Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On Feb 4, 2013, at 11:53 PM, Peter Wendorff wrote: Am 05.02.2013 08:15, schrieb Clifford Snow: Third parties bring unique value to OSM. However, is it inconceivable that we might be able to offer something more than just a database? For example funded Software development has been done by companies like CloudMade, MapQuest on a company budget, or Mapbox that applied for external funding through the Knight foundation to develop OpenStreetMap software like e.g. the iD editor. This is great until these companies decide that they want us to map according to their rules. If they are building the tools then we have lost the ability to set our directions. Now from what I've seen of the iD editor it's great. The point I'm trying to stress is that we should set our own path, not let others set it for us. We could still encourage others to build tools, but with the understanding of where we are headed. But who is we here? Who should decide how to set our own path? All registered mappers? The OSMF board? Registered users? Active Mappers? What are active mappers? Coders? Active coders? Wiki editors? Every of any of the mentioned groups who is able to read, speak AND write English language? Whatever you choose as a definition for we here, it's very likely that it's not better than what we have now: Everybody who want's to decide AND DO. Sure: that may be companies, and yes, it may have a bad taste that companies influence how stuff is done in the osm universe, but on the other hand you could say the same about the JOSM or Potlatch maintainers, who influence mapping practice a lot by deciding about tagging templates and the like. I think it's good that everyone, even a company, is able to use osm data as well as to provide their users means to contribute back - by providing open-in-osm-editor-links as well as by implementing their own editing functionality (as long as it's done right). If you want us to set our own path, I have to ask, what differs a better us from the people currently setting up our path - many volunteers coding JOSM, Potlatch and iD (even sponsored by Mapbox/Knight Foundation as far as I know the iD dev people talk to and receive contributions by non-paid volunteers). I'd like to formally request a moratorium on scare quotes for the remainder of this thread. Looking at you, robin paulson. -mike. michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/cahttp://mike.teczno.com/contact.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 2013-02-05 19:36, Bryce Cogswell wrote: Indeed. I suppose if one joins a project on the assumption that there is no direction and no goals, at least you'll never be disappointed in how it turns out. that's not what i said at all, or what i was implying. and your point is a straw man argument: build up a false premise (that i am against goals or direction), then knock it down and show how bad my argument was. the point i'm getting at is why do i (or anyone else) need to rely on some other group to set the direction or goals. it's not goals per se that's a problem, it's who sets them. the way this is going, several people have suggested a small group should set policy, goals, direction, whatever, for the other 30,000 who map, with no mandate whatsoever. -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 2013-02-05 20:15, Clifford Snow wrote: Yet Google gets the press that thanks to them, North Korea has now been mapped. In an ideal world, the local community should be the lead communicator. But having a PR staff for OSM is just smart. Good press is going to help us raise money for new servers and other infrastructure we'll need. Lacking a local mapping community a PR staff could be the catalyst for the creation of new mapping communities. when i hear PR, i think edward bernays [1], freudian psyhocanalysis, anti-democratic impulses and mass manipulation. the century of the self [2] by adam curtis shows why, it talks extensively about PR and bernays in particular. of bernays: He felt this manipulation was necessary in society, which he regarded as irrational and dangerous as a result of the 'herd instinct' that [Wilfred] Trotter had described [1] perhaps we could stay away from that model of behaviour? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays [2] http://archive.org/details/AdamCurtis-TheCenturyOfTheSelf free to download, and legal too. -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Below. On 04/02/2013 10:13 PM, Robin Paulson wrote: ... when you say the project, you imply the people who contribute can be fashioned into a unity. i am fundamentally against that, it is flawed thinking. we are a multitude [1], not a singular, and thus we cannot be represented by anything less than ourselves. I find this supremely ironic, given that we are talking about the organization of a mapping project. After all, the whole idea of mapping is that you can't represent everything and have to choose what details to omit. In the same way, it is necessary to abstract from all the details of participants' interests if any coherence is to be given to the project as a whole. Tom Taylor ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 02/03/2013 10:51 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: I don't know exactly what git log you mean. OSM is a whole universe of software; a part of that is visible on https://github.com/openstreetmap/. The bit that is on https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website is but a tiny fragment of it. The number of Top Ten Tasks completed would only be suitable if you had something to compare it to (in 2011 we managed to close 4 tasks but not a single one in 2012 or so). I meant the OSM platform aka the main website aka API aka Rails Port and related services. But this would start whole another discussion is the main website relevant etc. Of course it is and we should have a lot of features there because people (and the media for example) are judging the whole project by it - but let's not discuss this further in this thread... I am glad that this thread has happened. A lot of people say it's just flamewars and it breaks the community. I think such threads serve a purpose and it's good to have them to exchange viewpoints. It's a new week, I am prepared to agree that we maybe disagree in some points and continue working on OSM. Just a last word - I am not proclaiming doom. To the contrary - I am full of energy and ideas but at the same time I am a bit afraid that if this energy does not lead anywhere then I will be burnt out in this project because of the frustration that I cannot change anything. Let's hope that we can find a way to work together in the coming months. Paweł ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Paweł Paprota wrote: Just a last word - I am not proclaiming doom. To the contrary - I am full of energy and ideas but at the same time I am a bit afraid that if this energy does not lead anywhere then I will be burnt out in this project because of the frustration that I cannot change anything. One humble suggestion born out of bitter experience: do one thing and do it well. OSM has no shortage of barrack-room lawyers and the project will survive quite well without any more. It could possibly (whisper it) even cope with a few less. But OSM does have a shortage of smart people working on awesome code. The OWL stuff is terrific and it'll make a really big difference to the project when it's done. Don't let the dramas of talk@ distract you. They rarely achieve anything. Or in other words: be a Paweł Paprota, not a Gert Gremmen. :) cheers Richard -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Pawe-s-q-what-can-be-done-tp5747772p5747987.html Sent from the General Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
The 2011/2012 board has actually done some steps in that direction, with Mikel reaching out to a number of professional strategic consultants and getting a broad idea of what (if anything) they could possibly do for OSM(F). The results were mixed and my reading (I wasn't on the board at that time) was largely that with things as they are, we're not ready for such a step yet. If Mikel himself would like to say a few bits about this? Yes, at the Board's request, I held conversations with several folks about strategic planning and OSMF. That included the group that coordinated HOT's strategic planning (http://hot.openstreetmap.org/updates/2012-05-14_update_from_hots_strategic_planning_meeting), and a few folks involved in Wikimedia's strategic planning. Everyone was quite interested in our issues and dynamics; an open, globally distributed community is a challenge to any kind of organizational planning, an interesting one. Something like the Wikimedia process might be useful, eventually. But OSMF is not nearly as developed as Wikimedia was when they started this; in other words, OSMF is not yet ready, and recommendation was to find our way through top issues, develop things a bit more ourselves, then reassess. There is a lot we can clearly be working on. Get Management Team up and running; update the Articles of Association; draw up Terms of Reference and Codes of Conduct for those handling OSMF assets; develop Local Chapters. This is a lot of documenting work, the kind of not super exciting but super necessary work Richard was talking about within the SWG. And reviving SWG might be a good way to address some of this. So I agree with Frederik somewhat here. We're not ready for full on strategic planning, but there are very useful and clear things to do right now. The real issue remains how to build momentum, drive, interest, excitement, cooperation, in this sort of work. There's are bubbles of interest in working this out, and then some tough discussion comes up which seems to derail it. It's not clear who's leading the charge. I think it will take a few dedicated folks, with the blessing of the Board, with open communication, but a focus on timely results. If 1-3 folks took the reins, and set the pace, then the rest of us could find places to constructively contribute to a more stable organization. -Mikel * Mikel Maron * +14152835207 @mikel s:mikelmaron From: Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org To: Clifford Snow cliff...@snowandsnow.us Cc: Talk Openstreetmap talk@openstreetmap.org Sent: Sunday, February 3, 2013 7:09 PM Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done? Hi, On 03.02.2013 23:59, Clifford Snow wrote: I want to make sure we are clear. Are you signaling your belief that we need some strategic planning? I'm hesitant to say yes because your sentence can mean a lot of different things to different people. In the worst case, we need some strategic planning could be read as the OSMF should make plans for where OSM should be in ten years and the project should then follow. This is certainly not a view that I would subscribe to. I tend to avoid the word strategic planning because it always sounds so gloriously important (and attracts those who like that). Used by the wrong people, the existence of strategic plans for OSM would make every mapper but a pawn in some grand scheme thought out by the glamourous architects without whom the project would be nothing. Nothing could be further from the truth and we must avoid to give people such an idea. But of course it cannot hurt to think about the future together, try and predict the problems we might be facing in five years, and make plans to be prepared - rather than waiting for the problem to suddenly appear ;) The 2011/2012 board has actually done some steps in that direction, with Mikel reaching out to a number of professional strategic consultants and getting a broad idea of what (if anything) they could possibly do for OSM(F). The results were mixed and my reading (I wasn't on the board at that time) was largely that with things as they are, we're not ready for such a step yet. If Mikel himself would like to say a few bits about this? Having a strategy is good but trying to find one can tie up a lot of resources and personally I'm not sure if starting a committee is the right thing. I think that OSMF should first get their house in order (I mentioned several things reflected in the board minutes, like Management Team, Articles of Association etc.) and then hopefully we are in a position where the board of directors can spend more time thinking about strategic things, and then, much, much further down the line, maybe we'll even be in a position to fork out millions for a strategy consultant like Wikimedia did ;) This is all baby steps right now and IMHO not something that will yield visible results in Pawel's desired half-year time frame
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 2013-02-04 07:02, Michal Migurski wrote: which concerns me no end. what position of authority does simon hold? over whom? Simon is the elected chairman of the OSMF board, and can speak on its behalf. He holds a position of authority over the Geocode Inc. issue because apparently the foundation received a CD. what significance does the osmf board hold? they speak for themselves, not anyone else. That's exactly the question at hand in this particular argument. We seem to have an OSMF that's not effective at communicating, and large parts of the community don't see the value they offer. Your takeaway is that the board is not representative of the project and should not exist at all. My feeling is that a project needs a no, my takeaway is that any time a small group attempts to represent a larger group, necessarily there will be problems, therefore we should not have a small group such as the board attempting to represent 30,000 individuals who map political structure to survive. In either case, Geocode Inc. believes when you say the project, you imply the people who contribute can be fashioned into a unity. i am fundamentally against that, it is flawed thinking. we are a multitude [1], not a singular, and thus we cannot be represented by anything less than ourselves. that the OSMF are the right people to receive a CD. Ultimately, someone needs to own the domain name and the API and the servers it runs on. That's who the Geocodes of the world are going to well, if we assume that certain resources are best centralised, and thus controlled by a single entity. i don't, again that is flawed as it gives power and control to a few. if we move away from that, and there is no representation, no centralisation, who do geocde send the notice to, all 30,000 who map? target. It would be best if that someone was answerable to the larger community through a democratic process of some sort, so in my view the OSMF is a requirement. I'm not frustrated that we *have* a board, I'm frustrated that the board we've got doesn't seem effective at communicating its purpose or much of anything else. They're bad at politics. If they were good at politics, you wouldn't be disagreeing with the idea of a board because you'd be thankful for the provision of a quality API and the decisive resolution of legal threats from trademark trolls. yes i would still be disagreeing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitude -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 2013-02-05 06:56, Simon Poole wrote: participated it has always struck me how little alignment of goals there is in the community as a whole (I'm not saying it is surprising, just that is so). Outside the very generic mission that OSM creates and distributes free geographic data for the world it is difficult to find common ground. So not only to we tend to disagree on how to get to our goal (the strategy) there are a number of different views on what those goals actually are (outside of hand wavy very generic statements). The exercise towards the end of the SWG to define core values for the project could be seen as an attempt to document some aspects of what common ground there is, however it never matured (IMHO) to a level that the result could be published as a formal document and currently molders well hidden on the foundation web site at ttp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Core_Values I'm fairly sure that prior to any strategic exercise we need to take a step back and have a look at what this project wants to achieve in the end. who is we? and why do you or anyone else get to declare what we need to do? isn't that a personal decision? you're right, those who map do have different aims, methods, approaches, understandings, etc. why does that need to change? and how are you or anyone else going to form those 30,000 into one? through what authority, through what power? -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 2013-02-04 07:35, Jeff Meyer wrote: To answer your first question, I do. Others have voiced the same you're making a decision not to have a decision any more (leading implies someone making decisions on your behalf)? that's rather contradictory opinion - theyd like to see some organization, to know that their efforts are being applied for the most benefit. Your voice is noted, but there should be room for disagreement, no? not if it affects me, or anyone else who doesn't want to be affected, no. there is the faint whiff of top-down organisation happening here, which is very concerning. i didn't take part in osm in order for someone to organise me. One of the goals of a strategic exercise would be to test your thesis whether OSMs (and the OSMFs) damn good job so far, is damn good enough to continue to survive and thrive. The thesis that an organizing board reduces a community of thousands to the views of a handful seems contrary to what has gone on with many other successful OS projects. considering the problems with representative democracy in the last 300 years, and how the representatives are rarely representative of the many, i'm not sure this is possible: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/23/congress-us-politics i recall that 80+% of british MPs are millionaires, while ~0.1% of their constituents are. out of touch? if someone is not being represented, then by definition we won't hear from them, so we won't know if there are any problems, such as poor representation. so whether the other successful OS projects are representing everyone or not is difficult to judge On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 12:57 AM, Robin Paulson ro...@bumblepuppy.org [4] wrote: On 2013-02-03 07:41, Jeff Meyer wrote: was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? what makes you think anyone wants to be lead, i certainly dont? or wants to be organised from above? were all fully functional human beings, perfectly capable of organising ourselves, and doing a damn good job so far - look at where OSM and most other digital commons projects have got through self-organising. i disagree with any idea of a board, i think its utterly wrong, it reduces a community of thousands to the views a handful of people can put across. -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Indeed. I suppose if one joins a project on the assumption that there is no direction and no goals, at least you'll never be disappointed in how it turns out. On Feb 4, 2013, at 10:26 PM, Jeff Meyer j...@gwhat.org wrote: Noted. On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 8:06 PM, Robin Paulson ro...@bumblepuppy.org wrote: On 2013-02-04 07:35, Jeff Meyer wrote: To answer your first question, I do. Others have voiced the same you're making a decision not to have a decision any more (leading implies someone making decisions on your behalf)? that's rather contradictory opinion - theyd like to see some organization, to know that their efforts are being applied for the most benefit. Your voice is noted, but there should be room for disagreement, no? not if it affects me, or anyone else who doesn't want to be affected, no. there is the faint whiff of top-down organisation happening here, which is very concerning. i didn't take part in osm in order for someone to organise me. One of the goals of a strategic exercise would be to test your thesis whether OSMs (and the OSMFs) damn good job so far, is damn good enough to continue to survive and thrive. The thesis that an organizing board reduces a community of thousands to the views of a handful seems contrary to what has gone on with many other successful OS projects. considering the problems with representative democracy in the last 300 years, and how the representatives are rarely representative of the many, i'm not sure this is possible: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/23/congress-us-politics i recall that 80+% of british MPs are millionaires, while ~0.1% of their constituents are. out of touch? if someone is not being represented, then by definition we won't hear from them, so we won't know if there are any problems, such as poor representation. so whether the other successful OS projects are representing everyone or not is difficult to judge On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 12:57 AM, Robin Paulson ro...@bumblepuppy.org [4] wrote: On 2013-02-03 07:41, Jeff Meyer wrote: was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? what makes you think anyone wants to be lead, i certainly dont? or wants to be organised from above? were all fully functional human beings, perfectly capable of organising ourselves, and doing a damn good job so far - look at where OSM and most other digital commons projects have got through self-organising. i disagree with any idea of a board, i think its utterly wrong, it reduces a community of thousands to the views a handful of people can put across. -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk -- Jeff Meyer Global World History Atlas www.gwhat.org j...@gwhat.org 206-676-2347 osm: Historical OSM / my OSM user page t: @GWHAThistory f: GWHAThistory ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 10:17 PM, Kai Krueger kakrue...@gmail.com wrote: Well, what does strategic planning even mean in the context of OSMF? OSMF currently operates under the strategy of keeping its influence pretty much as minimal as somehow possible. It mostly limits it self to operating the servers for the editing api and publishing a weekly planet dump. Everything else is kind of outside of the scope of the OSMF and to be provided by third parties. This strategy is implemented to such a degree that e.g. not even planet extracts to make the unwieldy monolithic planet file usable are provided by OSMF but by third parties. It operates under the strategy that anything that can conceivably be provided by third parties should. Third parties bring unique value to OSM. However, is it inconceivable that we might be able to offer something more than just a database? For example funded Software development has been done by companies like CloudMade, MapQuest on a company budget, or Mapbox that applied for external funding through the Knight foundation to develop OpenStreetMap software like e.g. the iD editor. This is great until these companies decide that they want us to map according to their rules. If they are building the tools then we have lost the ability to set our directions. Now from what I've seen of the iD editor it's great. The point I'm trying to stress is that we should set our own path, not let others set it for us. We could still encourage others to build tools, but with the understanding of where we are headed. PR resources have been provided to the community by yet more third party sources, like e.g. some of the offers of Geofabrik to print PR materials to use in various ways like e.g. to man booths on trade shows. Yet Google gets the press that thanks to them, North Korea has now been mapped. In an ideal world, the local community should be the lead communicator. But having a PR staff for OSM is just smart. Good press is going to help us raise money for new servers and other infrastructure we'll need. Lacking a local mapping community a PR staff could be the catalyst for the creation of new mapping communities. So again the strategy of OSMF has been to not pick winners or loosers to use a political term but let the community a free hand in anything that isn't absolutely necessary to centralize, which covers the servers necessary for the editing API, protecting the core data in the database and legal issues like the license, copy right violations and trandemark issues). Personally I am not the biggest fan of this rather libertarian approach, but it is a perfectly valid strategy for OSMF to take and which approach would ultimately lead to more success for OSM is pretty much impossible to factually determine and is thus left to personal opinion and controversial political debate. It is a valid strategy, but is it the right strategy? Under this premises what would strategic planning for the OSMF look like? Well, it would pretty much be an extremely technical discussion about the scalability of the server hardware. Although that might be a fascinating topic for some, I doubt that is what is meant by strategic planning in this debate and I don't really see any issues with that at the moment. God I hope not. You build a strategy based on what you want the future to look like. Hardware is not the issue. Getting people to come together to build the vision of what we want OpenStreetMap to look like is far more important than how big a server we've got. Or how fat our pipe is. In that light, one can also see the success and failure of the previous attempts of the SWG. As Richard pointed out, one of the successes of the SWG was to establish a policy of inclusion of third party tiles in the layer chooser. Although I think it was an important achievement, and as a member of the SWG at the time helped formulate it, I wouldn't directly call that strategic planning. Most other topics successfully handled were also pretty short sighted technical aspects if I remember correctly. But that is at least partly because there simply isn't any scope for strategic planning in the current model of the OSMF. I agree. So anyone who wants to do any strategic planning must first of all massively expand the resources, scope and responsibilities of OSMF. However, given that OSMF already even with its extremely limited scope of responsibilities suffers under a massive trust issues where far too many active members of the OSM community seem to find a huge conspiracy theory in each action OSMF takes, I don't see how a big expansion of responsibilities of the OSMF would be accepted by the community without hugely costly and probably damaging political fights. Again I agree. The C D order is a good example. I fully support their decision. I'm sure most of us would have come to the same conclusion if we in their shoes. What the OSMF Board
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Am 05.02.2013 08:15, schrieb Clifford Snow: Third parties bring unique value to OSM. However, is it inconceivable that we might be able to offer something more than just a database? For example funded Software development has been done by companies like CloudMade, MapQuest on a company budget, or Mapbox that applied for external funding through the Knight foundation to develop OpenStreetMap software like e.g. the iD editor. This is great until these companies decide that they want us to map according to their rules. If they are building the tools then we have lost the ability to set our directions. Now from what I've seen of the iD editor it's great. The point I'm trying to stress is that we should set our own path, not let others set it for us. We could still encourage others to build tools, but with the understanding of where we are headed. But who is we here? Who should decide how to set our own path? All registered mappers? The OSMF board? Registered users? Active Mappers? What are active mappers? Coders? Active coders? Wiki editors? Every of any of the mentioned groups who is able to read, speak AND write English language? Whatever you choose as a definition for we here, it's very likely that it's not better than what we have now: Everybody who want's to decide AND DO. Sure: that may be companies, and yes, it may have a bad taste that companies influence how stuff is done in the osm universe, but on the other hand you could say the same about the JOSM or Potlatch maintainers, who influence mapping practice a lot by deciding about tagging templates and the like. I think it's good that everyone, even a company, is able to use osm data as well as to provide their users means to contribute back - by providing open-in-osm-editor-links as well as by implementing their own editing functionality (as long as it's done right). If you want us to set our own path, I have to ask, what differs a better us from the people currently setting up our path - many volunteers coding JOSM, Potlatch and iD (even sponsored by Mapbox/Knight Foundation as far as I know the iD dev people talk to and receive contributions by non-paid volunteers). regards Peter ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 2013-02-03 07:41, Jeff Meyer wrote: was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? what makes you think anyone wants to be lead, i certainly don't? or wants to be organised from above? we're all fully functional human beings, perfectly capable of organising ourselves, and doing a damn good job so far - look at where OSM and most other digital commons projects have got through self-organising. i disagree with any idea of a board, i think it's utterly wrong, it reduces a community of thousands to the views a handful of people can put across. -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Am 03.02.2013 09:57, schrieb Robin Paulson: On 2013-02-03 07:41, Jeff Meyer wrote: was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? what makes you think anyone wants to be lead, i certainly don't? or wants to be organised from above? we're all fully functional human beings, perfectly capable of organising ourselves, and doing a damn good job so far - look at where OSM and most other digital commons projects have got through self-organising. i disagree with any idea of a board, i think it's utterly wrong, it reduces a community of thousands to the views a handful of people can put across. Thank you, Robin. Reading this is the sugar in my Sunday morning coffee and gives me back a lot of hope still to be a part of a free and open project. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 02/02/2013 11:49 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: you are too impatient, at least too impatient for the occasionally glacial pace at which things move in OSM(F). You have been with OSM for about 6 months now if I'm not mistaken, and most of your recent messages (at least most of the messages that reach me) are about how and why you might be leaving. Most people take a bit longer than that! That's because in those 6 months I have worked several hundred hours (300) on my OSM related projects. So I'm not exactly a regular member of the community. I was working nearly full time on OSM in my own time from October to December. So you may say that my impatience was accelerated by that fact. You are also jumping to conclusions (OSMF doesn't want to set agenda for the future) - maybe OSMF simply wants to think it over? Please don't quote selectively. This sentence was an either/or construct so please don't quote out of context. And you seem to be thinking it over since 2011 according to SWG meeting minutes. As Jeff mentioned, there is a group of people who have the energy and ideas on how to reactivate such strategic/future initiative. I'm very interested to see how OSMF reacts to that. There are many others who have, over the years, done much more work that you have, in their spare time, and who haven't after only six months sent lots of emails about having to abandon all their work if OSMF doesn't finally manage to implement strategic planning or so. So what? People are different. I am apparently more outspoken or sensitive to some stuff than others. I.e. I want to make sure that the project I'm spending tons of my own free time is actually going somewhere. What's wrong with that? It seems that in your particular case you see a connection between coding for OSM and the OSMF because ultimately you would like to get paid for your work, and you don't see OSMF paying developers without a strategic plan. Is that reading correct, or do you simply fear that without a strategically planning organisation the OSM project will die and your contributions with it? I abandoned my apparent pipe-dream of getting paid for OSM work about a month ago. I still think that the community should be supported in their efforts by some organization like OSMF, i.e. CWG or DWG members should be actually paid for their work on some basis. Developers may be a different case because some of the tasks require extreme amount of work so it could be done on case-by-case basis. What I want right now is some sign that OSM is not fading away as a project. And no, we just need time to think it over written by OSMF board member is not what I'm looking for. For me the next 6-8 months will be make or break for OSM(F). Paweł ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 2013-02-03 12:14, Michal Migurski wrote: Communication is hard, and there are ways to do it that make people feel like they're getting a complete story instead of a confused glimpse through an accidentally-open door. Simon's mail left out a lot of important things, most notably that he's a member of the OSMF Board and that it was an official statement. Michal, what do you mean by official? from wikipedia, i see: An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either his own or that of his superior and/or employer, public or legally private). which concerns me no end. what position of authority does simon hold? over whom? what significance does the osmf board hold? they speak for themselves, not anyone else. -- robin http://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz - Auckland's Free University ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Giving the world a point of Access to OSM, like the OSMF, BoD, and whatever steering committee, group or other entity, give outsiders the idea that OSMF owns OSM, which is not true, By obeying such request without objections we give others the idea that we are defenseless. Instead OSMF should have replied that it's not OSMF that owns OSM, (send a copy of the OSMF statutes with it), and that they should address their complaints elsewhere. If you own (or think that you own) a multi million worth asset such as usable map of the world, and think you can manage that without the financial means to defend it, one must have a simplified and naïve vision of the outside world. I am sure this is the first small incident, and it will be followed by a number of other hyena's that smell money. OSMF, if it wants to continue to function as a self-instated owner of OSM, will have to get the funds to defend itself. Gert Gremmen -Oorspronkelijk bericht- Van: Michael Buege [mailto:mich...@buegehome.de] Verzonden: zondag 3 februari 2013 11:55 Aan: talk@openstreetmap.org Onderwerp: Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done? Am 03.02.2013 09:57, schrieb Robin Paulson: On 2013-02-03 07:41, Jeff Meyer wrote: was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? what makes you think anyone wants to be lead, i certainly don't? or wants to be organised from above? we're all fully functional human beings, perfectly capable of organising ourselves, and doing a damn good job so far - look at where OSM and most other digital commons projects have got through self-organising. i disagree with any idea of a board, i think it's utterly wrong, it reduces a community of thousands to the views a handful of people can put across. Thank you, Robin. Reading this is the sugar in my Sunday morning coffee and gives me back a lot of hope still to be a part of a free and open project. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On Feb 3, 2013, at 3:37 AM, Robin Paulson wrote: On 2013-02-03 12:14, Michal Migurski wrote: Communication is hard, and there are ways to do it that make people feel like they're getting a complete story instead of a confused glimpse through an accidentally-open door. Simon's mail left out a lot of important things, most notably that he's a member of the OSMF Board and that it was an official statement. Michal, what do you mean by official? from wikipedia, i see: An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority (either his own or that of his superior and/or employer, public or legally private). which concerns me no end. what position of authority does simon hold? over whom? Simon is the elected chairman of the OSMF board, and can speak on its behalf. He holds a position of authority over the Geocode Inc. issue because apparently the foundation received a CD. what significance does the osmf board hold? they speak for themselves, not anyone else. That's exactly the question at hand in this particular argument. We seem to have an OSMF that's not effective at communicating, and large parts of the community don't see the value they offer. Your takeaway is that the board is not representative of the project and should not exist at all. My feeling is that a project needs a political structure to survive. In either case, Geocode Inc. believes that the OSMF are the right people to receive a CD. Ultimately, someone needs to own the domain name and the API and the servers it runs on. That's who the Geocodes of the world are going to target. It would be best if that someone was answerable to the larger community through a democratic process of some sort, so in my view the OSMF is a requirement. I'm not frustrated that we *have* a board, I'm frustrated that the board we've got doesn't seem effective at communicating its purpose or much of anything else. They're bad at politics. If they were good at politics, you wouldn't be disagreeing with the idea of a board because you'd be thankful for the provision of a quality API and the decisive resolution of legal threats from trademark trolls. For what it's worth, I was on the US OSMF board last year, and the most important thing I learned about myself is that I'm bad at politics, too, so I totally understand that this stuff is hard. -mike. michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/cahttp://mike.teczno.com/contact.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Hi, On 03.02.2013 12:36, Paweł Paprota wrote: What I want right now is some sign that OSM is not fading away as a project. Shouldn't this be the other way round - shouldn't somebody who claims that OSM was about to fade away have proof for that? Number of users raising: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/images/thumb/7/78/Osmdbstats1_log.png/800px-Osmdbstats1_log.png Number of active users raising: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/images/thumb/c/c7/Osmdbstats4A.png/800px-Osmdbstats4A.png Amount of data raising: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/w/images/thumb/e/e3/Osmdbstats2.png/800px-Osmdbstats2.png Constantly talked about in the press: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/In_the_media I'm sorry but I don't see any reason for gloom. Maybe you have read the wrong blogs to fear that OSM will soon be forgotten ;) And no, we just need time to think it over written by OSMF board member is not what I'm looking for. For me the next 6-8 months will be make or break for OSM(F). As I said, such impatience is unusual and unwarranted. The next 6-8 months are certainly not going to make or break OSM or OSMF; I really don't know where that idea comes from. Strategic thinking is long-term thinking, and in our case requires to get a lot of pepole on board in a suitable process, including those who think that we shouldn't have a strategy (we can't just kick them out and say ok then we'll have a strategy without you - we have to convince them that having a strategy is good). This not only is a lot of work but also requires the political skills that Mike Migurski mentioned. I'm confident that all these things are going to happen in due course, but it is very unlikely that in due course means in 6-8 months. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
To answer your first question, I do. Others have voiced the same opinion - they'd like to see some organization, to know that their efforts are being applied for the most benefit. Your voice is noted, but there should be room for disagreement, no? One of the goals of a strategic exercise would be to test your thesis whether OSM's (and the OSMF's) damn good job so far, is damn good enough to continue to survive and thrive. The thesis that an organizing board reduces a community of thousands to the views of a handful seems contrary to what has gone on with many other successful OS projects. On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 12:57 AM, Robin Paulson ro...@bumblepuppy.orgwrote: On 2013-02-03 07:41, Jeff Meyer wrote: was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? what makes you think anyone wants to be lead, i certainly don't? or wants to be organised from above? we're all fully functional human beings, perfectly capable of organising ourselves, and doing a damn good job so far - look at where OSM and most other digital commons projects have got through self-organising. i disagree with any idea of a board, i think it's utterly wrong, it reduces a community of thousands to the views a handful of people can put across. -- robin http://**universitywithoutconditions.**ac.nzhttp://universitywithoutconditions.ac.nz- Auckland's Free University __**_ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.**org/listinfo/talkhttp://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk -- Jeff Meyer Global World History Atlas www.gwhat.org j...@gwhat.org 206-676-2347 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jeffmeyer osm: Historical OSMhttp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Historical_OSM / my OSM user page http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jeffmeyer t: @GWHAThistory https://twitter.com/GWHAThistory f: GWHAThistory https://www.facebook.com/GWHAThistory ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Michal Migurski wrote: We seem to have an OSMF that's not effective at communicating I tried :( FWIW Communications Working Group is very good, just under-resourced. There needs to be more of them, and they need to be given the space to thrive without interference. cheers Richard (ex-board, ex-CWG) -- View this message in context: http://gis.19327.n5.nabble.com/Pawe-s-q-what-can-be-done-tp5747772p5747915.html Sent from the General Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 02/03/2013 07:35 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: Hi, On 03.02.2013 12:36, Paweł Paprota wrote: What I want right now is some sign that OSM is not fading away as a project. Shouldn't this be the other way round - shouldn't somebody who claims that OSM was about to fade away have proof for that? Number of users raising: (...) I'm sorry but I don't see any reason for gloom. Maybe you have read the wrong blogs to fear that OSM will soon be forgotten ;) Nice way to interpret the data :-) Look closer and not only if the charts are rising and you can see a different picture: Number of users grew from 500k to 1M since some time in 2011 until January 2013: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats1_users.png At the same time the percentage of (highly) active users is falling since at least 2009 and this number is now below 2%. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats8.png http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats4A.png On the developer side of things, look at the git log and what's been going on in the last several months. How many Top Ten Tasks have been accomplished in 2012 from those that were planned? Now think why this number is so low. I don't know much about CWG but I trust Richard when he says they are understaffed/under-resourced and proper communication and PR is probably one of the most important things right now that the project should be doing. As I said, such impatience is unusual and unwarranted. The next 6-8 months are certainly not going to make or break OSM or OSMF; I really don't know where that idea comes from. That's your opinion, I have a different one and know at least a couple of people who think alike. Certainly if nothing is done in 6-8 months then OSM is not going to vanish. It's just my personal timeframe, the time I'm willing to invest into developing and helping with other matters. Strategic thinking is long-term thinking, and in our case requires to get a lot of pepole on board in a suitable process, including those who think that we shouldn't have a strategy (we can't just kick them out and say ok then we'll have a strategy without you - we have to convince them that having a strategy is good). This not only is a lot of work but also requires the political skills that Mike Migurski mentioned. I'm confident that all these things are going to happen in due course, but it is very unlikely that in due course means in 6-8 months. Seriously? 6-8 months is not enough time to put together such initiative? What do you plan on doing all this time? Paweł ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Am 03.02.2013 20:42, schrieb Paweł Paprota: . Nice way to interpret the data :-) Look closer and not only if the charts are rising and you can see a different picture: Number of users grew from 500k to 1M since some time in 2011 until January 2013: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats1_users.png At the same time the percentage of (highly) active users is falling since at least 2009 and this number is now below 2%. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats8.png http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/File:Osmdbstats4A.png A relative decrease in active mappers is what you would expect as the result of us casting our net further (which can be seen in the accelerated growth of accounts) , and I fully expect it to decrease more as we reach out to groups that we haven't approached before. Naturally in absolute terms the numbers are increasing, just as would be expected, see http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/index.php?item=members These are the really important numbers and those that we want to grow. Simon ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Hi, On 03.02.2013 20:42, Paweł Paprota wrote: At the same time the percentage of (highly) active users is falling since at least 2009 and this number is now below 2%. Seeing the number of highly active mappers rise would mean that we have a small number of mappers doing a lot of work; the number falling means that work is distributed among more people. I think that's good. On the developer side of things, look at the git log and what's been going on in the last several months. How many Top Ten Tasks have been accomplished in 2012 from those that were planned? Now think why this number is so low. I don't know exactly what git log you mean. OSM is a whole universe of software; a part of that is visible on https://github.com/openstreetmap/. The bit that is on https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website is but a tiny fragment of it. The number of Top Ten Tasks completed would only be suitable if you had something to compare it to (in 2011 we managed to close 4 tasks but not a single one in 2012 or so). In fact you are the *first* person who actually proclaims doom for OSM because not enough of these tasks have been completed. I think one must be thankful that you joined after the license change was through else you'd have spent three years telling us that we're doomed because it takes so long ;) I don't know much about CWG but I trust Richard when he says they are understaffed/under-resourced and proper communication and PR is probably one of the most important things right now that the project should be doing. Well, yes, communication is important; CWG should have more people and we've just lost someone who thought up great things like switch2osm.org - but you make it sound like the house is on fire and if things don't change within half a year everything will be lost and I can assure you that OSM won't fade into oblivion just because we put out less press releases than we could. That's your opinion, I have a different one and know at least a couple of people who think alike. Certainly if nothing is done in 6-8 months then OSM is not going to vanish. That's relieving to hear ;) Strategic thinking is long-term thinking, and in our case requires to get a lot of pepole on board in a suitable process, including those who think that we shouldn't have a strategy (we can't just kick them out and say ok then we'll have a strategy without you - we have to convince them that having a strategy is good). This not only is a lot of work but also requires the political skills that Mike Migurski mentioned. I'm confident that all these things are going to happen in due course, but it is very unlikely that in due course means in 6-8 months. Seriously? 6-8 months is not enough time to put together such initiative? What do you plan on doing all this time? The OSMF board consists of six people who have a day job, a private life, who are mappers or coders or doing other OSM related things in their spare time - and on top of that they do OSMF board work. This board work comprises taking part in meetings, handling inquiries by third parties, handling legal issues like the one that spawned this thread, talking to lawyers, doing finances, planning conferences, handling OSMF membership, and a lot more. Some of these tasks are taken on by individual board members and therefore don't concern the whole board a lot, but even then there's reporting and discussion. One of the things we're working on (see the November 03 board minutes plus some of the later ones) is to install a Management Team that would take some of the workload off the shoulders of the board, freeing up some space for more strategic or at least more forward-looking tasks; among them are work on the Articles of Association (mentioned in Dec 18 minutes) and sorting out intellectual property issues (trademark registration mentioned in Jan 29 minutes) with the aim of coming up with guidelines on the use of our name. There are only so many hours in a day and only so many hours that OSMF board members are able to spend on board work. Especially when strategic stuff is concerned, board members wouldn't only have to discuss things among themselves, they would also have to talk to other stakeholders in OSM, get them on board, set up a process and all that. Of course I could sit down on my own and write up a the future of OSMF document in an evening, and if I do it well it might be nice starting point for a discussion, but not more. These issues take time and if you don't believe me, you're free to stand for election at the next SOTM conference, and then you can be the person to explain to the eager young folk on the mailing list why things move so slowly ;) Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 10:35 AM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Strategic thinking is long-term thinking, and in our case requires to get a lot of pepole on board in a suitable process, including those who think that we shouldn't have a strategy (we can't just kick them out and say ok then we'll have a strategy without you - we have to convince them that having a strategy is good). This not only is a lot of work but also requires the political skills that Mike Migurski mentioned. I'm confident that all these things are going to happen in due course, but it is very unlikely that in due course means in 6-8 months. Frederik, I want to make sure we are clear. Are you signaling your belief that we need some strategic planning? If so that's good news. Just the planning to do a Strategic Plan is a lot of work. Can you take to the OSMF Board a proposal that we need to initiate a committee that will start the planning and possibly run a Strategic Planning process? Personally I'd like someone like Steve Coast head this effort up but I can't speak for him or his availability. I also agree with you that OSM isn't going to break any time soon. If OSM can survive the licensing change, it can even survive a strategic planning process. -- Clifford OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Hi, On 03.02.2013 23:59, Clifford Snow wrote: I want to make sure we are clear. Are you signaling your belief that we need some strategic planning? I'm hesitant to say yes because your sentence can mean a lot of different things to different people. In the worst case, we need some strategic planning could be read as the OSMF should make plans for where OSM should be in ten years and the project should then follow. This is certainly not a view that I would subscribe to. I tend to avoid the word strategic planning because it always sounds so gloriously important (and attracts those who like that). Used by the wrong people, the existence of strategic plans for OSM would make every mapper but a pawn in some grand scheme thought out by the glamourous architects without whom the project would be nothing. Nothing could be further from the truth and we must avoid to give people such an idea. But of course it cannot hurt to think about the future together, try and predict the problems we might be facing in five years, and make plans to be prepared - rather than waiting for the problem to suddenly appear ;) The 2011/2012 board has actually done some steps in that direction, with Mikel reaching out to a number of professional strategic consultants and getting a broad idea of what (if anything) they could possibly do for OSM(F). The results were mixed and my reading (I wasn't on the board at that time) was largely that with things as they are, we're not ready for such a step yet. If Mikel himself would like to say a few bits about this? Having a strategy is good but trying to find one can tie up a lot of resources and personally I'm not sure if starting a committee is the right thing. I think that OSMF should first get their house in order (I mentioned several things reflected in the board minutes, like Management Team, Articles of Association etc.) and then hopefully we are in a position where the board of directors can spend more time thinking about strategic things, and then, much, much further down the line, maybe we'll even be in a position to fork out millions for a strategy consultant like Wikimedia did ;) This is all baby steps right now and IMHO not something that will yield visible results in Pawel's desired half-year time frame. You have to match up your high-flying thoughts with what can acutally be achieved, and in the end OSM is about enthusiasts with their feet on the ground (or their hands on the keyboard) whom we have to give all the support we can. Bye Frederik -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Clifford Snow wrote Frederik, I want to make sure we are clear. Are you signaling your belief that we need some strategic planning? Well, what does strategic planning even mean in the context of OSMF? OSMF currently operates under the strategy of keeping its influence pretty much as minimal as somehow possible. It mostly limits it self to operating the servers for the editing api and publishing a weekly planet dump. Everything else is kind of outside of the scope of the OSMF and to be provided by third parties. This strategy is implemented to such a degree that e.g. not even planet extracts to make the unwieldy monolithic planet file usable are provided by OSMF but by third parties. It operates under the strategy that anything that can conceivably be provided by third parties should. OSMF does not e.g. fund software development, it does very limited to no funding of outreach or PR, it does not provide any (or very limited) client applications / services. State of the Map is probably the only major exception to this rule and people have proposed to move that out of the scope of OSMF too, as has successfully been done with organizing the regional State of the Map conferences. All of that can be (and is) done without the involvement of the OSMF. For example funded Software development has been done by companies like CloudMade, MapQuest on a company budget, or Mapbox that applied for external funding through the Knight foundation to develop OpenStreetMap software like e.g. the iD editor. Developer resources like Toolservers have for example been provided by third parties like the German Chapter, US Chapter or the French Chapter, or Wikimedia through the OSM toolserver, or through Rambler or probably a number of others I have forgotten. PR resources have been provided to the community by yet more third party sources, like e.g. some of the offers of Geofabrik to print PR materials to use in various ways like e.g. to man booths on trade shows. Outreach has been done by yet more third parties like e.g. H.O.T. or like the community ambassador programs of CloudMade. So again the strategy of OSMF has been to not pick winners or loosers to use a political term but let the community a free hand in anything that isn't absolutely necessary to centralize, which covers the servers necessary for the editing API, protecting the core data in the database and legal issues like the license, copy right violations and trandemark issues). Personally I am not the biggest fan of this rather libertarian approach, but it is a perfectly valid strategy for OSMF to take and which approach would ultimately lead to more success for OSM is pretty much impossible to factually determine and is thus left to personal opinion and controversial political debate. Under this premises what would strategic planning for the OSMF look like? Well, it would pretty much be an extremely technical discussion about the scalability of the server hardware. Although that might be a fascinating topic for some, I doubt that is what is meant by strategic planning in this debate and I don't really see any issues with that at the moment. In that light, one can also see the success and failure of the previous attempts of the SWG. As Richard pointed out, one of the successes of the SWG was to establish a policy of inclusion of third party tiles in the layer chooser. Although I think it was an important achievement, and as a member of the SWG at the time helped formulate it, I wouldn't directly call that strategic planning. Most other topics successfully handled were also pretty short sighted technical aspects if I remember correctly. But that is at least partly because there simply isn't any scope for strategic planning in the current model of the OSMF. So anyone who wants to do any strategic planning must first of all massively expand the resources, scope and responsibilities of OSMF. However, given that OSMF already even with its extremely limited scope of responsibilities suffers under a massive trust issues where far too many active members of the OSM community seem to find a huge conspiracy theory in each action OSMF takes, I don't see how a big expansion of responsibilities of the OSMF would be accepted by the community without hugely costly and probably damaging political fights. The alternative is to do these strategic planes outside of the OSMF, e.g. in one of the local chapters or topic specific groups like H.O.T. Nothing stops them from devising great and strategically thought out PR campaigns. No one stops them from providing valuable resources that have been identified as strategically important for the growth of OSM. No one stops them from fund raising to support those activities (although there are some possibly unresolved issues with the use of the OpenStreetMap trademark in those PR and fund raising activities). No one stops them from developing those killer application that will make everyone want to use and contribute to OSM. It is
[OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? And, to an even more relevant issue: how many people like Paweł show up on the doorstep and don't bother engaging for the same reasons he mentions? There's a group working in parallel to put together a strategic plan, in the absence of one, but doing this without leadership and support from the top can be problematic. And, no, saying, That's great, go for it, isn't really support. I hope Paweł doesn't leave, but I cannot blame him for feeling the way he feels. His points are on target. Are there any plans in place for OSMF to address these types of questions by SotM 2013? - Jeff -- Forwarded message -- From: Paweł Paprota ppa...@fastmail.fm Date: Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 4:25 AM Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Recent edits in the wiki / Trademark issue To: talk@openstreetmap.org On 02/01/2013 08:54 PM, andrzej zaborowski wrote: I agree with what you're saying although I can't help thinking that if the OSMF can't take the risk of having some things in the wiki, the solution, for everyone's benefit, is to move the wiki to a server that's not paid for by the OSMF. I'm positive finding such a server wouldn't be difficult (in fact the home page says it is hosted at UCL ByteMark -- so if the OSMF is neither hosting nor writing the content, should it accept the C+D? The admins *are* OSMF members, but they're not OSMF). The OSMF has at some point started assuming responsibility for what is being published in the database and now on the wiki. In the case of the database it makes sense for someone to give some level of warranty that the data in it in fact is legally usable, although the consequences of this step have had a terrible effect on the map and the community so far. +100 Current situation is getting silly to the point that I'm seriously considering abandoning this project and leaving history tab, vector tiles and my other projects unfinished just to have peace of mind and work in a sane project with sane organization behind it like KDE. On one hand OSMF is telling us they don't want any strategic planning and involvement, on the other they are redacting and editing data and wiki. And this is possible mostly because what Andrzej said - that they host the servers (which I am personally grateful for - to the admins - no to people who use it for political bullshit like this). This is NOT how a project should work and you will only discourage people by doing such stunts. Either finally get your act together and prepare a proper organization like KDE e.v (http://ev.kde.org/) or get out of the project and leave it be. There is still plenty of energy that will fill the void after you (I'm talking to OSMF). Paweł -- Forwarded message -- From: Paweł Paprota ppa...@fastmail.fm Date: Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 5:55 AM Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Recent edits in the wiki / Trademark issue To: Ed Loach e...@loach.me.uk Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org On 02/02/2013 02:38 PM, Ed Loach wrote: As far as I can see, OSMF Ltd is very like KDE ev; compare http://blog.osmfoundation.org/**about/http://blog.osmfoundation.org/about/ and http://ev.kde.org/whatiskdeev.**php http://ev.kde.org/whatiskdeev.php Legal status is the least of what I meant. Compare what OSMF does with this quarterly report from the KDE foundation: http://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-**quarterly-2012_Q3.pdfhttp://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-quarterly-2012_Q3.pdf Not only is all this stuff happening but they also have people who prepare such a nice quarterly report. Also note fund raising efforts, expenses and donations, partners, new members etc. This is an organization that actually supports the community in their efforts. And they are not evil in doing that. What can be done to steer OSMF into that direction? Can it be even done at this point? Paweł -- Jeff Meyer Global World History Atlas www.gwhat.org j...@gwhat.org 206-676-2347 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jeffmeyer osm: Historical OSMhttp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Historical_OSM / my OSM user page http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jeffmeyer t: @GWHAThistory https://twitter.com/GWHAThistory f: GWHAThistory https://www.facebook.com/GWHAThistory ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 02/02/2013 07:41 PM, Jeff Meyer wrote: There's a group working in parallel to put together a strategic plan, in the absence of one, but doing this without leadership and support from the top can be problematic. Couple of people have mentioned the Strategic Working Group[1] to me in the last few days when I ran the idea by them. It seems to be an ideal platform for this kind of effort. It looks like SWG has been inactive for quite a while now: * Last meeting minutes are from December 2011 [2] * Last mailing list thread is from September 2012 [3] I am not sure what are the reasons of this inactivity, whether it is intentional (OSMF does not want to set the agenda for the future) or people just don't have the time/energy but regardless of that it looks like the right place to discuss further. The initiative that Jeff mentioned is in very early stages, basically few people got together via e-mail after one of those recent OSM Future Look threads and we came up with an idea to start a more structured brainstorming. I think it should be revealed soon how to participate and what this is exactly. The most interesting challenge is of course moving from talking to action, we have some ideas how to avoid degenerating into another talking initiative. Involving OSMF in some capacity would be another idea to give the initiative more momentum. [1] http://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Strategic_Working_Group [2] http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes#Strategic_Working_Group [3] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/strategic/ Paweł ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
For what it's worth, I agree with Jeff and Paweł on this. If OSMF is going to be a big, beautiful mess it should own that and publish the CD for everyone to see. Anarchists gonna anarchate. If on the other hand we want strong leadership that can handle a trademark dispute on its own, then we're missing a lot of what leadership is about: clear communication, visible power structure, authority figures who can speak on behalf of the organization, draw fire, and so on. Does the board want to be a board? -mike. On Feb 2, 2013, at 10:41 AM, Jeff Meyer wrote: was: geocoding trademark thread I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? And, to an even more relevant issue: how many people like Paweł show up on the doorstep and don't bother engaging for the same reasons he mentions? There's a group working in parallel to put together a strategic plan, in the absence of one, but doing this without leadership and support from the top can be problematic. And, no, saying, That's great, go for it, isn't really support. I hope Paweł doesn't leave, but I cannot blame him for feeling the way he feels. His points are on target. Are there any plans in place for OSMF to address these types of questions by SotM 2013? - Jeff -- Forwarded message -- From: Paweł Paprota ppa...@fastmail.fm Date: Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 4:25 AM Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Recent edits in the wiki / Trademark issue To: talk@openstreetmap.org On 02/01/2013 08:54 PM, andrzej zaborowski wrote: I agree with what you're saying although I can't help thinking that if the OSMF can't take the risk of having some things in the wiki, the solution, for everyone's benefit, is to move the wiki to a server that's not paid for by the OSMF. I'm positive finding such a server wouldn't be difficult (in fact the home page says it is hosted at UCL ByteMark -- so if the OSMF is neither hosting nor writing the content, should it accept the C+D? The admins *are* OSMF members, but they're not OSMF). The OSMF has at some point started assuming responsibility for what is being published in the database and now on the wiki. In the case of the database it makes sense for someone to give some level of warranty that the data in it in fact is legally usable, although the consequences of this step have had a terrible effect on the map and the community so far. +100 Current situation is getting silly to the point that I'm seriously considering abandoning this project and leaving history tab, vector tiles and my other projects unfinished just to have peace of mind and work in a sane project with sane organization behind it like KDE. On one hand OSMF is telling us they don't want any strategic planning and involvement, on the other they are redacting and editing data and wiki. And this is possible mostly because what Andrzej said - that they host the servers (which I am personally grateful for - to the admins - no to people who use it for political bullshit like this). This is NOT how a project should work and you will only discourage people by doing such stunts. Either finally get your act together and prepare a proper organization like KDE e.v (http://ev.kde.org/) or get out of the project and leave it be. There is still plenty of energy that will fill the void after you (I'm talking to OSMF). Paweł -- Forwarded message -- From: Paweł Paprota ppa...@fastmail.fm Date: Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 5:55 AM Subject: Re: [OSM-talk] Recent edits in the wiki / Trademark issue To: Ed Loach e...@loach.me.uk Cc: talk@openstreetmap.org On 02/02/2013 02:38 PM, Ed Loach wrote: As far as I can see, OSMF Ltd is very like KDE ev; compare http://blog.osmfoundation.org/about/ and http://ev.kde.org/whatiskdeev.php Legal status is the least of what I meant. Compare what OSMF does with this quarterly report from the KDE foundation: http://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-quarterly-2012_Q3.pdf Not only is all this stuff happening but they also have people who prepare such a nice quarterly report. Also note fund raising efforts, expenses and donations, partners, new members etc. This is an organization that actually supports the community in their efforts. And they are not evil in doing that. What can be done to steer OSMF into that direction? Can it be even done at this point? Paweł -- Jeff Meyer Global World History Atlas www.gwhat.org j...@gwhat.org 206-676-2347 osm: Historical OSM / my OSM user page t: @GWHAThistory f: GWHAThistory ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/cahttp://mike.teczno.com/contact.html
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On 02/02/2013 19:55, Michal Migurski wrote: For what it's worth, I agree with Jeff and Paweł on this. If OSMF is going to be a big, beautiful mess it should own that and publish the CD for everyone to see. Anarchists gonna anarchate. If on the other hand we want strong leadership that can handle a trademark dispute on its own, then we're missing a lot of what leadership is about: clear communication, visible power structure, authority figures who can speak on behalf of the organization, draw fire, and so on. Does the board want to be a board? -mike. Heck, I'll step up to the board and reply on their behalf if they're all too scared to do so. Publishing a Cease Desist notice isn't illegal - ChillingEffects should be evidence enough of this. It would be in the best interests of demystifying this whole debacle if the notice was published immediately, prominently and in full on the OSM web site. Personally I also wonder as to the legal legitimacy of this CD, particularly when it emanates from America and is on behalf of an American company whose CTM application was (as has been well noted) refused in the EU on absolute grounds (the genericism of geocode). As far as I can see, Geocode Inc.'s request has absolutely no legal weight in the EU. Personally I would have politely acknowledged receipt of the original CD, noted their request and replied with we kindly refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram. This whole thing is quickly becoming borderline ridiculous. We should't be afeared of some marauding American company with the mistaken belief that they have exclusive rights to a term even outside of their trade mark's jurisdiction. They can fly over here and pursue the matter in an English court if it so concerns them. ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
Pawel, you are too impatient, at least too impatient for the occasionally glacial pace at which things move in OSM(F). You have been with OSM for about 6 months now if I'm not mistaken, and most of your recent messages (at least most of the messages that reach me) are about how and why you might be leaving. Most people take a bit longer than that! You are also jumping to conclusions (OSMF doesn't want to set agenda for the future) - maybe OSMF simply wants to think it over? The work you've done for OSM is undoubtedly of a high standard, and your history tab prototype was widely acclaimed. I don't want to diminish that effort at all - but I do feel that I need to put in into perspective. There are many others who have, over the years, done much more work that you have, in their spare time, and who haven't after only six months sent lots of emails about having to abandon all their work if OSMF doesn't finally manage to implement strategic planning or so. In fact, for most coders, what OSMF does or doesn't to was quite irrelevant. It seems that in your particular case you see a connection between coding for OSM and the OSMF because ultimately you would like to get paid for your work, and you don't see OSMF paying developers without a strategic plan. Is that reading correct, or do you simply fear that without a strategically planning organisation the OSM project will die and your contributions with it? You have, several times, mentioned KDE e.V. as a good example. I looked at their quarterly report and indeed, personally I would quite approve of OSMF going in that direction. It seems that the KDE people are spending a lot of money to facilitate meetings between volunteer developers, paying for flights and accomodation and such. Of course they are a software development project, whereas in OSM the software development is only one part of several, but still, things like paying for a developer to fly to a code sprint or so sounds like something that would make sense. But even though software development is at the core of the KDE project, KDE e.V. doesn't pay for coding work as far as I can see; their staff is administrative only. Also, KDE e.V. is now 15 years old, the OSMF is 7; you should be looking at KDE e.V. documents from 2005 to make a fair comparison ;) - but even back then they had a nice quarterly report: http://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-quarterly-2005Q3.pdf Finally, I am somewhat puzzled by the connection that you (and also Jeff) seem to make between the perceived lack of planning and the current trademark issue that spawned the thread. You wrote On one hand OSMF is telling us they don't want any strategic planning and involvement, on the other they are redacting and editing data and wiki. And Jeff followed up: I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? In what way would an organisation with great strategic planning, one that is efficient and organised, handle such a trademark issue differently? In how far is the current trademark issue a sign of lack of planning? I really don't get it. Is there a connection between these issues that goes beyond both are issues where the OSMF is criticised by some? Bye Frederik (I am a member of the OSMF board but this is, as always, completely my personal opinion.) -- Frederik Ramm ## eMail frede...@remote.org ## N49°00'09 E008°23'33 ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On Feb 2, 2013, at 2:49 PM, Frederik Ramm wrote: And Jeff followed up: I think Paweł has hit on a key question: does the OSMF have plans to operate and lead OSM in a more efficient, organized manner or not? In what way would an organisation with great strategic planning, one that is efficient and organised, handle such a trademark issue differently? In how far is the current trademark issue a sign of lack of planning? I really don't get it. Is there a connection between these issues that goes beyond both are issues where the OSMF is criticised by some? Communication is hard, and there are ways to do it that make people feel like they're getting a complete story instead of a confused glimpse through an accidentally-open door. Simon's mail left out a lot of important things, most notably that he's a member of the OSMF Board and that it was an official statement. Dear OSM Contributors, We at the OSM Foundation have recently received a cease desist letter from Geocode, Inc. of Alexandria, Virginia, USA regarding the use of links displaying the Google geocoding service on the wiki. We have consulted with our legal counsel, and they have advised us to remove these links from all OSMF-owned domains. While we believe that Geocode's claims are without merit, we have decided that the potential negative impact of Geocode's actions outweighs the benefits of keeping those links on the wiki. [detailed description of potential negative outcomes]. We will be watching all future edits to the wiki to ensure that new references to the Google geocoding service are not introduced to the site. Editors attempting to add these links will be automatically referred to this message explaining why their edits have been rejected. [link to this message on an OSMF-controlled blog or domain]. We will be responding to Geocode Inc. and contacting Google Inc. to [do whatever happens next]. We apologize for the drastic nature of this action, but we feel that the [detailed description of potential negative outcomes] is an unacceptable risk to the mission of OpenStreetMap, and outweighs the adverse impact of removing the problem links. As a representative of the board on this issue, I will be available to discuss it [on email, IRC, conference call, whatever]. -Sincerely, Joe Q. Boardmember OpenStreetMap Foundation. michal migurski- contact info and pgp key: sf/cahttp://mike.teczno.com/contact.html ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
Re: [OSM-talk] Paweł's q: what can be done?
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Frederik Ramm frede...@remote.org wrote: Finally, I am somewhat puzzled by the connection that you (and also Jeff) seem to make between the perceived lack of planning and the current trademark issue that spawned the thread. I didn't make that connection actually thought they were separate topics, hence I separated the thread. I was more worried about a motivated developer (who had demonstrated his commitment with code) leaving the community because of a perceived absence of leadership than I was about the trademark thing. - Jeff -- Jeff Meyer Global World History Atlas www.gwhat.org j...@gwhat.org 206-676-2347 http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jeffmeyer osm: Historical OSMhttp://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Historical_OSM / my OSM user page http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jeffmeyer t: @GWHAThistory https://twitter.com/GWHAThistory f: GWHAThistory https://www.facebook.com/GWHAThistory ___ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
