Is openstreetmap-ng (as it’s known on GitHub) so dependent on the domain osm.ng or openstreetmap.ng that this test site couldn’t live somewhere else? When MapTiler wanted to demonstrate their addition of a vector map style to openstreetmap-website, they spun up an instance at osm.openmaptiles.org, not openstreetmap.mt.
For context, .org.ng is available to local nonprofits, whereas the top-level .ng is for premium domains that cost something like twice as much. The LWG minutes say the Nigerian community is interested in osm.ng, and who could blame them? For years, the U.S. community has faced the daily annoyance of osm.us pointing to something that doesn’t belong to the local community. OSMUS could technically register osm.gen.us (or osm.washington.dc.us for some local flavor), but it just wouldn’t be the same…
An observer could be forgiven for viewing the situation in a negative light. The volunteer mappers in Nigeria apparently want these domains to be part of their community identity, but they haven’t secured them yet, maybe because of inertia or cost, I don’t know. Then someone from Europe who has little to do with the country swoops in and occupies both domains as a frivolous domain hack[1] for their project’s beta testing site, which necessarily claims to be independent from OSM(F). Yes, the .org.ng version is still available, but we of all people shouldn’t force them to accept that consolation prize.
How can our Nigerian friends be sure that an OSM community member will continue to own these domain names in the long term, without them lapsing and getting snapped up by a cybersquatter who will charge a significant markup? When I registered osm.wiki on a lark, I made sure to transfer it to the OSMF for safekeeping. That’s the only reason we could start using it as a URL shortener for wiki links on the main website.
I honestly don’t believe that @NorthCrab wishes to sideline our Nigerian friends, but nonetheless it’s an unnecessary distraction from both projects. Now that this has happened, imagine the goodwill that he could create by donating the domains to the local OSM community or even using his considerable coding skills to help them set up a landing page for their activities.
But not a creative domain hack. ↩︎