[Talk-us] OSM US Trails Working Group

[Steve Friedl]

This is the "Open Street Map" project, not the "Open Street Map And Every
Other Kind Of Open Everything Unless You're An Evil Corporation" project.

Thankfully, you don't have to be a commando for all things open to
participate in OSM.

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Troxel <gdt at lexort.com> 
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2021 9:40 AM
To: Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org>
Cc: talk-us at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] OSM US Trails Working Group


Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> writes:

> Hi,
>
> On 10/8/21 20:31, Tod Fitch wrote:
>> I am a bit miffed that this discussion will be on Slack.
>
> Yes, not the best if you want to be inclusive. But, whichever medium 
> you choose you'll exclude some people who refuse to use it. As long as 
> it remains informal and you're not later told "this was agreed on 
> Slack" I guess it's ok.

There are two aspects to communication channels.  One is that people have
preferences and solving that is basically intractable.

The other is proprietary services involving the necessity to use proprietary
software and sign agreements with particular companies.
That is in my view the real issue: Slack is a singleton service where you
have to sign an agreement with them, and then you have to run their software
(even if only in the browser).  This is philosophically incompatible with an
open data project.