[OSM-talk-be] On Wheels

[Pieter-Jan Pauwels]

Hey guys, as a OpenStreetMap admirer and community manager by heart I want to say this:

As somebody who is also completely dependent on project financing and subsidizing: Aside from questioning their ethics we need to consider their motivational grounds for not using OSM at this point. From a practical perspective, using OSM is a no brainer. From a project perspective OSM could ruin their financial non-profit model. 

Just watch the website and see that they have multiple commercial sponsors, they probably have had some subsidies as well to make this project happen. I’ve heard on news stories that they need to have a deliverable (an app) by April. That means they have clear goals and deliverables they promised and need to deliver to one or more partners. Maybe they even promised a sustainable business model after the release (eg. selling the app). 

This is a lot of pressure for a young organisation like themselves and if then some organisation comes round and says: Hey, we have been doing the same thing, for free, with no sponsors, but more volunteers than you can even imagine. That’s not what they need to hear. Granted that, they should have done their homework, and should know about wheelmap.org and OpenStreetMap Belgium in the first place. 

So before we start taking out the pitchforks and scream 'stop monetising crowdsourcing', let’s us approach them in an inviting way. See if we can help them in any way and see what their endgame is. Maybe we’ll not be able to help them in short term, but we’ll have a friend organisation and new ambassadors in the long run. 

Just me two cents…

Kind regards,
Pieter-Jan
	
Pieter-Jan Pauwels
Community Coordinator, Open Knowledge Belgium
m: +32 476 66 27 77 <tel:+32 476 66 27 77> | e: pieter-jan.pauwels at okfn.org <mailto:pieter-jan.pauwels at okfn.org> | w: okfn.be <http://okfn.be/> 

> On 14 Mar 2015, at 15:19, Ben Abelshausen <ben.abelshausen at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 5:30 AM, Marc Gemis <marc.gemis at gmail.com <mailto:marc.gemis at gmail.com>> wrote:
> I assume everybody here knows that there is also an app based on osm : http://wheelmap.org/ <http://wheelmap.org/>
> Yes, I even tweeted it to them already. I hope they can cooperate with us and let's hope focus is not on monetizing their crowd-sourced data. This would be ethically very questionable in my view, especially when the topic of accesibility is concerned.
> 
> Met vriendelijke groeten,
> Best regards,
> 
> Ben Abelshausen
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