[OSM-talk] Toward resolution of controversies related to iD

[Mikel Maron]

Hey I have some other things to say on this thread, but quickly this point is based on incorrect assumptions
> But if push comes to shove, and someone
needs to decide how something is done, do we want US tech firms to decide what the official OSM editor does, or do we want the OSMF to decide what the official OSM editor does?

False dichotomy. The choice here is not between Silicon Valley and OSMF. Decisions on iD are not made by US tech firms. I say this as an employee of one of those firms who has observed this first hand. The decisions on iD are made by the developers, working within the OSM community. 
As it should be. What’s needed is the availability of more structure to come to software decision in those rare situations when ad hoc community is not enough. Yes iD is the focus currently, but it’s not the only place our community needs more software support.
Mikel

On Tuesday, June 9, 2020, 7:55 AM, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:

Hi,

On 2020-06-09 12:32, ndrw6 at redhazel.co.uk wrote:
> To me, OSMF wants the control of a project it hasn't developed but
> turned out too successful to ignore,

The iD editor has been originally built by Mapbox funded by a grant from
the Knight Foundation with the aim of being a good editor for OSM. That
was before any of the people currently driving iD development came on
board. Had it been "some GIS editing software that might or might not be
used for OSM one day", it is very unlikely that this grant would ever
have been given. iD was never a project that would have been viable
without the OSMF's blessing (as in "if you get this editor to work then
we'll put it on our web site").

> and to add insult to injury you are
> asking the author to keep working on it by committing patches he
> disagrees with.

As far as I am aware, both former and current iD lead developers are
doing their work within a full time IT job, not in their spare time.
Their employer - US tech firms in both cases - asks them to spend time
on iD because their employer wants to help OSM improve. Most employment
situations bring it with them that you have to do something you disagree
with now and then. We do not know what instructions the paid iD
developers receive from their employers but it is obvious that they
*could* receive instructions.

Now, of course as long as everything purrs along smoothly, good software
is created for a happy user base by happy developers and nobody
interferes, that's all dandy. But if push comes to shove, and someone
needs to decide how something is done, do we want US tech firms to
decide what the official OSM editor does, or do we want the OSMF to
decide what the official OSM editor does?

> - It's deeply unethical. OSMF should foster the development of the OSM
> ecosystem, not harass people working on it. How does this fit OSMF own
> charter and CoC?

I think you have a very warped view of the whole topic. Given that I
haven't seen you on these lists before I must assume that you haven't
followed any of the history, background, and past discussions about the
matter. You're of course entitled to your point of view but your point
of view doesn't really do much for the discussion when it is, obviously,
based on the mistaken assumption that iD is a third-party hobby project
that OSMF now wants to nefariously take control of because it has proven
successful.

Bye
Frederik

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

_______________________________________________
talk mailing list
talk at openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/attachments/20200609/73a18e0c/attachment-0001.htm>