[OSM-talk] An open letter to OSMF board members.

[Włodzimierz Bartczak]

Dear board members,

it has come to my attention that many community members feel that
openstreetmap-carto is stagnating. Some feel that there is no vision, no
project goals, and that maintainers don't care about the community instead
trying to follow their own agendas. I am concerned that it may negatively
impact long term health of the project.

As the first/default style that is visible on
https://openstreetmap.org openstreetmap-carto
can be considered one of core OpenStreetMap projects. While it may not be
as important as the backend API and database it is the first thing that
anyone going to OSM's site sees. It is therefore of great interest to the
entire project that the style is maintained and community is involved and
proud of the results.

OpenStreetMap grew as a project and right now it is one of the largest open
datasets of geospatial data. Many researchers as well as companies from
startups to FAANG rely on OSM. There are more mappers than ever.

For a very long time it was all serviced by volunteers but with that growth
there is a need for more time and professionalism from maintainers. As the
project grows so does the responsibility. We know that OSM Foundation is
trying to help by e.g. hiring new SRE, hiring iD developer, organizing
committees and working groups, creating grant programmes.

I believe that openstreetmap-carto should at least get involved in Software
dispute resolution panel and if possible start leveraging paid resources to
help with maintenance and design.

What was reported to us first was that one of our members tried to make a Pull
Request <https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4512> adding
rendering of some feature to the style and maintainers were hesitant to
accept it even after extensive discussions and clear interest from the
community. That in itself would not have been a cause for concern - not
everything can/should be displayed on the map - but the last comments in
the discussion turned to general issues with project maintainership and it
was clear that many community members are dissatisfied with how
openstreetmap-carto maintainers conduct the discussions and make decisions
about the project.

Most concerning however was the comment from swedneck
<https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4512#issuecomment-1100642468>
that
one of openstreetmap-carto maintainers revealed information about him that
he was not comfortable sharing (doxxing) and that nothing was done. Andy -
openstreetmap-carto creator - was informed in another comment
<https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/pull/4512#issuecomment-1101720910>and
ignored it. The issue was raised on OpenStreetMap discord
<https://discord.com/channels/413070382636072960/787125151959351307/966810172330745926>
where
Amanda - board member - saw it but claimed that carto's Code of Conduct
does not list that doxxing is explicitly forbidden. This is very
disappointing as it damages community's trust in the project. Since then
another maintainer Mateusz corrected that some actions were taken but this
generated a comment only after I made diary entry
<https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Cristoffs/diary/399189> that elicited
46 comments making some noise within the community.

Problems with openstreetmap-carto were raised in discord
<https://discord.com/channels/413070382636072960/787125151959351307/966745293276217345>and
again many community members expressed that the project is not very
receptive to feedback. In one of threads for Question Of The Week event
moderator asked what would the community like to change about
openstreetmap-carto and the first response
<https://discord.com/channels/413070382636072960/965526689411129344/965536544381370398>
it
was proposed that maintainers should be replaced. This response received
seventeen "+1" reactions.

It's clear that there are many people disappointed with the current state
of affairs which for such an important project is concerning. I don't think
geospatial data can be disassociated from a map. OSMF choosing to focus
only on database/API and editors is not enough in my opinion.

I hope this message will open discussion and meaningful actions can be
taken to restore community's faith that their input is valued in the
project.

-- 

Włodzimierz Bartczak

wiceprezes zarządu



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