[Talk-in] OSM India Chapter

[Arun Ganesh]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 11:52 PM Pradeep Mohandas <
pradeep.mohandas at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> In the Virtual Mappy Hours held yesterday, the OSM Chair Allan Mustard had
> suggested that we go ahead with the formation of an Indian chapter and
> officially affiliate with the OSM Foundation. This enables us to use the
> OSM Trademark officially.
>
> I thought I would start the thread on this list for people interested in
> this effort.
>
I know that there is an active Telegram group going on, but I think putting
> things on the mailing list will help archive the effort and discussion that
> goes into formation of a Chapter. For future historians of the
> movement,this would be something akin to the Constituent Assembly
> discussions are to India today.
>
> On the chat yesterday, I had cautioned that India has had previous bitter
> experiences with running organisations wherein a Foundation manages the
> organisations or groups in various countries. We are seeing the effect of
> that in the Wikimedia movement in India. Naveen, also on this group, has
> first-hand experience with this as he was involved in the formation of the
> Wikimedia India Chapter.
>
> I hope that such previous experiences of the members here will help us
> avoid the pitfalls and help to form a much more stronger OSM India Chapter.
> In India, the experience has been that the introduction of an organisation
> leads to dis-organisation of the community. I hope we can stay in this
> together and for the long haul.
>
>
This is a welcome step and i support the setting up of a chapter as a
longtime contributor to the project.  We've organically grown as a hobby
community very nicely and with bigger players like corporates and the
government starting to use the data, it feels like having a legal
organization can enable much more to happen.

Having also seen constant mailing list drama with the Wikimedia India
chapter, it would definitely be wise to learn from the chapter forming
experiences of other open communities in India.

Lets list a few such successful and thriving chapters that folks are aware
of and that might help think of the next steps and folks to rope in for
guidance.

Even more importantly, if anyone feels this is not a good idea, this is the
time to speak up and share their concerns.
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