 On one hand, yes, this year it would make sense to redirect your wikipedia donation to OpenStreetMap: https://supporting.openstreetmap.org/donate/ But. 19 years in, it feels crazy to have this project everyone uses run on a budget of three facebook developers. Like, are we sure this is the way we want to have it? "At least we're not wikipedia?" rebuttal still stands? 6 comments
@simon Yes, it's a matter of priorities. OSMF doesn't treat money as a daily neccessity apart from irregular donation drives. E.g. it doesn't build a picture of OSM as a vital service in big institutions. We all know it's important, but for higher-ups, it just works. It doesn't market itself with any corporations and doesn't ask for help. When you don't ask, people think it's all fine.  @zverik the problem is literally everybody knows that you can just use google if the worst comes to the worst (or Apple, Here, Tomtom not to mention a multitude of national and local entities that are competing in the same space) instead of OSM. Our USPs are fairly thin. @simon "You" as a person, not as a company big enough to get millions in Google bills. That's the point: we market to individuals while we're most important to organizations and governments. @zverik Any company spending millions on google is going to be spending millions if OSM is involved or not. We've always been marketing it as if it is a free lunch, but it isn't -particularly not for large users. @simon You know it's not about spending money — it's about control. Money is the same, level of control and vendor lock-in is very different. |
Gregory's Server
@zverik 1.5 facebook developers, not three.
But the thing is, even getting the funds equivalent to those 1.5 devs has been an uphill fight. So it isn't really a question of "the way we want it" more one of what is realistic.
Comparing with Wikipedia is fair game when we are discussing efficient usage of funds, but not when we are talking about market position and the leverage it provides.