The OSMF – changes during the past year and what they mean for the coming years

b_b PUBLIC DOMAIN 14/10/2021

The OSMF – changes during the past year and what they mean for the coming years – part 2 | Imagico.de
▻http://blog.imagico.de/the-osmf-changes-during-the-past-year-and-what-they-mean-for-the-coming

Corporate takeover – it has already happened
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Some will likely reject my idea that the corporate takeover of the OSMF has already happened. They will argue that if that was true, corporations would push much more aggressively for their interests. I don’t think that is the case though. As explained, the primary interest large corporations have in the OSMF is not positively accomplishing something, it is preventing things negative for their interests from happening.
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Centralization of the OSMF
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The effect the establishment of such committees would have is a massive shift in power within the OSMF from the working groups towards the board. Currently the board is essentially limited in what they can do by their numbers. Board members are not able to delegate their formal powers to others.
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Decreasing diversity and brain drain
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Parts of the OSMF (working groups, committees) will become increasingly dominated by culturally narrow circles of people with shared interests (like their careers or shared interests of outside organizations they are affiliated with) – interests which are distinct from the funadamental goals and values of OpenStreetMap.
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Seeking influence on OpenStreetMapCommunity
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Community communication channels : One prevailing narrative from within the OSMF more recently has been that “fragmentation of communication” in the OSM community is a big problem that needs to be addressed. That terminology is in itself interesting by the way – the same thing, when considered positively, is called diversity, when deemed negatively it is framed fragmentation.
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Mapping and tagging: As i have explained above, a secondary interest the financiers of the OSMF have is steering the craft mapper community into a direction beneficial for their data uses.
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Conclusions
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As i wrote in part 1 of this post, i present my prediction for the direction in which the OSMF is headed here to be proven either right or wrong by what will actually happen. And i would be happy to be proven wrong

#osm #openstreetmap #gouvernance

b_b PUBLIC DOMAIN

b_b PUBLIC DOMAIN 12/11/2021

La suite, un an après...

While last year i had the impression of the board’s actions and decisions being rather erratic, this year – with there not being that many new projects of the board and the OSMF more consolidating its direction – i also have a much clearer view now of the direction in which the OSMF seems to be aiming.
In a nutshell – what the current boards seems to try to do is to re-invent OpenStreetMap in a way that avoids the OSMF having to decide between its financiers, the hands that feed them (the large corporate OSM data users) and the interests of the project. And from a perspective from within the OSMF this makes total sense. Making OpenStreetMap more business compatible by giving it a business like material goal (collection of useful geodata) avoids a conflict that in the long term would have the potential to destroy the OSMF.
I have explained in the past on multiple occasions that i consider the key for OpenStreetMap’s success in connecting people from all over the world across language and culture barriers to be the egalitarian cooperation between individuals sharing their local knowledge. And i think that cannot be substituted with the goal of producing a collection of useful geodata without loosing the social cohesion of the project and the basis of its success. But of course i cannot prove that, i can only describe how my understanding of OpenStreetMap has led me to that conclusion and how – over the years – many further observations of the social mechanisms in OpenStreetMap (in particular regarding how the OSM community tends to deal with conflicts and cultural differences) have confirmed this hypothesis repeatedly so i offer this as an explanation to understand how OpenStreetMap works and why it is successful as a social endeavor.
When the board however believes the opposite to be true, that the core principles of OpenStreetMap can be substituted with or subordinated under the common goal of collecting useful geodata without adverse effects on the social cohesion across language and culture barriers and they act upon this belief to re-invent OpenStreetMap along these lines they essentially put the whole project on the line based merely on their belief regarding the social mechanisms of how OpenStreetMap works – a belief for which they have no corroborating evidence.

▻http://blog.imagico.de/the-osmf-looking-back-at-the-past-year

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