[OSM-talk] OSM(F) strategy - suggestions review

[Richard Fairhurst]

Hello all,

[crossposted to various groups]

As you may know the OSM Foundation has lots of terribly boring-sounding 
working groups and the Strategic Working Group is possibly the most 
boring-sounding of the lot.

However... occasionally we do things that are not stultifyingly boring 
and this might be one of them.

We are trying to get soundings as to how you, the community, want OSM to 
grow in the months and years ahead. This is not a directive imposed from 
above, nor a grand scheme to make zillions by becoming the next 
Facebook; this is finding out what the mappers, the people who make OSM 
great, want to see.

Thus far we've trawled through various mailing lists, the wiki, and so 
on to find the ideas that come up most frequently. But we might have 
missed some, or you might have had a superb idea which has been ignored 
so far.

The list so far is at:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Strategic_working_group/Suggestion_review

Do read it; and we would welcome your further suggestions on the 
'Discussion' page.

The important bit is that we are looking to collate suggestions about 
OSM's future _strategy_. For example:
* OSM should grow the mapper base
* OSM should make special efforts to reach out to the developing world
* OSM should develop osm.org into a consumer-facing map site to rival 
Google Maps
...or not.

We are not looking for operational suggestions (e.g. "OSM should rewrite 
the editor in HTML5"). OSM is a do-ocracy and the way you get 
operational suggestions through is by doing them. :) Nor are we making 
judgments, or seeking opinions or debate, about the suggestions quite 
yet - just collating them.

Knock yourselves out. :)

cheers
Richard