I see so many simultaneous (some unconfused, some confused) efforts in OSM's WikiProject BC2020. Here, I identify what I see from an out-of-Canada yet long-time OSM contributor perspective. While the following must necessarily remain high-level, I do not wish to over-simplify, though it can be difficult to make that combination work well.
1) Canada wishes to deploy "citizen science" and/or "civic science" (civic data, it seems) in crowdsourcing efforts. (Personally, I seriously applaud these efforts, especially as they are at the mighty level of "nationwide"). 2) OSM aligns especially well with these efforts. 3) There are real-world issues that frustrate these efforts, primarily the importation of OD as it is now licensed (except in Ottawa) not harmonizing well with OSM's ODbL. This arises because each city and/or province does something slightly different, though there are minor alignments in some cases. The result is that each of these changes triggers a lengthy and difficult legal process to determine compliance, and legal resource within OSM (our LWG) are limited. In this context, the best use of these resources is a "once per country" approach, and while that happened with Ottawa, making its OD ODbL compliant, other cities haven't adopted Ottawa's license. Otherwise the (literally) provincial (and local) approaches going their own way SERIOUSLY frustrate the "must sail exactly to the tack" specific efforts of BC2020, a straight-up OSM project. 4) OSM has many internal communication methodologies, from "the map itself" (changeset comments, Notes, source and attribution tags...), to our help forum (help.osm.org), to our talk pages (at national, technical and other specific levels of target audiences), to our wiki pages. Each have their purposes, and understanding the differences in how these (and more) are used is part of OSM's culture. There are also "out-of-band" communications (private email conversations, IRC, slack, Google, MeetUps, Mapping Parties, "talk over coffee," academic institutions using OSM in education as efforts part-parallel to BC2020, part not...). While none of these are "secret," some are deliberately and correctly "smaller and more private," appropriately not shared with a wider OSM audience. ALSO, there are others (e.g. government workers in StatsCan and other bureaus...) who wish to see OD and "civic science" progress, perhaps with OSM a star player, yet are neither privy to the "more private" conversations nor are culturally indoctrinated in "methods of getting things done in OSM, especially on a national level." Of course, there is some overlap by some who have contributed mightily to the conversation here, helping to elucidate both history and valuable perspectives of their own. 5) Real decision making "power" so that BC2020 may progress, and I mean in OSM (as it IS an OSM project), must understand these perspectives even as they bring still more additional perspectives of their own to the table. There must be a mingling of cultural perspectives: government OD attitudes and OSM sub-culture. Once 5) happens, and perhaps tomorrow's event where Jonathan Brown "raises this licensing issue" is a new sort of kickstart, this must become a nationwide feedback loop. The CRITICAL juncture to move forward is a harmonization of local/provincial/federal governments and their attitudes and culture towards Open Data with the culture of OSM. We have made great progress, but in my opinion, only in limited contexts and suffering from "stove-piped" communication blockages. This deeply frustrates further progress. Please observe all of the moving parts, (perhaps marvel a bit!) and know that while boulders can be pushed uphill, it isn't easy. I wish to continue to offer encouragement that it can be done. I hope this helps. SteveA California _______________________________________________ Talk-ca mailing list Talk-ca@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ca
