Hi,
On 12/30/11 15:37, Serge Wroclawski wrote:
Let's remember that Frederik believes that not everyone should be a
map contributor, that there's value in a high bar for contribution.
I thought that this thread was about being more consumer friendly in
terms of providing ready-made maps, not in terms of soliciting edits.
Both are orthogonal. You could have a consumer friendly ready-made maps
department and a high bar to editing at the same time; and you could
have it the other way round. This thread is wide-spread already, and the
argument about whom we should attract as editors and why is different
from how we should represent ourselves. I cannot see why you would bring
it up here, other than try to discredit my position?
In fact, many of those arguing for OSM becoming a nice map portal
haven't even touched the subject of editing in their argument.
This reminds me a lot of the early Debian arguments: "Linux can't be
for the masses" turned into "I like compiling my own kernel and we
should have a high bar for contribution."
Fast forward five years, and I'm using Ubuntu.
Me too. But let's not kid ourselves: Ubuntu is the nice packaging of
data/software provided by others. This is of course an
oversimplification but by and large, Ubuntu is a very good example of a
project that has added pretty packaging, user friendliness, and a help
desk to things that have been there before.
If you install software on Ubuntu and it doesn't work and you are clever
enough to provide a patch, then that patch will usually get through to
the upstream software. You don't use Ubuntu *instead* of free software;
you use the Ubuntu packaging. Free software has not been made obsolete
by Ubuntu (even Debian stuff is re-used in Ubuntu).
And this is a good way to work - someone has seen that the making of the
software and the consumer side are different, and need different
specialists, even different projects.
I agree wholeheartedly with the view that OSM should be providing
maps. I think as long as we continue to cling to this idea that we
want third parties to make the maps, then we limit the project's
viability, its success and its overall accuracy.
I think this discussion has gone a little out of hand and maybe it
should be repeated in another form, at another time.
First of all, one would have to define the exact difference between "OSM
is providing maps" and "another project is providing maps". Why exactly
would OSM have to provide maps; is it because we think we would gain
something from it - more visibility, more sponsors perhaps? And if so,
would that advantage not be nullified by the resources that offering
those maps consumes, and would it not be a better organisational
structure overall if there were two separate entities? Even if we all
agreed that "someone should do X", and even if we had people standing by
willing to do the work and even if we had sponsors standing by willing
to pay the money, would it be ideal for OSM/OSMF to do X?
Secondly, and this touches on something from my "looking forward" post a
few days ago, we have always made it clear that there are no official
tags and no official list and no promise that anything gets rendered
anywhere. This has many advantages, decoupling editing from rendering,
and brings many freedoms, but if we were to push that "one true map" or
maybe these "ten true maps" and try to be the map portal for everyone
then that would be the end of saying "well the Mapnik map is just a
showcase and you cannot expect us to render everything". We would
clearly make a much stronger bond between editing and rendering; fewer
and fewer people would be willing to map things that are not on our main
map(s), and we'd be pushing specialist maps to the sidelines. Let's not
kid ourselves: Competing with Google Maps *will* make us more like
Google Maps.
I hope strongly that the view will change, that the OSMF board will
reflect this view. I've seen a slight shift already in the time I've
been with the project. There's far more room for discussion on the
point than there was just a few years ago, but I'm also worried that
the strong beliefs of respected core project members like Frederik
have driven away those who care about the project, but don't share the
same views.
If I may paraphrase: "Sadly, there are some fossils like Fred who are
trying to chase away well-meaning people who share his passion for OSM
but have different views. Luckily, these fossils are losing influence
and things will become better."
The question is: How much of a fossil do you have to be? If there's
someone who cares deeply about OSM but his view is that OSM should place
paid advertising on its map - would it be too bad if that person were to
be "driven away" by (borrowing from Kai's posting) a "hostile
environment"? If there's someone who cares deeply for OSM but believes
that community is irrelevant and we can just import Open Government data
from around the world - how much is such "care" worth, and should we not
praise those who steadfastly refuse that kind of affection?
I believe SWG are having a discussion about "core values" at the moment.
Suffice it to say: There are core values of this project, and if you
don't share them than you can care for OSM as much as you want, you're
in the wrong project. Now what exactly these core values or important
goals are, is open to discussion. *My* vision is that by providing
excellent map data, we put everyone in a position to make the map *they*
would like to have. I know that this is more of a hurdle than "let's
provide a drop-in replacement for Google Maps tiles", but I believe that
the end-user stands to benefit from that.
Bye
Frederik
PS: On the subject of Ubuntu. I think they have meanwhile become too
sure of themselves, and are now trying to make me use a window manager I
don't want because they assume it's ok for 90% of users and they don't
have to care about the 10% fossils. I'm pretty sure they have driven me
away ;)
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