[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Future Look

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 01/08/2013 10:14 AM, Paweł Paprota wrote:
> 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.

It has been said that many people sign up to OSM because they believe 
they'll have advanced user features (more maps? your own map style? 
whatever). Without any research into this, you cannot conclude that 
those who sign up would have been mappers if only our web interface was 
more like Facebook.

Also, I think that your comparison with Facebook is totally out of 
place; OSM is a site where you sign up if you want to survey the planet, 
whereas Facebook is a site where you sign up if you want to be in touch 
with your friends. OSM is a project where people work on a common goal 
together; this is something completely different than Facebook. If 
someone told me "I signed up to OSM but was so different from Facebook 
that I couldn't do anything" they will probably get a rather puzzled 
look from me!

> 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?

Yes, it's great that you tackled that and I hope that we'll have the 
hardware to support it.

> Being able to calculate a route

That's being brewing for quite a while but we'll get there.

> or click on a POI

Until now we've been a relatively unimportant target for spammers but we 
will have to be very careful, especially if we want to offer pop-up 
bubbles that link to an URL. This may be the first time we'll have to 
invent something where links are verified by a third party before they 
go up on the page.

> on a main page

I don't understand the obsession with wanting everything on "the main 
page". We're not a business that needs the ad revenue; we're an open 
project and one of the great things that we want people to understand is 
how everyone can build cool stuff with OSM. What better way than to link 
to stuff other people have built? (Kind of like the "Schaufenster" on 
www.openstreetmap.de - I'd like to move the map away from our "main 
page" like www.openstreetmap.de did.)

> 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.

Makes sense. Much better than having a committee tell you what to code 
next, no?

> The simple fact is that some of the improvements won't ever be
> implemented without people working full time on it

I'm not sure if that is a simple fact. Nobody has ever (to my knowledge) 
approached OSMF and said "I'll code feature #4 on your top ten tasks 
list if you give me so-and-so much money". I don't know what would 
happen if someone did. OSMF could either reject, or accept and pay, or 
talk to other parties who might be interested in the issue.

I have, by the way, done that myself, too, in the past; on several 
occasions I was approached by someone who wanted additions coded for 
JOSM or other OSM related tools and I built them and added them to the 
code base. In at least one situation I had an idea myself and approached 
a company working with OSM and asked if they'd be interested in funding 
it. I've never asked for, or received money directly from OSMF though.

> How do you propose to solve this problem
> without funding people to develop them?

The problem that the "Top ten tasks" are not ticked off quickly enough? 
It's the first time someone refers to this as a problem, and the first 
time someone asks me to propose a solution for it. If I found it to be a 
problem, I'd probably pick one and implement it. Personally though, I 
have a few other things that I think are important too and I prefer to 
work on instead - my list of "Top Ten Tasks" is a different one.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"