[OSM-talk] OSMF to provide commercial tile service? [WAS: something else]

[Kai Krueger]

One could set up an entirely separate not-for-profit organisation e.g.
"Openstreetmap-Applications" that is geared towards providing OSM based user
oriented services, such as tileservers, user friendly map interfaces,... It
could charge commercial customers a fee proportionally to operating costs
and potentially offer services for free to non commercial users and
organisations.

This would help
a) OpenStreetMap, as more people would potentially use OSM data, making it
more popular than thus resulting in more mappers
b) Users and mappers, as they can get the services they want (and need to
keep up motivation to contribute to OSM) and OSM(F) currently don't offer.
c) Commercial app developers, as they can pool tileserver resources making
it more efficient and get access to them for the cost of opperations.

As it would be an entirely different entity, it wouldn't effect current OSMF
negatively.

The main people it would harm would be those who are trying to make money
off of OSM. Although some of them do currently offer a very valuable
service, the main objective of OSMF should not be to protect commercial
interests of OSM, so competing with other commercial OSM entities should not
be an exclusion reason.

Kai

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