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Ilya Zverev

@simon Good thing Mapbox was there for us back then!

I'm not saying OSM got worse or anything. Ten years ago I wouldn't write all this because nobody expected anything from the Board or OSMF. The governance did improve a lot with and after Allan.

It's just their strategy is still "make an app idk", and I want to affect it β€” but I don't have the hours to devote to working on the Board. Alas in this I feel I'm turning into Christoph :(

5 comments
Simon Poole

@zverik actually Mapbox back then was a good example of how a symbiotic relationship with a commercial entity can work to the benefit of both sides.

Mapbox repeated what they had already done with Tilemill to kickstart the company enough that they could really get going. It was clear that this wouldn't fly without buy in from the OSMF and OSM at large, and they talked to the OSMF and once the grant was awarded the work on both the website and iD was done not against, but with the community.

Michal Migurski πŸ‰ replied to Simon

@simon @zverik The Mapbox staff doing the work at the time described how difficult it was to work with the community: enduring abuse, devoting time for psychological recovery, limiting time spent on the project, and swiftly exiting it once minimum deliverables were complete. Source: talks from team members ca. 2014, not recorded. Great software came out of it, but also a general understanding that the OSMF can’t support this kind of work.

Ilya Zverev replied to Michal Migurski πŸ‰

@migurski @simon Yeah I remember how Quincy was hired by OSMF to support iD, he tried and then noped out. Can't imagine how it is.

Guillaume Rischard replied to Ilya

@zverik @migurski @simon Quincy was great at his job, is pretty much universally loved, and is great at interacting with the community. He left for personal reasons.

Ilya Zverev replied to Guillaume

@grischard @migurski @simon If that's not the case, I'm happy to be found wrong!

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