[OSM-talk] Things People Say

[Frederik Ramm]

Serge,

> They're not orthogonal. The core question is "What is the project's
> goals?" and based on what you've said in the past, you want a small
> project generally. Small number of editors, small OSMF, etc.

I would be absolutely thrilled to have, say, Google throw away their 
data and say "we'll be using OSM from now on". I wouldn't say that 
should be our #1 ambition but it would surely be a nice thing.

One would hope that while this would send more people our way for 
editing, the "first level support" will remain with Google in such a 
scenario, as will the considerable housekeeping effort of actually 
getting all those tiles to those who want them.

It is mainly these things I fear, and for which I think we are not well 
equipped - large scale operations dealing with large numbers of 
"consumer" type users.

Doing that would, I believe, require a transformation of OSMF that goes 
far beyond "let's put a little flattr button here any maybe we get 
enough money for an extra tile server". We're talking long-term 
financial planning, hiring staff, and hiring more staff to raise funds 
to pay for them all. We're talking continuous fundraising action and all 
that. I am not sure if those advocating "big OSM(F)" are clear on that. 
You'd look at tha balance sheets and say "Ah, obviously 99% of what this 
OSMF does is producing map tiles and distributing/selling them. And they 
seem to be doing this little community thing on the side." - and at the 
same time, 99% of all work in the OSMF board would go towards how to 
make tile serving better and the web portal nicer, and 1% would be spent 
on "this little community thing on the side".

It may be an irrational fear (they mostly are). But I would feel much 
better if someone else would hire staff, acquire funds, buy servers, 
render tiles, offset the risks and all that - someone without direct 
influence on OSM. That way, OSMF would not be tainted by such operations 
and could concentrate on what we need them to do, rather than on things 
that others can do just as well.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"