Thursday 16 April 2020, Rory McCann wrote:
>>> OSM is a do-ocracy. 😉 FOSSGIS (or others) hasn't set up or arranged
>>> an alternative. We have one option. Ergo that options wins. 😉😉
>> I am sorry for drifting a bit off-topic in this thread - but the above
>> indicates potentially a rather problematic mixing of two things that do
>> not mix well. I am not sure if this is meant ironically - but to make
>> sure, even if it is, that it is not widely read and taken at face
>> value - the following comment.
>>
>> OSM can in the long term only work as a do-ocracy as far as volunteer
>> work of individual independent volunteers is concerned. Mixing in
>> organized and especially corporate activity into the do-ocratic domain
>> would destabilize the whole thing. A company like Google could
>> essentially take over the project by donating sufficient manpower and
>> resources if do-ocratic principles are interpreted to apply to
>> organized and corporate activities as well.
>>
>> People are much less likely to volunteer their personal time and
>> resources if they see these being just used and purely valued as a
>> cheap substitute for commercial services. Saying: "We take whatever
>> option is offered to us according to 'Einem geschenkten Gaul schaut man
>> nicht ins Maul' and - should that fail at some point we will take money
>> to buy a substitute" is much less likely to motivate volunteers than
>> saying "We use this commercial service for testing now but in the long
>> term we would rather use and depend on volunteer provided and managed
>> services - even if that means we cannot just use our checkbook to make
>> them do what we want them to do".
>>
>> Again - this comment is not meant to criticize what has been done, it is
>> meant to raise problem awareness for the future.
>>
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