[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Future Look

[Paweł Paprota]

Hi Frederik,

I basically agree with everything that Jeff wrote in reply to your
e-mail so I won't reiterate the same points.

One thing to note - look at the numbers: between 2010 and today, the
number of users doubled and in the same period the number of active
contributors did not change nearly that much.

What does that say to you? For me it's a clear signal that there is
great interest in OSM but somehow OSM is failing most of those
interested. Welcome Working Group is a good way to find why but I think
it's pretty obvious when you look what OSM has to offer to a newcomer
who is used to services like YouTube and Facebook in terms of usability
and features.

There does not have to be a grand strategic plan in order to start
addressing the "lowest hanging fruit" like... umm, I don't know - being
able to see what was changed in my home area without having a lot of bot
edits displayed in the history tab? Being able to calculate a route or
click on a POI on a main page of a freaking mapping project?

I really don't want to discuss whether OSM main website should have
feature X or Y. I am interested in doing X and Y, I know that people are
interested in X and Y and are going to find it useful. So instead of
endless discussion I will just do it because I am a developer. In the
process of doing it I suddenly realize that I actually enjoy working on
this stuff but it takes a lot of effort so I ask around about funding
because I would like to continue working on it.

The simple fact is that some of the improvements won't ever be
implemented without people working full time on it (look at the Top Ten
Task list to get some idea). How do you propose to solve this problem
without funding people to develop them?

Paweł