My feedback is that the new version is bland and uninspiring, and it’s also exactly right on the mark for where the foundation and project is today and needs to go in the near future. I think accurately captures the community expectation for foundation: keep the lights on and the core services running now and into the future. It also recognizes a few key challenges that we face. We have too few people who know how to maintain our critical infrastructure. Also, we place far too much burden on the OSMF board members individually to run the organization to the point where the workload exceeds what’s reasonable to ask volunteers to do.
OSM US hired an executive director years ago and supplements that with a staff which allows us to support the project in the United States with events, programs, and public outreach. It hasn’t in any way stifled innovation nor have the large donors that fund our organization caused any undue influence on the project in the US. I’m glad that the OSMF has come around to seeing the benefit of treating the project with the level of seriousness and professionalism that it deserves. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that a global, centralized geospatial database, and the applications and services that it powers, makes the world a better place, and what we do is important.
So thank you for this very boring strategic plan that’s exactly right on the mark.