[OSM-talk] OSM @ FOSDEM!

[Michael Kugelmann]

Hello all,

following my short summary of the FOSDEM 2012 at the first weekend in 
February at Brussels.

As discussed in advance we had an OSM stand at the FOSDEM.
See e.g. at http://www.openstreetmap.fr/f/IMG_3746_web.jpg
* we had quite a lot of interest on the stand on completeley different 
areas:
   + complete newbies (What is OSM? Never heared about it.)
   + OSM users just saying "thank you guys, it's wonderful what you as 
project are doing" => I want to forward this to worldwide all mappers!
   + some mappers asking about "how can I map this and that"
   + quite some people asking about "how can I use OSM on my device 
xyz"   (including Garmin devices)
   + developers who want to show a map on the web e.g. with a special 
overlay
   + people asking: "can I do this and that" with the data? I would be 
interested to to do "xyz"?
   + question: "can I trust the data? How verified is it?"
   + ...
* once more a big Thanks to Geofabrik / Frederik for the printouts, they 
have been very helpful to point to the project!
* flyers went away very quick: after 2..3 hours they were gone (also 
Thanks to Geofabrik / Frederik for providing them) => next year have 
more flyers
* tablet devices are a good way when you want to show somebody e.g. a 
map within a discussion or in the crowd in front of the stand
* For me it was very interesting to work in a multinational team 
(mappers being present from Belgium, France, Germany, Slovakia or 
Slovenia, ....).
* It is benificial to talk to people who have questions in their own 
language which we have been able with the international team.
* maybe somebody from the OSM community should do a talk (or lighning 
talk) to get some SW developers and not mappers, the audience at FOSSDEM 
has a great potential to get other people interested than mappers [1].
* IMHO OSM should be present at FOSDEM 2013 again (another stand).
* the WLAN provided for the conference was working very well at our stand
* on (very) cold weather don't have your stand located too close to the 
entrance door...


add [1]: don't get me wrong, I am not at all complaining about mappers! 
We need more of them worldwide. But the overall project has not only a 
need for people collecting geo facts, IMHO there is also an increasing 
need for people developing the tools to process and work with the data.



Best regards,
Michael.

PS: genereal comment on the FOSDEM after my first visit: very 
interesting but very tight arranged event (10...20 talks in parallel) 
who is worth a travel.