So rn OSMF has a) no power, b) no money. They look...

So rn OSMF has a) no power, b) no money. They look like they do, but trust me on this. I argue for more power and more money, which some people in the community oppose. Because "support, not control" was there from the start, for a chance that some large corporation will influence OSMF for its nefarious goals.

And indeed, most funding would come from big corps. It's inevitable.

Yesterday @pluralistic outlined how exactly this anti-community steering happened to @w3c :

...In 2017, the W3C finalized "EME," a standard for blocking mods that interact with streaming videos. Nominally aimed at preventing copyright infringement, EME also prevents users from choosing to add accessibility add-ons that beyond the ones the streaming service permits. <...>

The fight over EME was the most contentious struggle in the W3C's history, in which the organization's leadership had to decide whether to honor the "priority of constituencies" and make a standard that allowed users to override manufacturers, or whether to facilitate the creation of faithless agents *specifically designed* to thwart users' desires on behalf of manufacturers:

This fight was settled in favor of a handful of *extremely* large and powerful companies, over the objections of a broad collection of smaller firms, nonprofits representing users, academics and other parties agitating for a web built on faithful agents. This coincided with the W3C's operating budget becoming entirely dependent on the very large sums its largest corporate members paid.

W3C membership is on a sliding scale, based on a member's size. Nominally, the W3C is a one-member, one-vote organization, but when a highly concentrated collection of *very* high-value members flex their muscles, W3C leadership seemingly perceived an existential risk to the organization, and opted to sacrifice the faithfulness of user agents in service to the anti-user priorities of its largest members.

Like 8 May at 15:05 | Open on en.osm.town

6 comments

Ilya Zverev

But if you think that's the reason for not going corporate, consider that right now the controlling already happens — corps keep thousands of mappers on a payroll, publish editors like Rapid and surveying tools like Mapillary, upload ML-detected roads and buildings and steer the community into thinking those kids of imports are okay.

Powerful OSMF would keep that influence at bay, not amplify it. Well, I wish :)

8 May at 15:13 | Open on en.osm.town

Rihards Olups

@zverik What mechanisms could help to keep a powerful OSMF both safe from takeover, and reduce risks of excessive self-importance?

8 May at 15:15 | Open on mastodon.social

Ilya Zverev

@richlv Good question! And I don't know :) At this point I'm not sure what "powerful osmf" would look like exactly.

8 May at 15:28 | Open on en.osm.town

Rihards Olups

@zverik Indeed, so many things could be understood by that.
Perhaps for some it would be:

* More control over / influence on mapping.
* Offering more services to the mappers (more powerful tools, ortho/street imagery services...).
* Offering more services to data users - both individual and corporate (extracts, specialised datasets, mobile apps, SDKs, commercial APIs, general purpose web map...).
* Offering additional related services (integrated reviews etc).

What else?

@zverik Indeed, so many things could be understood by that.
Perhaps for some it would be:

Expand text...

8 May at 15:32 | Open on mastodon.social

Ian Dees

@richlv @zverik i think a "strong OSMF" means two things:

* there is still a ton of interest from organizations of all sizes looking to interface with OSM as consumers and mappers. They want someone to talk to, and OSMF should provide that. Maybe an "executive director" or "biz dev" type person. This is the void that Overture is starting to fill.

* support for mappers. Set up/seek partnerships for imagery, importable data, tools

* bonus third thing: raise money to dump into these things.

8 May at 19:53 | Open on social.modest.com

Amᵃᵖanda | OSM Witch 🧙🏻‍♀️

@zverik I'm not sure how you can get money and be able to control the companies... Surely corporations would be the main income source. If you then throw your weight around, they won't want to give you money...

9 May at 10:00 | Open on en.osm.town