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Ilya Zverev

@simon regarding the "fixed pot", that's an attitude I cannot support. If we're talking about OSMF, it's far from fixed, though OSMF makes it look so. In development in general, "a return for money spent" is not how you get new things. Like, no company besides Cloudmade and MapZen innovated in OSM on their own money. Because R&D doesn't bring money. Is spending on it pointless? Well, if your goal is to make more money, then yes. Is the goal of OSMF to earn money?

17 comments
Simon Poole

@zverik the goal is to get more people mapping. So lets do the numbers, for simplicity lets assume the OSMF can spend $1/year on development per new mapper, so $152k for 2023 (this is substantially more than what the OSMF actually spends) and split that up

Simon Poole

@zverik so now you will likely argue that a new maps.me/OM mapper is not worth the same as a new everydoor mapper because the retention/conversion rate is much lower. So lets factor that in

Simon Poole

@zverik and wrt the argument that you don't get new stuff without spending money.

Literally all editors in that list were initially developed by private initiative, and those private individuals,/organisations/corporations carried the risk that nothing would come of it (and the list of the projects with that outcome is long). Why would the OSMF subsume your risk over that of others?

Ilya Zverev

@simon Why me and not others? Good point — I don't know! In this R&D thread I'd argue that SC and ED are the only two editors actively innovating OSM editing today. We see the outcome: two products that slowly crawl to replace iD and JOSM as primary editors for beginner and dedicated mappers. OSM got those for free. But just as with Merkaartor, OWL, 360°, and - almost - iD, it can lose it for free as well.

Good thing all nine editors in your lists are made by people from first-world countries!

Simon Poole replied to Ilya

@zverik "2 two products that slowly crawl to replace iD and JOSM as primary editors for beginner and dedicated mappers." the numbers clearly do not support that conjecture.

Ilya Zverev replied to Simon

@simon OSM is a long game; let's get back to this in five years :)

Simon Poole replied to Ilya

@zverik 5 x 0 = 0

Less snarky: there is hardly any replacement of conventional editing now, so why should that be different in 5 years, more supplemental use, yes I can see that (that is assuming current product profiles, obviously a name is just a name, so can be used for something completely different).

Ilya Zverev

@simon Haha no, I'd argue the opposite: drive-by mappers probably make edits that are out of reach to mappers who stay. I made this point at SotM in 2015 and stand by it today. OM is important to us because it reaches audiences SC/iD cannot ever.

Rihards Olups

@simon @zverik
That sort of makes OSM[F] reactionary, stripping it from proactive projects.
Which sort of vibes with "supports not controls" approach, at least partially.

But OSMF potentially could explore more active stance (taking care of becoming dependent of sponsors).

Oh, BTW, perhaps the great OSM community developers can be polite one to another - even negative views can be expressed in ways that don't leave the other person much worse off ;)

Simon Poole

@richlv @zverik the thing is, funds are in reality not unlimited, so there has to be choices.

Sure the OSMF could move to a centralized development model, but if wikipedia is anything to go by then we would then just have one and a half editors.

As is we have a competitive market place in which everything goes. That has the advantage that there is more choice and the disadvantage that the majority of devs are working on their own dime (or whatever they are able to scavenge from 3rd parties).

Rihards Olups

@simon @zverik
Yeah, and OSMF supporting some editors (or projects in other categories) would likely kill others in that space.

And I say this still being sad that OWL disappeared, had wished to see it on osm.org.

Perhaps OSMF could act more as a facilitator, helping to connect developers with potential grant sources, having some templates for applications and the process?
It would reduce the risk of favoritism, help the devs and keep OSMF at "supports not controls".

Simon Poole replied to Rihards

@richlv @zverik OWL never really worked, and the last dev that worked on it tried to use it as leverage to get employed by the OSMF ... which as we know, failed.

A full blown replacement for it is probably out of the financial reach of the OSMF and it isn't even clear if that approach still makes any sense.

Ilya Zverev replied to Simon

@simon @richlv Regarding OWL, yeah, I made WhoDidIt which basically replaced it, and then Wille made OSMCha that got supported by Mapbox and basically fully covers the standard low-level changes monitoring.

I wouldn't say they used it as a leverage... Or I don't remember it all too well. It definitely was too early for that.

Ilya Zverev

@simon @richlv Currently I see the choice is between all or nothing: if we can't fund everything, we'll allow developers go at their own pace with their own money.

I heard this Wikimedia thing repeated so often, I started doubting that it's either-or proposition.

And pretty sure OSM is far from a competitive market. If we count every single attempt at making an editor, we will hardly get to a hundred. There are 27 editors with 30+ users _in_a_year_, OSMF could start supporting them all easily.

Ilya Zverev replied to Ilya

@simon @richlv (not that I'm suggesting that making editors is more important than other, non-IT things)

Simon Poole replied to Ilya

@zverik @richlv it isn't even the only IT thing and I would argue that money spent improving the website would have a lot more impact (not to mention that a substantial part of what is actually spent is ops).

Ilya Zverev replied to Simon

@simon @richlv Well, this now goes into "just do anything" narrative I've been pushing for OSMF for years :) Yes, website update is long overdue. It still broadcasts a wrong message about OpenStreetMap, and omits many things people are searching for.

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