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

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Tue May 31 23:24:13 UTC 2022


Hi,

I think I've said that in one of those endless diary discussions - 
almost everyone who complains about something in openstreetmap-carto is 
just unhappy that they don't get their pet feature rendered.

In order to provide acceptable cartography, massive gatekeeping is 
required on the part of openstreetmap-carto maintainers. For every new 
feature they accept, they should really throw old two old features, 
otherwise the map becomes everything else but a map.

(We had a map style once where everyone could add their own features in 
SVN, with nobody doing any gatekeeping. Guess how that turned out.)

I'm happy to listen to anyone who has any critique of 
openstreetmap-carto but NOT TO PEOPLE WHO ARE UNHAPPY BECAUSE THEIR 
FEATURE DID NOT GET RENDERED.

If you are one of those people who are unhappy because their feature did 
not get rendered, I will assume that any other criticism you have to 
offer (other than that your feature did not get rendered) is just trying 
to get revenge.

If you're trying to abuse the code-of-conduct system to bully people in 
the hope of ultimately getting your pet feature rendered, then shame on 
you - this is not what a code of conduct is for.

As for replacing the maintainers - if I understand you correctly you're 
asking the board to pay people to do the maintenance. I would agree to 
that if that maintenance is guided by the principle I mentioned above - 
for every additional feature they accept, throw out two old features.

Because if what you're asking is for the board to pay money in order to 
have more mellow maintainers who will happily accept a 348th crappy icon 
just so that some niche interest group can have their feature "on the 
main map" then that would be making OSM worse not better.

Bye
Frederik

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



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