2013/6/3 Serge Wroclawski <[email protected]> > On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 4:44 PM, Johan C <[email protected]> wrote: > > OSMF chairman Simon Poole blogged on May 7, 2013: “Now, with the new > editor > > and our plans for new hardware, we’re stepping up another level to make > > OpenStreetMap, not Google, the default choice for mapping and map data.” > > > > Started as an initiative by some community members, four > Openstreetmappers > > are currently thinking about the future of Openstreetmap. How might OSM > look > > like in 2020? Is it necessary and, if so, possible to compete with a 50 > bln > > dollar company which can buy anything it wants? What can people, > interested > > in geographic data, achieve when they cooperate? Is there a need to > increase > > the feeling to be part of a community? How can we get people to use > > Openstreetmap apps and improve the data? > > I'm sure you have noble of intentions, but I have some practical questions: > > 1. How is this effort different from the efforts in the past of the > Strategic Working Group, for example? > > The SWG was mainly focused on financial issues including fund raising and budget allocation.
> 2. What will this group actually do, write recommendation papers? > The group, part of the OSM community, will work with as many as possible others in the OSM community to reach a broad agreement on what OSM should preferrably look like in the future. With a broad agreement, the group will help develop a strategy that will bring about the changes needed to implement that future look. > 3. Of your recommendations, what then happens to them? Will these > people on this team then proceed to make them happen? For example, if > you were to suggest that the API needs updating, will you then write > the code? Will you be fundraising for the changes and pay for others > to do so? > 4. If the answer to #3 is yes- how will you achieve this? If the > answer is no, then what is the point? > > Another set of good questions. Most likely it will be depending on dynamics: it might happen that community members or interested parties will step in to support the changes to implement the future look. The group has no intention to write code or to oversee the implementation. Fund raising is largely the responsibility of OSMF, although other supporters of OSM in the (recent) past stepped in to bring OSM further. We don't see that changing. > 5. The OSM project is largely (though not entirely) a do-ocracy. How > does a group deciding what the future is effect that? > > The group believes that we will find common themes that unite mappers. The group wants everyones input on what they think the future should look like. Any one individual has a hard time affecting change in OSM, but the goal of the Future Team is to find that clear desire for what the future of OSM should/could be. Being part of the community, as well as being active mappers, the future team is well aware of the OSM culture and it is that culture that gives us the strength to move forward. We are not looking to change the culture, only give support to enrich OSM. Dermot, Clifford, Dave, Johan
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