OpenStreetMap
I’ve taken on the task of mapping allotments throughout Great Britain. I think there is a similarity between allotment users and OSM contributors, even if it’s not immediately obvious. Allotments are quite often community owned or some form of cooperative, but even the commercially owned ones have roots back to the Diggers when private land was reclaimed for public good and food production.
I’ve been thinking more about the overlap between Open Data, Free Software and the common land lately. I’m starting to think it’s all the same thing, a rebellion against private property and ownership. It’s about common good, and helping your neighbour. It’s about the future and your legacy. It’s about leaving the world slightly better than you found it.
I’ve created a MapRoulette Challange based on a subset of OS Open Greenspace. For some I can add little more than a rectangle with https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse=allotments, some I can see a few more details like paths and tracks. 1 2 3
Discussion
Comment from Jez Nicholson on 27 November 2020 at 08:30
Interesting thoughts. I find myself in a similar place when complaining about funding. I want assistance from the companies that benefit from our altruism, but at the same time I don’t want to spoil what we’ve got. Maybe we need to examine history and try to avoid the same mistakes?
Comment from CjMalone on 27 November 2020 at 10:38
I keep comparing OSM to Linux, some people don’t like it, but I think it’s pretty close.
There is a lot of Linux development that comes from big tech companies, in fact it’s the majority of development now, not volunteers. But it’s still Free Software. GNU Hurd is the Free Software kernel that doesn’t take corporate funding, relying solely on volunteers and donations. I don’t use Hurd, you don’t, nobody does.
I think that’s the real risk to OSM, losing whatever traction we currently have and becoming more niche.
I think OSMF should have been the Red Hat equivalent, they should be making the data easier to use and providing support to companies that want to use OSM data. They should funding a lot more, they should be employing a lot more. Instead they’ve decided to stay small, it is noble, but it is limiting.
However, to counter everything I just said. Corporate involvement will get you things like Digital Restrictions Management, not a map of allotments. To some degree it is ‘selling out’. I think we need 2 types of funds coming into OSM, corporate goals and community good.
Corporate goals like mapping an entire chain shops does benefit OSM, but it is far more valuable to the corporation, they should be paying for it either by paying people in the OSM community, or by training there own staff.
Community good funds that can be spent on goals that they don’t get direct value back out of but improves OSM. I think we should be pushing corporations involved in OSM to provide more of this type of funding, and for it to be used for microgrants and also to pay for peoples time.
Anyway, I’m biased because I need work.