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 probably didn't fully understand is how upset the community would be over their decision. I think most of us has read the article in Arts Technica [1] about how Newegg stopped a patent troll. This C & D order is just as bad as the patent trolls. > 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 just that OSMF might not be the body through which to achieve > those goals and that planning. > > I think the other way to do strategic planning is to first get out and talk to people. Listen to their concerns. And not just us vocal ones. Get the concerns of the mapper that for whatever reason doesn't or has never subscribed to these mailing lists. Armed with data on what end users want will help lessen the fights. > Indeed, there have been brief ideas thrown out to found a new organisation > e.g. "OpenStreetMap EndUser Foundation" to support all of the end user > activity that is so important to give users an incentive to contribute to > OSM as it gives them real value back for their effort. I think ideas like > that where discussed in the SWG, but I might remember incorrectly and it > was > just tossed around in the "normal" discussion channels like the talk list > (it has been a while since I last looked through the SWG minutes). > > > > So overall, the first question to answer is do we really want to do this in > the scope of the OSMF or are there other organisations who are better > suited > for such activity? Does the OSMF have the support of the community for such > a "power grab" or are the trust issues it suffers with a non insignificant > number of active members too big to over come for such an expansion? > I don't see it as a power grab so much as just planning for the future. > > [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/how-newegg-crushed-the-shopping-cart-patent-and-saved-online-retail/ -- Clifford OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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