[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Future Look

[Roland Olbricht]

Dear Jeff,

have you ever though about organizing a market-wide vote whether "Pepsi Coke" or "Coca Coke" is preferred? And put up a "vision" that Coke A shall finally surrender?

Not?

Please just step back for a moment and take into account to possibility that OSM is more like a market and less like an organization.

As you like evidence, let's go through the key elements.

The mappers or users or stakeholders or simply the somehow involved persons:
- In an organization, we have one or few distinct forms of "membership"
- In a market, there is no clear distinction between a market player and a non-market player. You don't need a permission to buy a Coke and you can do so only once every decade, you only need a credit card.

Our mappers contribute on very distinct levels of activity, and registration is commonly seen as a technical necessity (like the credit card). For example, it is likely not a membership because for a lot of deceded people there accounts will simply left off untouch, not somehow deleted.

Different measures of "active contributor" are established and they all give different numbers. In particular, when "voting" was discussed around the license change, it was a very broad consensus that no selection of people was legit as a voting body.

This sounds very much like a market, not like an organization.

The same is right for tools development: Mapnik and all the other tools you mentioned have all been developed without a strategic vision and without formal permission from whomever.

Again, sounds more like a market than an organization.

You miss the flow of money? It's not a market of money and goods but rather of data and ideas.

The key difference is redundancy: On a market, you get what you want when you find a supplier for it, regardless whether your demand conincides with the demand of the majority or not. The greek concept of "agora" fits well.

In an organization, you need some kind of majority (might be your boss only or in a more democratic case, a majority by numbers) to steamroll down the minority's will. This is not how OSM ever worked or not how OSM shall ever work in the future. It is how Google and Apple work but exactly what most of us dislike on those companies.

The OSMF sees themself rather like a regulating body for this market-like agora, not as the market itself. Now, as you won't expect FTC to have a "vision" which products have to be sold more, please don't abuse OSMF to formulate such a vision.

Maybe we can add a clarifying statement to the OSMF mission statement if you have misunderstood it?

Best regards,

Roland