[OSM-talk] OpenStreetMap Future Look

[Paweł Paprota]

Hi Roland,

> Mapnik and all the other tools you mentioned have all been developed
> without a strategic vision and without formal permission from
> whomever

Because they are single-purpose libraries that don't really need any
strategic vision other than "do we use XML/CSS/C/C++ for this" decisions.

Putting it all together and creating something like OSM.org and the OSM
core platform is a completely different thing. What you get with a
market-like approach in this case is a dozen of small websites to do the
same thing which is of course cool because you can pick and choose but
does that help the core project?

> 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

I don't think we're talking about things like that... it is not black or
white (corporate-like organization or no organization at all). There is
something in between that best suits the OSM spirit.

I'm more and more convinced that it is *not* OSMF as I simply don't
understand what is the role of OSMF as such. I can tell what specific
working groups are doing but the overall organization is undefined and
I'm not sure I really care to find out or discuss what it should be -
this looks like a giant waste of time.

Paweł