[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Future Look

[Richard Fairhurst]

Paweł Paprota wrote:
> 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?

Complete disarming honesty time: the thing that puts me off working on OSM
code (and heaven knows I've spent enough time on it over the years) isn't
the lack of remuneration. It's the community, and its sense of entitlement.

Something has gone wrong with the OSM community and I wish I knew how to fix
it. Writing code for OSM has become a really thankless, unpleasant business.
Most of the Top Ten Tasks, though ambitious - that's why they're in the Top
Ten, after all - are perfectly within the capability of one developer with a
vague acquaintance with OSM and a modest design sensibility. (Of them all,
the hardest is actually being tackled - by you, of course, Paweł!)

But really, why bother? You'll only get crap thrown at you for doing so.
Every time there's even a modest layout improvement to the front page, all
hell breaks loose on some forum or other and there's an outcry of "Why
wasn't I consulted?". Let's keep the WMF comparison going: I don't think the
Wikipedia, or Linux, guys consult the entire fucking community every time
they swap two bytes in the code. But for some reason, much of our community
expects it, and vocally, without being prepared to lift a finger to help.

Thing is, if you actually look below the surface of the lists and the
diaries and the chat snipers and all of that, there's a huge, silent layer
of contributors new and old, just as there's always been, quietly getting on
with mapping the world (when, that is, they're not being angry-messaged by
"experienced" users to say YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG). They're the guys who make
OSM what it is, not the voices on the lists. But I'm not strong enough to
ignore the noisy ones, and I wish I was.

cheers
Richard





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