OSMF vs OSM Community

So, if I am understanding this correctly, mapping volunteers when they enter the data entrust the data to OSMF( which is controlled by a board of volunteers who get elected from the mapping community to support the OSM project and the ecosystem ).

But what data can be entered into OSM and the features available to the mapping volunteers to enter data and maintain data are controlled by the OSM project( by virtue of controlling the API ) and this group of volunteers of the OSM project are answerable to no one( even if they are driven by love and dedication ). This sounds problematic to me as it disenfranchises the mapping volunteers from having a say in what features they want.

I am sure there were reasons for not letting OSMF control the OSM project, I would like to understand what those reasons are.

1 Like

Just to be clear, this is not meant to be disrespectful to the volunteers of the project that put in their time to make OSM better. It is more to do with trying to understand the prioritising and decision making involved.

This is getting away from “cost vs utlity of tile servers” a bit, but it might help to expand a bit on some of these:

The OSM API has almost no restrictions on what people can map - people are free to add whatever they want. Different OSM editors may have some controls around how people can edit to stop them making mistakes (both iD and JOSM do this to some extent) but what people can map isn’t limited**.

“What features they want” sounds like “what features are shown on the maps linked from the openstreetmap.org website”. To be clear, only a tiny proportion of the features added by osm.org users are shown on those example maps. There are no restrictions on people (like me!) mapping those features, and there are no restrictions on data consumers (also me!) from creating maps showing those features,

I personally think that the reason why OSM has succeeded whereas other similar projects from the same era haven’t is because of the absolute freedom for people to map whatever they want. It simply isn’t possible for one small group of people (the OSMF board) to think about all the things that it would be a good idea to map.

Occasionally people do stand for the OSMF board suggesting a “tighter rather than looser control of mapping” model (though not so much this year). Those candidates haven’t tended to get elected.

Also it’s worth pointing out that the things that you can do with the data aren’t controlled by an API but by a licence - if you want to wander over to planet.osm.org and “download all the data” you absolutely can do that,.

** house numbers? roads? manhole covers? individual trees? You can do those and anything else you can think of.

2 Likes

note that this people are elected (OSMF board elections just happened, if you sign to be OSMF member you will be able to vote in next ones)

also, as far as OSMF board goes: it is relatively easy to be elected, 4 people were elected in 2024 out of 10 candidates.

for working groups it is even easier to join

do you mean list of features listed in editing presets? Or something else?

[@moderators could this sub-thread be split off, it only tangential has to do with serving tiles]

There are a couple of things to point out here:

  • the OSMF is a membership organisation contrary for example to the roughly same body for Wikipedia and its board members are determined in democratic elections by its members, again contrary to WP.
  • the OSMF Articles of Association can only be changed by a vote of the membership, again contrary to WP where the board can change the AoA as it sees fit.
  • it is very easy to become an OSM member, in particular for active community members it doesn’t require paying a membership fee.
  • every (as in every single one) OSM contributor, that is the largest part of the active community, has a contract with the OSMF that defines the rights and obligations of both parties, for example it defines the process to change the distribution licence.

All that said, the OSMF simply does the things you need a formally incorporated body for, no surprises there.

Simon

6 Likes