[OSM-talk] online survey about the OSM community

[Stephan Knauss]

On 23.08.2014 15:17, Christian Quest wrote:
> OSM is already very english centric and having a survey that is only
> available in english won't help understand the OSM community worldwide,
> just a part of it.
> It would be interesting to have the same survey being done in another
> language and compare the results...

Understanding the US part might be of great interest already.

I recently finished watching the recordings of the SotM US conference 
which was held earlier this year.

My impression is that OSM in the US is dominated by businesses who see 
OSM as a way to make money. Some give back quite much in the sense of 
tools and services, but still: It's done by "paid" community members.

Where are the mappers who are not employed by a company using OSM or are 
using OSM for their freelance work? Where are the altruistic mappers who 
do the actual work of mapping?

I for myself don't get paid for participating in OSM nor do I 
participate in OSM for making some business. In fact I'm paining money 
to partiipate in addition to my time invested.

My impression is that many of the European OSM projects adn contributors 
belong into this category.

So having some research done what is actually driving mappers in the US 
is certainly of great interest.

First impression might be that it's a lot more money driven over there.
Ever heard of getting some monetary reward for working on any of the 
European quality tools like OSM inspector or osmose? In the US you are 
mapping for winning a price (see telenav contest)

I'm highly interested in the results of the survey. Given the focus of 
many questions in the survey it might provide answers to this specific 
question.

Stephan