[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Future Look

[Paweł Paprota]

Hello Clifford,

Very interesting e-mail. It seems that as the project grows, there is
more and more people feeling like there should be some kind of "next
level" that OSM as a project and community should reach. I agree with that.

> It seems to me that OSM needs a full time staff that can work with
> the community to build OSM for the future. I would think that at the
> rate we are growing, we need to be planning for a much bigger
> future.

Just a few days ago I replied to a mailing list thread about OSM's
"market share" with my thoughts on precisely this topic you mention in
the quote above:

http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2013-January/065555.html

I am a developer so my area of interest is technical but I am sure that
in other areas like working with the community, communication and
"advertising", data (handling vandalisms, imports) there is a similar
need for more involvement.

Sure it would be great to have the project run on volunteers - money
(some people being paid) thrown in the mix always causes problems at
some point - but I think it's becoming clear that OSM cannot reach that
next level without some sort of push... After all, it's normal in other
large projects/organizations that some people are working full time on
it. Perhaps OSM needs to evolve a little bit more to embrace such model?

The other problem is much simpler - where do you get the money from? I
thought about OSM Foundation getting involved and trying to get some
funding for the project. Not sure how that would work legally but at
this point there has to be a way to get money for development - it's
clear that many stakeholders and users of OSM want to see the project
moving forward and I'm sure some of them are willing to donate money.

Paweł