As one of the more visible people in OpenStreetMap rendering and styling, I get a credit for a lot of the work done in projects like osm2pgsql, OpenStreetMap Carto, and other associated projects, sometimes undeservedly. A lot of people are less visible are doing work that we should be thankful for when looking back over the year, and deserve more credit. Here are three:

Sarah Hoffmann (lonvia)

Sarah is not just the administrator of the OSMF Nominatim server, she is the other maintainer of osm2pgsql, and has been responsible for many of the recent changes, and cleaning up and modernizing the code.

Matthijs Melissen (math1985)

As I’ve tried to step back from some of the maintainer tasks with OpenStreetMap Carto, Matthijs has stepped forward and kept up with the reviews, merges, and coordination.

Bas Couwenberg (sebastic)

Bas does most of the Debian packaging work for OpenStreetMap related software on Debian and Ubuntu. Most OpenStreetMap-related servers out there rely on his packaging work in some way. In 2011 setting up OpenStreetMap servers was a lot more complicated as you had to install many of the components from source

I can think of others, both within projects I contribute to and outside on other projects, but I wanted to keep this list short. Also, like many of my blog posts, this is ending up late and was supposed to be vaguely Christmas themed.

Dear all,

Today, v3.0.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released.

Major changes include

• Mapnik 3 is now required
• CartoCSS 0.16.x is now required
• Official Tilemill support is dropped
• Shapefiles are downloaded with a new python script

Changes include

• Noto Naskh is now used for Arabic
• Visual impact of campsites and quarries reduced below z13
• Wilderness huts rendered
• Subway entrances rendered

Thanks to all the contributors for this release including jojo4u, a new contributor.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v2.45.1…v3.0.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

This is a repost from my blog because there’s been a fair amount of interest from OSM people on what I wrote.

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If you want to serve vector tiles, there are a few server options that have developed, each with different strengths and weaknesses.

node-mapnik based

Language: nodejs
Layer definitions: Mapnik layer definitions in XML, typically preprocessed from YAML
Vector tile formats: Mapbox Vector Tiles
Data source support: PostGIS

Kartotherian, tessera, and other servers based on tilelive all rely on Node bindings to Mapnik to produce vector tiles. They all work with Mapnik layer definitions. This is a reasonably well understood language and consists primarily of a SQL statement for each layer. This is reasonably flexable and it’s possible to do proper code review, git conflict resolution, and other processes you need with an open style.

Some servers can turn the Mapbox Vector Tiles into GeoJSON, but not all do. There are other minor differences, but they all have the same major advantages and disadvantages.

The biggest problem with these options is that you have to either use the exact same versions of everything as the Mapbox developers while hoping their changes work with your code, or lock down your versions to a set of known good versions and periodically update when you need new features, retesting all your code. Neither of these is practical for an open-source style which wants to involve others.

If you don’t do this, you’ll find parts of your server failing with different combinations of Mapnik and node-mapnik.

Tilezen tileserver

Language: Python
Layer definitions: SQL in jinja2 templates, YAML
Vector tile formats: Mapbox Vector Tiles, TopoJSON, and GeoJSON
Data source support: PostGIS

Tilezen tileserver was written by Mapzen to replace their TileStache-based vector tile generation. Having been written by developers who wrote previous vector tile servers, it combines ideas and functionality other options don’t have.

The datasource definitions are written in SQL + YAML, a common choice, but unlike other options, the SQL is in its own files which are preprocessed by the jinja2 templating engine. This adds some complexity, but a great deal of power. Selecting different features by zoom level normally requires repetative SQL and lengthy UNION ALL queries, but the preprocessing allows queries to be written more naturally.

Tileserver’s unique feature is the post-processing capabilities it offers. This allows vector tiles to be operated on after the database, altering geometries, changing attributes, and combining geometries. Post-processing to reduce size is a necessary feature if targeting mobile devices on slower connections. Mapbox had been working on this in the open, but now that they no longer use node-mapnik it’s not clear how they do so. MapQuest had developed Avecado to specifically target this, but it became abandoned when they stopped doing their own map serving.

You don’t need any AWS services for a basic Tilezen tileserver deployment, but there might be some dependencies in the more advanced features needed to set up a full production environment.

Tegola

Language: Go
Layer definitions: SQL in TOML
Vector tile formats: Mapbox Vector Tiles
Data source support: PostGIS

Tegola is a new server written in Go. It operates with multiple providers which supply layers to maps, allowing them to be assembled different ways. It looks like it has most of the features needed for vector tiles for a basemap, but might be missing a few needed for changing data as zoom changes.

SQL in TOML is similar to SQL in YAML for layer definitions, and like this it is reasonably flexable and makes it possible to do proper code review, git conflict resolution, and other processes you need with an open style.

I haven’t had a chance to deploy it yet, so I’m not sure what difficulties there are.

t-rex

Language: Rust
Layer definitions: SQL in TOML
Vector tile formats: Mapbox Vector Tiles
Data source support: PostGIS

t-rex is a new server written in Rust. It’s unique feature it that it can auto-configure layers from PostGIS tables. It does have all the required features for selecting appropriate data in a basemap.

It’s layer definitions are different than Tegola’s, but they are both SQL in TOML, and share the same strengths.

Like Tegola, I haven’t had a chance to deploy it.

TileStache

Language: Python
Layer definitions: SQL in JSON Vector tile formats: Mapbox Vector Tiles, TopoJSON, GeoJSON, and Arc GeoServices JSON Data source support: PostGIS

TileStache is a general-purpose tile server which Mapzen used to use a fork of to serve their Tilezen schema. They’ve switched to Tilezen tileserver, but the functionality they added has been merged back into TileStache. Unfortunately, the documentation hasn’t caught up yet, so there’s not too much information about all of its functionality.

Deploying TileStache tends to be reasonable - particularly compared to node-mapnik - but the language of SQL in JSON is one that’s a problem for open projects with multiple authors and prevents proper code review and git conflict resolution.

Tilemaker

Language: C++
Layer definitions: Lua
Vector tile formats: Mapbox Vector Tiles
Data source support: OSM PBF and shapefiles

Tilemaker is built around the idea of vector tiles without a serving stack. It does this by doing an in-memory conversion directly from OSM PBF data to pre-generated vector tiles, which can then be served using Apache, a S3 bucket, or any means of serving files from disk. This vastly simplifies deployment and reduces sources of downtime.

For serving a city or most countries this can be the ideal method, but the same strengths that make it good for this are a problem for processing the planet. It takes large amounts of RAM, can’t consume minutely changes, and has to create vector tiles for the entire PBF at once.

Tilemaker is also the only server to support directly using shapefiles for low zoom data and OSM for high zoom. Other options require loading into PostGIS and using SQL that selects the appropriate data based on zoom.

VectorTileCreator

Language: Python
Layer definitions: osmfilter options
Vector tile formats: o5m
Data source support: OSM PBF and other raw OSM data

VectorTileCreator is part of KDE Marble and takes the unique approach of creating tiles of raw OSM data. It uses osmfilter’s language for filtering OSM data, but lacks the means to use other data sources, something most maps will need. The support of o5m vector tiles is also limited. Like tilemaker it runs from the command line and produces a set of vector tiles.

Which should I use?

What you should use depends on your needs. First figure out what support you need for the full planet, updates, data sources, and output formats. If you need diff update support, then you need something that can create a single vector tile and Tilemaker won’t work. If you need TopoJSON support, node-mapnik won’t work.

For a table showing features supported, see the original blog post

Dear all,

Today, v2.44.1 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released. Also, v2.44.0 was released last month without an email, so this email includes changes in both.

v2.44.0 has been rolled out to the openstreetmap.org servers, but v2.44.1 has not yet.

Major changes are

• Rendering of restricted access roads and paths significantly changed
• Changed to use Noto fonts for all languages

Other changes in both versions include

• A code of conduct adopted, based on the Go code of conduct
• Adjustments to city wall rendering
• Revised low zoom place rendering
• Render both house name and number if address has both

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, in particular Lukas Sommer, Hsiao-Ting Yu and vholten for work in debugging complex font issues with the Noto CJK fonts.

For a full list of commits from both releases, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v2.43.0…v2.44.1

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues

Dear all,

Today, v2.43.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released. It has not yet been rolled out to the openstreetmap.org servers.

Changes include

• Adjust alotments pattern
• Whitespace cleanups of code
• Adjust colours of dog parks and construction sites
• Increase font size of addresses
• Fix combination of long names and oneway arrows

Thanks to all the contributors for this release, including Ircama and measad, both new contributors.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v2.42.0…v2.43.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues.

I’ve been experimenting with generating my own vector tiles and client-side rendering with Tangram in order to figure out how to best write a style in its language.

Tangram is a GL-based renderer written by Mapzen and normally used with their Tilezen vector tiles, but I’m interested in being able to make my own vector tiles with different cartographic choices.

Having a diverse selection of vector tile schemas is important, as is avoiding a situation where only large players in the market can get involved like right now.

For a toolchain I used osm2pgsql with ClearTables and Mapnik via Kosmtik to write vector tiles. With the demo I’m serving pre-rendered vector tiles from disk, but Kosmtik is useful in development with it’s xray functionality. I input the style into Tangram Play, a web-based editor that automatically reloads the map when you change the style.

The cartography and vector tile definitions are loosely based on OSM Clear, a demo style I wrote. I didn’t want to learn the language while designing new cartography at the same time. Being a learning exercise I don’t consider the style complete or free of bugs.

The demo page is on my server at http://tangram-clear-demo.faramir.paulnorman.ca/ with the style and vector tile code at https://github.com/ClearTables/tangram-clear-demo.

I’m not sure what direction I’m going to take next as I don’t have any particular style goals right now, or collaborators.

Cross-post from https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2016-August/029448.html

Today, v2.41.0 of the openstreetmap-carto stylesheet (the default stylesheet on openstreetmap.org) has been released.

Changes include

• More consistent fonts for POI labels
• Less saturated stadiums
• Rendering obelisks and dog parks
• An updated list of font packages
• Cleaning up the font list
• Rewriting the road colours script for easier changes
• Various bug fixes

Thanks to all the contributors, including jdhoek, a new contributor.

For a full list of commits, see https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/compare/v2.40.0…v2.41.0

As always, we welcome any bug reports at https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues.

This is a repost from my blog

Periodically people make the claim of over 2 million active users for OpenStreetMap, but what this mean? This is the total number of accounts, including those who never edited, those who left long ago, spammers, and actual active contributors.

The closest metric to a standard is active users over the last 30 days. Although we can’t get that number, we can look at the changeset dump and analyze it with ChangesetMD and some SQL.

The SQL is fairly simple.

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT user_id) AS active_users, date::date FROM osm_changeset JOIN generate_series('2007-01-01'::timestamp, '2015-12-31'::timestamp, '1 day') AS d(date) ON (created_at <= d.date AND created_at > d.date - '30 days'::interval) GROUP BY date ORDER BY date ASC;

OpenStreetMap was around before 2007, but the way data was stored was different so changeset dumps aren’t reliable that far back.

Taking the resulting file and a bit of gnuplot magic gives us a graph.

There’s been a steady upwards trend with strong seasonal variations. This makes sense, since mapping is an outdoors activity.

Why does this matter? Besides accuracy, it’s important to be using a meaningful number when looking at growth.

Another reason is comparing with any other membership numbers. We want the OpenStreetMap Foundation to be representative of OSM contributors, but we need to measure that against a realistic number. The OSMF has 700 members, or 2-3% of OSM contributors. This could use improvement, but is in the normal range for foundations. If we incorrectly measured against the total number we’d get 0.03%, an absurdly wrong number.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Yantisa Akhadi

• OSM User Iyan
• Manifesto

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

I want to contribute in the Engineering Working Group, unfortunately the meeting time is equal with 00.30am my time. I hope in the future there will be meeting time to cater peoples from different timezones.

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

her than edits, which is still not much, I was more interested in writing and introduce people about OSM. I have given talks in multiple local, national, international levels to introduce OSM as well as its application in disaster management. There have been multiple blogpost written in our OSM-ID website to tell the story about the event. I am also actively participated in OSM-ID Facebook group, since this much more popular channel compared to OSM-ID mailing list.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

Yes, I currently work as Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team Project Manager for Indonesia. Here in Indonesia, we are focusing on how we can use OSM in data preparedness for disaster. In the past 4 years, our team have trained more than 2,400 peoples on data collection using OSM, QGIS and InaSAFE in various phases of disaster as well as economic development.

Conflicts of Interest

I currently work as Project Manager for Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) Indonesia. In my experiences, any interest of OSM or OSMF would also bring benefits to HOT. So far I haven’t identify how there will be conflicts of interest. Sometimes people identify me from OSM Indonesia rather than HOT, since people tends to more familiar with it. HOT also support OSM community growth in Indonesia by providing resources and deliver OSM outreach to various institutions.

Who should the OSMF serve?

OSMF needs to serve the goal of the foundation which in the end it can only be achieved by serving its members and the OSM users at large. This would also relates with the diversity of its member and users throughout the world, does they already accommodated and represented through its policy and action? Here I would like to represent Asia communities, one of the minorities in term of board/member representation.

Role of the board

Has not responded.

Communication with the community

I am mostly active on Facebook Groups, since in Indonesia, that is where the biggest interaction happens. The OSM-ID talks is pretty quiet. I also like to read the user blogs. I also often meet OSM colleagues from Asia in SOTM Asia or FOSS4G-Asia where we regularly share stories and activities in our country. Occasionally I read articles on OSM from Twitter or shared in Facebook by fellow OSM.

Community involvement in OSMF

I think this relates with transparency as well, other than release the meeting notes, OSMF needs to be more active in social media. It can be by providing regular updates about OSMF activities and working group meeting schedule through Twitter or Facebook. More importantly, we need to listen what members want and what needs to be improved.

Diversity

I am an Indonesian. I once heard that I’m the only Indonesian joining OSMF as a member. I hope that is wrong. I hope for more active involvement from OSMF members in the region. It would be great if there is more people from my region to join OSMF. I still feel that despite our efforts to continuously proliferate OSM in the region, we still have lots of thing to do. The OSM community in Asia is growing, in Indonesia alone, there are more than 3,000 people joins OSM ID Facebook groups, not to mention OSM Groups formed by universities students. I belief that diversity would keep the OSM community rich, vibrant and alive, yet it is also important to direct these energy to move forward and map the world.

Paying People

Has not responded.

Board term limits

I believe members should be the one to decide such limit and duration. As an OSMF member myself, I choose the board based on how they performed or based on their manifesto and answering QA.

Transparency

I support transparency in OSMF board’s work since it would provide more open environment where member can also contribute and discuss. I do realize that there are some private matter that cannot be discussed due to legal constraint.

License violation enforcement

I think the existing mechanism works quite well. We cannot always throw every license violation case to OSMF, but surely we can provide mechanism on how to follow up or escalate the issues related to license and possibly involving local communities in the areas.

Imports and remote mapping stance

I support Import as far as it follows the Import Guidelines. I have couple of opportunities where government institutions or organization want to put their spatial data in OSM. Especially as they saw this as an opportunity to join cause in open data movement and their data licence is compatible with ODbL. With remote ‘armchair’ mapping, there should be guidelines as well to reduce common mistakes and assumption.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

Has not responded.

Changelog

Added new answers.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Douglas Ssebaggala

• Location: Uganda
• OSM User Douglo
• Manifesto reproduced below

First edit was 4 years ago, and have not looked back ever since, getting involved in other activities beyond mapping, with these upcoming OSMF Board elections, i have great anticipation to show how global the OSM project is: one of the ways that the global reach can be reflected is to have an intercontinental representation on the OSMF Board. Some of the gaps that (i think) need to be covered is how the OSMF relates to the community of users, being part of the awesome board members, and well wishers will greatly improve on how best this relationship can be communicated, and strengthened.

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

I have participated in the Local Chapters Working Group, and would be willing to have more frequent involvement in this WG.

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

• History of edits
• Potlatch Manual - made back in the old days
• OSM Events and Activities in Uganda
• Activating the Ugandan mailing list
• Contributed on other OSM mailing lists (OSM-Talk).
• Most of all, would like to see OSM grow both as a data/map database and as well as a community.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

Yes. To date, mapping coordinator for Uganda, with a mix of voluntary work under a local non-profit Organisation Fruits of Thought

Conflicts of Interest

No, there would be no conflict of interest, most of the work i do is for the advancement and betterment of OSM, which would most likely be inline with the OSMF

Who should the OSMF serve?

Has not responded.

Role of the board

Has not responded.

Communication with the community

Has not responded.

Community involvement in OSMF

Has not responded.

Diversity

From Uganda to East Africa and the whole of Africa, there are traces of OSM presence, with some unknown communities doing great efforts and work with OSM. My presence would prove and bring this in light through the team support of the OSMF, and providing some more time to the efforts of the LCWG.

Paying People

Has not responded.

Board term limits

Has not responded.

Transparency

Has not responded.

License violation enforcement

Has not responded.

Imports and remote mapping stance

Has not responded.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

Has not responded.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Martijn van Exel

• OSM User mvexel
• Manifesto reproduced below

Bringing almost a decade of grassroots OSM experience and 4 years of US Chapter board experience to the table. Read my OSM diary to learn more about me. Please get in touch with me if you have questions, or to let me know what you want from the OSMF board. I work for Telenav on OSM

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

Board member of OSM US 2011-2015. Started User:Mvexel/Welcome_Working_Group (now dormant). Participated in LWG and CWG, but not particularly actively.

Note: OSM US work is not part of OSMF

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

Some highlights: * Mapping since 2007 (see my profile). * (Co-)Organizer of many events small and large: SOTM ‘09, SOTM US ‘12, ‘13, ‘14, ‘15. Local events in Amsterdam and Salt Lake City since 2008. * Started local groups in Amsterdam and Salt Lake City. * Blogging about OSM, first on my own blog and now on my OSM diary. * Author of MapRoulette (together with emacsen) and many other smaller tools. See my Github page. * Active participant in OSM mailing lists and IRC channels.activites * Did a whole lot of talks and workshops on OSM since 2010. * Find me on Twitter, LinkedIn. * Spending part of my time at Telenav creating and releasing useful data and tools for mappers. * Taught OSM to Geography students.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

Yes. My work at Telenav revolves around OSM. We use OSM data to power many of our navigation products. My job is to ensure that OSM is the best map it can be for that purpose. If you read my diary, you will get a sense of what that means. A lot of my time goes into working on things that are a mutual benefit to Telenav and OSM mappers. Recent examples are the Missing Roads and Traffic Flow Direction JOSM plugins. More good stuff in the pipeline!

Conflicts of Interest

I work for Telenav on OSM which may raise a COI from time to time. I will follow the COI policy. If there is none, I will bring experience of defining one for OSM US to the table to implement one as soon as possible.

Who should the OSMF serve?

The OSMF board serves the members of the foundation. If folks feel that there is not proper representation of the community, then we should have more people from the community sign up as members. Again, I see a role there for local chapters.

Role of the board

Has not responded.

Communication with the community

I only subscribe to talk, talk-us and legal-talk. I read the forum very occasionally. I read IRC and participate there. I go to any SOTM conference I can feasibly get to. I spend time on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and most importantly the OSM diaries to learn about new developments in OSM. I follow what’s going on on Github. I email / talk with a lot of OSM friends personally on a regular basis. In my professional network I talk about OSM a lot, learning what other companies and organizations are doing with OSM. Like the office hours idea, I started something similar in the US a while ago with ‘Mappy Hours’ on Google Hangouts.

Community involvement in OSMF

Local chapters are key. When someone becomes a member of a chapter, it should be easy (automatic even?) to also become a member of the foundation. Our experience in the US shows that folks often don’t even know these things are separate.

Diversity

My work with the US chapter board has involved a lot of thinking about and working on creating a more inclusive and diverse community. See how we did for example with SOTM US this past spring. This was a team effort but I do bring this experience with me. Also having had a leadership role communities in both Europe and the US gives me some perspective on diversity.

Paying People

Entirely in favor. What is more, some key responsibilities all but require professionals or would greatly benefit from having them: legal, finance, marketing and PR.

Board term limits

Has not responded.

Transparency

Fundamentally the board’s proceedings should be open, but at its discretion confidentially needs to always be an option.

License violation enforcement

I think we should retain legal council to address license issues and especially move forward the ODbL guidelines. We cannot leave this to IANALs or, worse, external stakeholders.

Note: Martijn has recently joined the LWG

Imports and remote mapping stance

The solution to bad data entering OSM, be it through ill-advised imports or manual edits, is not in more policing, but in better onboarding of new mappers. Initiatives like LearnOSM / TeachOSM / Mapgive are great but it would be even better if we would provide these resources ourselves. Over time, the days of every mapper having full access to editing OSM from the day they sign up may need to come to an end. I see a role for a reboot of the Welcome WG.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

Don’t think so, rather we should engage with these organizations to make sure they have the tools to teach their people how to map. I would like to see some data on the lack of intrinsic motivation of paid mappers, my anecdotal evidence points in a different direction altogether.

Note: Martijn leads the Telenav editing team

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Gonzalo Perez

• Location: Argentina
• OSM User Zalitoar
• Manifesto quoted below

I wish to serve in a broader sense to the project. The projects and activities that we have done in South America in the last year boosted the growth of the communities in this part of the world, a strategy which I consider necessary and possible in other regions.

Questions

Gonzalo has not responded to any questions, and his manifesto is too short to fill in answers from.

This post was an accidental duplicate, and is deleted.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Wille Marcel

• Location: Brazil
• OSM User wille
• Manifesto

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

I have contributed to the Communication Working Group.

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

Beyond edits, my main contributions are: * Talks about OSM in conferences in Brazil. See on [https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/wille/diary my diary]. * Organize local meetings. See on [https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/wille/diary my diary]. * I am one of the managers of [http://twitter.com/openstreetmapbr @OpenStreetMapBR] twitter account and I have done some efforts to put OSM on the media in Brazil. * I am developing a software to detect harmful changesets, it’s divided in two parts: [https://github.com/willemarcel/osmcha osmcha] (python library) and [https://github.com/willemarcel/osmcha-django osmcha-django] (web interface). In the next weeks I’ll commit some features and officially release it. * Contributed to translation of some softwares, like iD editor. * I’ve done some more contributions to OSM related software, see on my [https://github.com/willemarcel/ github]

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

I am a GIS and web developer. Sometimes I use data or tiles of OSM on my work, but it is not the main part of my work.

Conflicts of Interest

I don’t see risk of conflicts of interest with my job.

Who should the OSMF serve?

I think OSMF must not control OSM, but it must do all the possible to make OSM bigger. I think my main priorities will be to support local communities in places like Latin America, Africa and Asia, where we don’t have a community as big as in Europe or United States.

Role of the board

Has not responded.

Communication with the community

I try to read the user diaries in English, Spanish and Portuguese periodically. I participate of OSMF-Talk mailing list, as well as the Brazilian and Latin American lists and telegram groups.

Community involvement in OSMF

I think we can do simple things to give more visibility to the Foundation, like put a campaign on the homepage to increase the number of members, give more support to local communities and events. I believe we will achieve more involvement between the community and the Foundation only when the Foundation wish to be more present on the life of the project.

Diversity

One of the reasons I am running for OSMF is to put a vision from Latin America on the board. I participate both in the Brazilian and Latin American communities. I believe OSMF should give more support to local communities in regions like Asia, Africa and Latin America. I also think we should seek resources to have more participants on the FOSS Outreach Program and start a program more focused on teach mapping skills to women and other underrepresented groups.

Paying People

I am in favor of paid work on the Foundation.

Board term limits

I think it’s essential to have diversity on the board, but I don’t see as crucial to have a term limit, since the members choose the board by voting.

Transparency

I don’t have nothing against open vote reporting and I believe transparency is an essential value.

License violation enforcement

I have notified some organizations that used OSM without give attribution. In most part of the cases, it was unintentional and solved easily.

Imports and remote mapping stance

I think imports must be discussed in each local community and the data to be imported needs to have great quality. Remote mapping can be useful in some occasions, but what we need is people all over the world to map what can not be seen in satellite imagery.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

It’s natural that there are companies mapping and, until now, we don’t have many incidents, so I also think we needn’t worry about this now.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Ryan Peterson

• Location: USA
• OSM User SP!KE
• Manifesto

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

I’m happy to participate or help recruit relevantly-skilled participants.

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

From my Candidate Introduction, “I’ve been an active member of OSM since 2011 contributing in a variety of ways including: editing data locally, editing data remotely for humanitarian efforts, training new users, funding numerous events and efforts, speaking and attending many OSM conferences around the world amongst others described in the Candidate Introduction.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

Yes, my passion for OSM has led me to create roles where I do OSM related activities at work. Candidate Introduction has detail.

Conflicts of Interest

Yes, but in the unlikely event there is a COI, I’ll recuse myself from the related discussions.

Ryan works for Apple

Who should the OSMF serve?

The electorate/OSMF members, and secondarily, but extremely importantly, the OSM contributors, of any contribution type.

Role of the board

:I agree with the role as defined in the OSM Mission Statement.

Communication with the community

I subscribe and regularly read many mailing lists, the diaries, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook groups, I communicate regularly with OSM contributors.

Community involvement in OSMF

Yes, growing the community of contributors and members is a focus for me. Candidate Introduction includes some models that have worked well. Some additional thoughts: enhance discoverability of opportunities to participate in OSMF such as give acknowledgment to OSMF members in their user names (e.g. append an asterisk to user names who are OSMF members with a link on asterisk to sign-up for membership), post scheduled working group meetings in one location and post a subtle banner on openstreetmap.org notifying of membership drives, fundraising activites or need for WG volunteers.

Diversity

I’m a strong believer in capacity building around the globe and have supported such efforts. My teams have always been geographically, gender and ethnically diverse.

Paying People

Yes, when volunteers needed to fill a necessary skill set are not available. Preference is for service providers and/or contractors as opposed to full time employees.

Board term limits

Yes, it is always healthy to have new voices on a board, especially in a growing project where there are plenty of well-qualified candidates.

Transparency

Open as much as possible, but confidential when required by issues at hand.

License violation enforcement

I believe current process is working. I have personally reached out and requested attribution in several instances with astonishingly quick resolution. An escalation should be handled first by the LWG, then in consultation with the board and counsel.

Imports and remote mapping stance

Yes, if handled carefully and in conjunction with noted procedures and good training.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

From my extensive experience, finding employees who are passionate about OSM produces amazing results. For me personally, I’ve created my OSM-related career out of my passion for OSM (as opposed to the other way around) and seen the same success with many and all others I have worked with on OSM. I would rather identify problem areas and discuss the issues with the relevant party and provide education and/or training to correct issues since such simple measures normally work very well.

Changelog

Added answers after Ryan responded to candidate questions.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Joseph Reeves * Location: UK * OSM User IknowJoseph * Manifesto

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

I admit that I have not contributed to any OSMF Working Groups. I greatly appreciate the work they do, however, and would only work to encourage participation in them. I am happy to join any WG that I can be an asset in. I have done work to promote OSM outside of more formalised methods and would continue to encourage others to do the same

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

First of all, please don’t judge my, or anyone else’s, suitability to serve on the Board by their map edits! I’d argue that a previous preoccupation with mapping skills has been to the detriment of the OSMF and has contributed to a cultural problem that is inhibiting diversity and community involvement. In my opinion crucial Board skills involve communication, planning and organisational skills. Most relevant to my OSMF Board application, I have served on the HOT Board. I have been a long term contributor to HOT as a Member and have participated in a number of Working Groups and activities, including three trips to Indonesia. An example of my writing is available on the HOT Blog. I have spoken about OSM at numerous events including an Oxford University seminar series that can be watched online here, and TechCamp Sarajevo 2014.

Conflicts of Interest

No. I am a member of the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and have previously conducted paid work for that group, but I am not expecting to be doing this again in the near future. From my time on the HOT Board I have had a great deal of exposure to Conflicts of Interest procedures and resolution.

Who should the OSMF serve?

I joined the OSMF as a member because I wanted to support OSM, not to have the OSMF Board further my interests. As a Board member I would work to ensure that the Board, and the OSMF members we represent, continue to work in the best interests of OpenStreetMap. The needs of OpenStreetMap are varied and are going to change over time, as such I don’t think it’s appropriate to single out a single priority to represent over the Board term.

Role of the board

Has not responded.

Communication with the community

Has not responded.

Community involvement in OSMF

The OSMF community needs to grow in size and improve in participation experience. I used to think that successful community was something that just happened organically and grew from a group of like minded individuals, having worked with some amazing Community Managers, however, I can see the error in my thinking. The Board needs to target actionable points of the community and set targets and standards to aspire to. This is much more productive than rehashing past issues. I would like to see the OSMF promote it’s achievements, and the benefits of membership, more readily. At the same time we need to improve the experience of people who are either existing members or new to the group.

Diversity

As OSM grows we are naturally going to recruit more members; diversity for me is to be measured by these new members. I think there’s reasons to be hopeful; I have seen first hand great diversity in the HOT Indonesia team as well as at MissingMaps mapathons. This needs to continue, and I believe that diversity will continue to increase by attracting new mappers and new projects. The OSMF has to become more diverse to reflect changes in the OSM user group. I don’t think the current OSMF mailing list is the best communication method to encourage diversity, or community involvement, and I would promote diversity as central to any actions to improve community experience.

Paying People

Has not responded.

Board term limits

I don’t currently have a strong opinion on the issue and am happy to have the various views explained to me again. The Board seems to be functioning without the special resolution. I passionately believe that all Board Members have to be useful and have to be productive; it may be that term limits can help here, but any changes to the OSMF articles need to be made within a broader culture of “getting stuff done”.

Transparency

Transparency is, of course, hugely important. It should be remembered, however, that there are sometimes legal barriers to complete transparency in the Board’s discussions. Staffing matters, for example, can be an example of where a Board is not legally allowed to publicly discuss an issue. I can also think of situations including funding or project partnerships where a third party may request that we do not immediately disclose all the details. In short, the Board should be as open as possible, but you simply cannot say we will be transparent about every issue for the 2016 term. When transparency is not an option we should be effective at communicating the issues to Members. Vote reporting is, I think, an issue for individual members, although I am happy to have the details explained to me further.

License violation enforcement

I think almost all licence violations are unintentional and I am often impressed with how the community deals with the issue by explaining the problems to violators. I’m convinced the use of OSM is going to grow enormously, so we’re likely to suffer more violations in the future, at which point we may need a more formalised approach. At present communication is key. I am impressed by efforts such as the OSM copyright page and the MapBox attribution instructions and hope to see these methods become more commonplace.

Imports and remote mapping stance

In my election statement I described OSM as a wonderful patchwork that covers the World: Imports and remote mapping are part of this patchwork and aren’t going away any time soon. Imports and remote mapping needs to be conducted within a dialogue with local mappers. I have conducted both and see them as important and useful methods of mapping. I am currently mapping areas of Syria from aerial imagery; I have visited the country, most recently at the end of 2011, and I don’t believe there is a strong local mapping community in the country. Maps of Syria are very important, however, both for aid delivery and news reporting, so I have no issue with contributing remotely. I hope it helps in some small way.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

Has not responded.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Mikel Maron

• Location: USA
• OSM User mikelmaron
• Manifesto

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

In the past, I have served on almost every working group, except Operations. Currently, I am on the SotM WG, and anticipate joining the LCWG again. Most every working group needs more help, and I will promote and recruit heavily for more participation from OSMF members and the broader community

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

• I mapped Brighton, UK
• Facilitated mapping in places from the West Bank, to Nigeria, to Swaziland
• I co-founded Map Kibera
• I co-founded Huanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
• I’m on https://github.com/mikelmaron. I’ve contributed to OSM website, got the first version of OSM on Garmin and the iPhone, worked on the OSM Tasking Manager. Most recently, I’ve been working on analysis and metrics of OSM.
• I’ve written numerous tutorials, spoke at tons of conferences, and represented OSM projects in venues from community meetings in slums, to international political gatherings. Important point … editing and programming are critical contributions to OSM, but there are other skills we need on the Board.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

I work at Mapbox on the data team. My focus is on leveraging work here for the widest possible benefit to OSM. I’ve previously worked at the State Department, as a Presidential Innovation Fellow, on MapGive. Prior to that, I consulted on OSM related projects through GroundTruth Initiative.

Conflicts of Interest

I work for Mapbox, and am active in the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team. I am very familiar with management of Conflict of Interest. When there are items that clearly touch on my interests, I will recuse myself appropriately. In any case, in all my work, my core interest is helping OSM. Does OSMF have a clear Conflict of Interest policy? I can’t find this. If not, we need one. > http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/46/section/175 which I’m sure you were aware of from your previous position on the board. » Thanks. Important to understand the laws under which osmf operates. But I was asking about the policy, which guides exactly how osmf handles CoI (how it’s divulged, when and how we recuse, etc).

Who should the OSMF serve?

I want to turn this question around. OSM is made up of what we contribute to it. Whether we are contributing map data, software, design, amazing uses, community building & communication … we are serving OSM. OSMF should be the same. OSM Foundation can be a place to focus and route our energies beyond the map, a place where we can serve OSM in ways that excite us.

Role of the board

The Board needs to focus on facilitating high level strategic direction of OSMF, maintain fiduciary and legal responsibility for the entity, needs to determine budget and resources (whether in assets, volunteer time, or paid time) necessary to maintain the core of OSM (the servers, domains, data and IP), and support the communication and interaction of the community. As much as possible, the Board needs to push the actual activities of the OSMF to working groups, chapters, and people retained for services.

Communication with the community

I’m subscribed to a large number of mailing lists, try to hang in IRC, follow many OSM folks on Twitter, regularly read weekly-osm, frequently chat with OSM folks on Skype, read and post OSM diary entries. It’s a huge volume, and honestly we need to become more focused and strategic from an OSMF perspective. I do like the idea of regularly scheduled “office hours” with the OSMF. And I welcome anyone to directly reach out to me anytime.

Community involvement in OSMF

Greater involvement of Local Chapters. Excellent communication on OSMF and Working Group needs. Active recruiting drives for participation.

Diversity

From Map Kibera and HOT, and my work at State Department, I have strong connections and understandings of communities around the world, especially those not well represented in OSMF. As I talk about in my position statement, I believe enhancing the participation of Local Chapters is critical to increasing geographic diversity. Improving diversity in gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and otherwise is very much needed in OSM generally, and I will support specific outreach and communication to make sure OSM is a welcoming place.

Paying People

I’ll quote Frederik Ramm, he here expresses a pretty sensible view similar to mine.

“there’s quite an acceptable middle ground to be found … In the current board, we agreed to take it slow - to accept that in the long run we will likely be employing a few people, and to say: Let’s learn how to do this, as an organisation, slowly, let’s start with hiring an administrative assistant for 1-2 days a week and let them do some of the tasks that currently are either being dropped or being reluctantly done.”

There are probably other tasks which are best done by paid consultants or employees. Let’s look carefully at OSMF needs, and match with the best options for resourcing. Let’s get the organization prepared to hire people, if it’s found necessary.

Board term limits

This has not been an issue. I do however wonder if a 3 year term is too lengthy. Would be interested to explore reducing to two years. Will of course serve for as long as required.

Transparency

Boards need to be both transparent, and also have space to discuss confidential issues. I would support periodic public Board meetings of some kind, and willing to consider open vote reporting, though I don’t have a solid opinion either way right now. I’d also support greater transparency through general greater accessibility of the Board outside of meetings, and more communication.

License violation enforcement

I’m not sure these cases are handled in any consistent mechanism. And whatever the mechanism, it shouldn’t become more prosecutorial. Agree this is mostly unintentional. Good and clear communication about what is needed to work with OSM is the key here.

Imports and remote mapping stance

Imports and remote mapping and surveying all have a place in OSM. I have done all and support all, when done well. Key is good communication and a productive environment to improve our map. And, better tools for monitoring and QA on OSM data are something I am eager to facilitate.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

Everyone has incentives and motivations for doing OSM. We should focus on, no matter what their incentive, that people coming to OSM can grow a passion for the mission of OSM and embrace of our values. Policies that apply to one group or another don’t encourage this. The best way to do that is through better communication, transparency, and a welcoming spirit.

At State of the Map US 2015, I asked the audience how many people worked on some aspect of OSM as part of their job … nearly 40% raised their hands. Many of us are lucky enough for our passions and work to coincide. That includes mappers, and in my experience, passion for the mission of OpenStreetMap is inseparable from doing a great job in OSM.

I work at Mapbox, with the Data team. I invite anyone with questions to learn more concreatly about what’s happening here, it’s pretty exciting. Read more on the Mapbox blog and the Mapbox mapping public repo.

Mikel’s employer has a team of employees who edit OpenStreetMap

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Guido Stein

• Location: USA
• OSM User gsteinmon
• Manifesto quoted below

As someone new to the community I hope that I can share my prespective as a newer member in your efforts to grow the community as well as in your efforts to have better outreach with newer members. I have years of experience running and founding local community groups as well as technical experience with geospatial technologies. I am stepping up for your consideration in order to help where I can with the community growth and development.

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

I am still very new to this community and have not started working on any working group, but plan to join some working groups within the next couple of months.

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

As a newer member I have contributed by helping to grow the Boston GeoSpatial community and supporting local mapping events with the OSM Boston Meetup Group. I use my own community group, AvidGeo, to help build awareness and attendance of OSM Mapping parties locally. I will be working with the 2017 FOSS4G Conference to also help bring attention to the OSM community.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

I am a GIS Analyst and use OSM data as a base layer in some of my work, but my work does no currently include any OSM editing activities.

Conflicts of Interest

No, I do not have an conflicts of interest. I work for Applied Geographics, Inc. and am the founder/lead organizer of AvidGeo. I am also on the organizing committee of the 2017 FOSS4G. None of these positions have a fiscal or other overlap with the duties of the OSM board.

Who should the OSMF serve?

Has not responded.

Role of the board

Has not responded.

Communication with the community

Has not responded.

Community involvement in OSMF

Diversity

Paying People

Has not responded.

Board term limits

Has not responded.

Transparency

Transparency/openness should be paramount to how the organization is run.

License violation enforcement

Has not responded.

Imports and remote mapping stance

Has not responded.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

Has not responded.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Peter Barth

• Location: Germany
• OSM User Peda
• Manifesto

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

I joined the Data Working Group about half a year ago, and have been helping to resolve disputes between mappers since.

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

Besides my work as a mapper and Data Working Group member, I have: * created and contributed to Open Source software related to OpenStreetMap, especially related to 3D rendering * mentored students doing OSM work during Google Summer of Code projects and theses * cooperated with government, industry and charity organizations on a local level * given speeches at various conferences, and contributed content to WeeklyOSM and the German Wochennotiz * introduced new users to OpenStreetMap through events, talks, and tutoring.

I believe this gives me a broad perspective on various aspects of the OSM project an community, and I hope to contribute my experience as part of the OSM board.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

No. While I try to promote OSM at my university through bachelor and master theses, I actually have no work related affiliation to OSM.

Conflicts of Interest

No. See above.

Who should the OSMF serve?

Serving the needs of map users is an integral part of the usefulness of our project, but to me, the OSM community consists of mappers and software developers. And these groups are who I’d try to represent.

Role of the board

As I also cited in my manifesto, the OSMF should support but not control the OpenStreetMap project, and that should be taken as a guideline for the board’s actions. As a general rule, the board has to handle its duties but should not take care of things that could be done by the community as well. Anyway, to give you some ideas about things the board should get or is already involved in, here’s a list of things I think of: Assisting the working groups and also demanding from them (e.g. ask for reports,…), make the budget plan, possibly fund raising if needed, set up promotional programs, help and support local communities (e.g. local chapters), help organize SOTMs (including local ones), public relations, maybe launch merchandising, promote OpenSource tools everywhere in the project, dealing with inquiries of all kind (press, legal requests,…) and especially report about the board’s work. Though the board should not get involved in managing software development, setting up mapping rules or hiring staff. For more details, on some of these ideas, see my manifesto and the other questions.

Communication with the community

I’m subscribed to a large number of mailing lists as well (German and English ones), I follow the German ones more closely though. I read blogs (not only the official OSM ones), user diaries, the OSM Forum (German, 3D and Indoor mostly) and you will find me on a bunch of IRC channels. However, I read much of that especially to aid the Wochennotiz/WeeklyOSM. Of course you can meet me in person, either while mapping ;-) or at the regular’s table in Passau, the annual FOSSGIS event or hacking weekends or stuff like that.

Community involvement in OSMF

The very limited involvement of OSM community members in the OSMF, visible in the membership numbers, limited involvement in working group and participation in elections, has been a big topic and before the last elections there have been fairly bold statements towards improvements here but not much has happened. Although there is now a possibility to become a member without paying the membership fee there is still quite a high hurdle to become a member and participate in decision processes of the OSMF. Do you have ideas how to improve community participation you intend to push forward if elected to the board? There have for example been suggestions for automatic membership for active community members.

Diversity

I’m mostly part of the German community (and subcommunities in Germany), which is a very large community. What I’d like to reach is better geographic diversity: As stated in my manifesto, the OSMF might provide PR articles (or money therefore), the board could subsidize flights to SOTMs, help with money for regulars tables or talks about OSM and so on. These are points I’d like to bring to the board.

Paying People

As I stated before, I’m a strong opponent to paying staff. If something can be done by a volunteer, let’s try and search a volunteer. While it makes sense to engage e.g. a lawyer to handle a lawsuit for us, I have yet to see a suggestion for an employee that makes sense. Anyway, from the information the OSMF members get (the meeting minutes) you can see a small number of tasks which get handled late or not at all and it’s not convincing that the work load is so high that it needs to be outsourced. So I’d suggest to start with regularly reporting about each member’s work to see where help is needed and what options exist, instead of jumping to the conclusion that we need employees.

Board term limits

I wouldn’t pursue it, but I also wouldn’t work against it. Although there have been many and good arguments for term limits, I’d prefer to let the voter decide. Be it to implement or reject term limits or to vote the same person 20 times in a row.

Transparency

Well, I think there have been enhancements since Paul Norman is on the board, and I’ve been able to contribute a bit to that with my public encouragement of public board meetings. Nevertheless, there’s still room for improvements. Regarding my standpoint to transparency: I’m serving the community, so except for privacy issues I don’t see any reasons for intransparency. This includes publication of board members’ votes, which I fully support.

License violation enforcement

I think the current intended way of handling things is good: The OSM community may deal with violations locally, and complicated stuff will be escalated to the LWG. So if there’s anything that should be changed it’s to advertise volunteer involvement in the LWG.

Imports and remote mapping stance

In the past I often wondered about all the fuss about imports and mechanical edits. Having seen and stumbled upon a bunch of really messy imports, I have changed my mind. I’m still in favor for imports, but only if they strictly follow the Import Guidelines or Mechanical Edit Policy. I think they should be made even more strict and I think there should be a clear rule to revert everything that doesn’t adhere to these guidelines. However, this is my personal opinion only and nothing that should be worked on in the OSMF board.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

This is nothing the board can or should decide. But personally I’m absolutely in favor of such an collaborative (paid) editing policy. I think we should at least demand from such mappers that they disclose whom they work for and what they work on. Two name two rather strong arguments for such an policy: I’d like to know if 50 employees of company A vote on the wiki and I’d like to know if all of them use a controversial tag. Anyway, that’s something the community has to decide.

In preparation for the 2015 OSMF board election I am gathering basic info and question responses by candidate, to help people be better informed about their choices.

I’ve added annotations in italics where I felt they would be useful.

Ilya Zverev

• Location: Russia
• OSM User Zverik
• Manifesto

Questions

Where do you currently participate in the OSMF?

First, most work is done outside OSMF, even by OSMF members. People write blogs by themselves, explain legal issues without being on LWG, and code without EWG help. There are 5 groups currently active: OWG and DWG, because they have the only power there is in this community: access to servers and a banhammer. And LWG, LCWG and SotMWG, which do organizational stuff few people have knowledge or experience or time to do.

I am not currently on any working groups, though formerly I’ve been on EWG (promoting API changes) and on the Membership WG, which didn’t set off. Which does not mean, obviously, that I’m not doing any work WGs do: for instance, I do communications work in the Russian community, editing a news blog and hosting a weekly OSM podcast. During my involvement in OSM, I tried most things WGs do: explained licensing, wrote code, admined servers, tried to reason with vandals, organized conferences, considered opening a russian local chapter.

Why I don’t sign up to any of the groups? Some, I don’t feel qualified enough (e.g. LWG or LCWG), others are too taxing (I envy these steel-nerved heroes at DWG) or require 24h commitment (OWG, we can’t thank you enough). And some working groups don’t seem useful: why join CWG or EWG, when all the help you need is in IRC channels and blogs?

That doesn’t mean I won’t consider joining working groups later: it’s that benefits of being on them (and levels of commitment) should be clearly outlined. E.g. members of the CWG receive news early and have access to the blog and the twitter. Maybe it should be the other way around: you’re not writing code because you’re on EWG, but you’re on EWG because you are an active developer. Working groups, like the OSMF itself, clearly need improvements and incentives to be attractive to newcomers, and that is one of the matters I plan to work on.

Which contributions to OSM should I consider for my decision beyond your data edits at OSM?

I have a brief list of my projects at osmz.ru (some of which are on github), and a list of wiki contributions at my wiki user page. I write the only russian-language OSM news blog and the OSM Radio podcast (not to be confused with the german Radio OSM). Some of my views are expressed in English at my OSM diary.

Do you use OSM at work for business purposes?

Since this year I work at MAPS.ME, which makes a very popular application for OpenStreetMap (almost 30 million installs). So in a way, I do. No paid mapping though, apart from fixing a few bugs our users tell us.

Conflicts of Interest

Yes, I work for MAPS.ME. And by thorough discussion. I would also represent this organization on the Board, but interests of OpenStreetMap are more important for me. But then, one of MAPS.ME goals is to contribute to OSM growth.

Who should the OSMF serve?

I am primarily interested in OpenStreetMap growth as a geodatabase and a platform. But being on the OSMF Board won’t help me with that directly. The Board has little power, but a huge influence, it being the only official OSM entity. We can try using it to make OSM more visible and to attract more users and developers, and to encourage experienced members to do things besides plain mapping, like helping other users, directly or not. There are ways for the Board to help specific groups of OSM users (e.g. developer grants), but we should promote all kinds of involvement.

Role of the board

That’s a big question. The Board should not get involved with mapping, software development or permissions to use OSM. It should support working groups, and OSMF in general: decide what OSMF is, what it is for, and why join. It should decide where money goes (at least until we have a dedicated working group) and the general direction of the OSM project.

Communication with the community

I’m subscribed to a large number of mailing lists, try to hang in IRC, follow many OSM folks on Twitter, regularly read weekly-osm, frequently chat with OSM folks on Skype, read and post OSM diary entries. It’s a huge volume, and honestly we need to become more focused and strategic from an OSMF perspective. I do like the idea of regularly scheduled “office hours” with the OSMF

Community involvement in OSMF

The automatic system seems to be in place now, thanks to Henk. But it is still the question of why anybody would join OSMF. I shared some ideas last year, some of which still stand. I can’t promise anything, but I hope in the coming year OSMF members would have a better understanding on why they have joined.

Diversity

First of all, I represent the russian community, which is third (or fourth) largest in OSM, but isn’t visible because of the language barrier. Not that it would matter on the Board: I’m concerned with the global OSM community first, and the russian part of it second. I already help members from our community to interact with everyone else, so my being on Board would not change much in that regard. I guess a viewpoint that I would bring to the Board is mine alone, but, of course, is influenced by both russian and english communities.

Paying People

We already do that for accounting, and should be paying more people - of course, where reasonable. We can’t have an evolving project with only unpaid volunteers to do all things. Not sure about marketing and PR though.

Board term limits

Yes, I would. The Board is not fun when it’s the same people year after year, it becomes too closed and deaf to innovation

Transparency

This is an important matter for me, since I do a news blog, and am always very interested in how the Board works. Sadly, there is still little information on that: we can’t even know how people we elected work on their goals. I plan to make the Board as open as possible, but understand that there may be reasons why they aren’t much transparent yet. We need to see individual members of the Board, and to have better ways to influence their agenda. I guess I’ll start with myself: even if other Board members won’t open their votes, I probably could share mine.

License violation enforcement

I don’t think we can do much in technical sense, but we sure have to educate users more. Most license violations happen not of malice, but because few people know maps are even subject to the copyright law. And to answer a common kind of thought, “so what, as if they are going to find out”, we need to be more strict and improve our reverting tools. But this, again, not a Board matter, but depends on DWG and some brilliant programmer. > Just for clarification: My question was primarily about violations of the ODbL by users of OSM data, like OSM based maps without attribution. The question of dealing with use of legally unsuited sources for mapping is of interest as well of course (although not really that controversial). > > Right, I didn’t understand that the first time. Simply talking to violators works most of the time, and that is usually done not even by LWG, but by regular OSM members. I think that is good, and LWG does its work great, explaining possible edge cases of the license. The Board can help by only being a bit more louder. I hope we won’t have to take anybody to a court :)

Imports and remote mapping stance

I had very strong opinion on that in the past, but now I’m ok with any import that adheres to the Import Guidelines. Sadly, I’ve yet to see such an import. So again, we should better reverting tools, and less introvert community.

Commercial and Organized Editing Policy stance

The same rules should apply to anybody, regardless the source of their motivation to edit. If a person doesn’t like editing OSM, but still adds correct highways and buildings, - why should we treat them differently? There are already guidelines that say, use correct sources and draw what’s on the ground, and I don’t think we need more than that.