[Osmf-talk] Commitment to open communication channels

[Tobias Knerr]

On 16.08.20 22:58, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> To me this seems to reaffirm something we're already doing at present,
> rather than change anything. Am I correct or would such a commitment
> mean that something would change as a result?

According to working groups' responses and in my own experience, we are
by and large already practising this. WGs have mentioned some peripheral
room for improvement (CWG is working on mirroring some content onto open
microblogging platforms, for example), but this certainly isn't intended
to bring about any kind of major shift in how we do things.

Personally, I hope this commitment can offer reassurance that our use of
open platforms is not an accident, and will continue to be something we
care about. With a few proprietary OSM channels gaining prominence over
the past years, this has been a concern for some people, e.g. during
last year's community survey and in conversations at OSM events. I don't
want OSM contributors who forgo proprietary platforms to feel like they
are missing out.

As an additional benefit, this step makes some of the reasons behind our
current practices explicit (to help people understand why we're doing
things the way we do), and perhaps it can inspire other groups inside
and outside the OSM ecosystem to follow along.