Gregory's Server
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Ilya Zverev
 @amapanda @Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief My hypothesis is that making things easier also reduces the value of leaning how to contribute and makes the whole thing less of a rewarding pastime. There are naturally similar scenarios in all areas of human endeavour.
Simon Poole
@amapanda @Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief Back on the maintenance topic. There has been this concept that this would be done by the drive by contributors that the "simple" tools are targeted at, and while that can't be completely dismissed, just the volume and nature of what has to be maintained would suggest that that is not going to happen. Just consider that it isn't really #OpenStreetMap these days ...
Ilya Zverev
@simon @amapanda @Melaskia @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief That is actually an excellent point! Because "contributing to OSM" is a non-goal, much like "reading a book" or "caring for the environment". A goal needs to be achievable (e.g. medals in StreetComplete) and social (so that a person gets some praise). Missing Maps events got that quite right. For me, OSM is kinda like pokemon: I like to collect everything. That's why @everydoor is like this: clunky but super effective at a scale.
Ilya Zverev
 @Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez this is why I love apps like @streetcomplete and @everydoor. They're highlighting another level of #OpenStreetMap and making it much easier for people (incl me) to add that data. There are many types of data, where we are far from complete
Simon Poole
@amapanda @Melaskia @zverik @IvanSanchez @luis_in_brief Since I've had anything to do with OSM, a good 15 years, enabling low barriers to entry has been the dominating mantra, and there have been wide variety of apps doing exactly that. They do not drive long term engagement any better than the web based browser iD, and actually most of them are so much worse at doing that, that we are not really doing OSM a service by directing people to them. ...
Ilya Zverev
Good news: @qgis have just announced the winning grant proposals, and one of the projects that got the money was "Mitigate Abusive Tile Fetching on @openstreetmap ." This was an issue, and I'm glad it's getting the funding and attention. https://blog.qgis.org/2024/05/01/qgis-grant-programme-2024-results/ 
Ian Wagner 🦀 :freebsd: :osm:
@zverik @qgis @openstreetmap huh cool. Maybe they’ll finally support HTTP/2 while they are at it 😅 I’ve abused MY OWN servers as a result of their strange networking code; it’s really inefficient for everyone. It also never cancels in-flight requests IIRC, which KILLS when panning and zooming.
Ilya Zverev
 @migurski @zverik @woodpeck @openstreetmap Which leads to the *ethos* of the issue at hand: What do we want OSM(F) to be; what should OSM(F) be? It can be a crowdsourcing tool so that US-based corps can extract value out of it. Or it can be a GIS playground so that anarchist hackers can play around and invent new things. I do not think it can be those two things at once. And I'll choose anarchist hackers over US corps, any day.
Ilya Zverev
 @zverik FWIW, open source foundations talk amongst themselves all the time, including on a mailing list that has been active for over a decade. OSMF has, for various reasons (some good, some bad), never really actively participated in that conversation (either online or IRL). (This is not to defend LF, who are not always great partners either, though for different reasons.)
Ilya Zverev
This sentiment is such a recurring sentiment for so many people who try to work in good faith with open communities. That sucks.
Show previous comments
Cat Hicks
@luis_in_brief uh yeah and the fact that people are honestly so scared to talk really honestly about this should tell us something
Simon Poole
@luis_in_brief do I really need to dig out all the relevant material? Essentially all the friction was due to dev egos and the abuse was the other way around.
Luis Villa
@grimalkina drops a follow up thought that I will be thinking about for a long time https://mastodon.social/@grimalkina/112360789898873991
Ilya Zverev
 @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
Ilya Zverev
@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 📦
@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
OpenStreetMap US is hiring for two full-time, remote roles: https://openstreetmap.us/about/staff/jobs/
Ilya Zverev
Kidpix the Early Years: http://red-green-blue.com/kid-pix-the-early-years
Ilya Zverev
@ian @zverik That lost decade was a key ingredient: those of us who’ve moved through these companies working on OSM-adjacent things kept hearing the same stuff in our informal chats over the years, like “oh yeah they’re trying to figure that out at the fruit company too but nobody’s allowed to share notes unless we create an exec-approved structure to do it in” … this is what LF is for.
Ilya Zverev
What I think happened when @linuxfoundation took Overture Maps: Companies and foundations want to support OpenStreetMap. They see the huge community and the impact we make to the world. Foundations were made to support projects like ours. But. We already have a foundation. OSM Foundation. They rightfully expect OSMF to support project grows, that is, to support mappers and communitiy and tools for editing and validation. Tools that would make Niantic stuff easily identifiable and revertable.
Ilya Zverev
Nobody in OSMF asked to be part of LF. And we shouldn't. Foundations usually don't talk among themselves (I guess?) So there is another group. For packaging data for consumers and promoting open geodata to businesses. On a scale never seen before. They needed a foundation, and LF stepped in. Why wouldn't they? It open data. Participating companies have a good track record in supporting open source. Bringing open data to more people — what's not to like? OM competes with Google, not OSM.
Frederik Ramm
@zverik I think what happened is that companies and foundations wanted some sort of "handle" on OSM and didn't understand OSM enough so they had to stuff it into a box they could understand. A box that is not a movement but a proper corporate entity they can deal with. Something with a big budget, lots of employees, and a leader you can put pressure on. It is possible that the OSMF could have pre-empted that by becoming such a corporate entity. It would have been a capitulation.
Simon Poole
@zverik @linuxfoundation quoting myself: "It needs to be pointed out that if the OMF founders were actually doing this for the good of humanity, they could have simply open sourced their validation tool chains and financed the OSMF running them. But they didn’t."
Ilya Zverev
So the median number of games owned for Nintendo Switch is 50, and the average is 83. Looking at my library of 230 games (90 completed)... I didn't want to be a gamer, but I guess...
Ilya Zverev
5.0-beta1 is out! Finally I see E-P for estonian opening hours :) https://github.com/Zverik/every_door/releases/tag/v5.0-beta1 Please test the drawing mode! See the wiki page with instructions for other editors: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GeoScribble Expect the production release next week! I'll try making a short video on using the new mode properly. 
Rihards Olups
@everydoor Had to look this up, but I guess it's "esmaspäev" for Monday. What's P? At least Google Translate gives "reede[l]" for Friday.
Ilya Zverev
If you really want to get upset about something going on in open source / open data space, I would suggest considering Niantic. After years of refusing any communication with #OpenStreetMap, not to mention -any- kind of support. Niantic joined the Linux Foundations Overture (for substantial amounts of money), but its customers continue to vandalize OSM, burning lots of volunteer time at multiple levels. https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/beware-of-fake-beaches-pokemon-go/112413
Ilya Zverev
I wanted to learn the names of the neighbourhoods in #Ghent, so I made me a #puzzle. I added the neighbourhoods in #OpenStreetMap , then made a custom theme in #MapComplete and use the 'export as PNG'-functuon. The background is a modified stylesheet for @protomaps 
Harry Wood
@pietervdvn @protomaps Nice! Probably more sensible than the 1000 peice beast I went for, although you've done a rendering (or zoom level) without street labels which must've made it harder! |
