[OSM-talk] advertising

[Christoph Eckert]

Hi,

> openstreetmap.org was registered by Steve in 2004. I suspect he can
> do anything with it he desires.

of course, no doubt.

> I don't know what the official 
> position is, but I'm guessing that openstreetmap.org has been under
> the effective control of the OSMF since it's inception.
>
> The OSMF is clearly there to represent the community, and to further
> it's goals. But that doesn't mean it /is/ the community. And it
> doesn't have exclusive rights over the data either. It's providing an
> "official" front page for the project, and the servers etc to back
> that up. From that point of view it can do anything it likes with
> those resources.

Indeed. But if the activities cannot be controlled by the community 
members, how can the OSMF claim the right to represent the community?

> The situation has never actually changed -- before 
> the OSMF, it was probably just up to Steve/whoever. Now there is
> apparently some voting, and open membership for a £15 fee per year,
> so you're considerably better off than before.

I agree, but we still have less clue what dues and rights one can buy 
becoming a member :( .

> There are obviously some issues to work out here, such as OSMF
> transparency (most of us were only vaguely aware of its existence,
> and there was no real information about it till pretty much
> yesterday), or whether to put ads on the map, but you can hardly
> claim anything was "hijacked".

I intentionally placed "hijacked" in quotes to relativise it. But the 
whole ads issue still looks a bit like a cool project has silently 
taken out of the control of the community members.

Anyway, being not a member of OSMF, I have no right to complain about 
its transparency, its structure or anything else.

> And for the record:
>  - I'm not a foundation member
>  - I don't really like ads on the map, I don't mind ads round the
> map, but I feel on makes it seem like the point of the project, which
> it clearly isn't.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts,

ce