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Welcome to the Corps_-_OSM_Questions wiki! This is a place to collect questions for the panel on the topic of Corportaions and OSM for the OSM plus meeting.

The premise is that many companies have participated in the OSM community but the results have been mixed

[Kevin] - Marc, could you elaborate on what you mean by "participation"? in your email, you characterized it as "play well". Just looking for a little context to help me think this through.

[marc] not sure if that's the best choice of words. My observation is that companies coming into OSM are greeted with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism by differnet parts of the community. some have gone on to become really valued members of the community. Others have been more controversial either because they were viewed as "takers" or perhaps had ideas that the community hadn't bought in to. I was just trying to flesh out what works and what doesn't.

[Kevin] - that is very helpful, thank you

[Alex]

The line of argument I'll be following is that corporations have been engaging but they should do more and I'd like to go towards a discussion on how decisions are taken in OpenStreetMap.

Commercial users have to put themselves out there and ask the questions they're asking themselves not just behind closed doors. The question I ask myself is how can Mapbox become an as organic part of OpenStreetMap as possible? If OpenStreetMap is to succeed in a big way a lot more corporate players will come into the space. How will we organize ourselves?

In terms of engaging with community the philosophy we're following with Mapbox is to invest directly in community by improving tools and helping run conferences, to work as much as possible in the open, to focus on the issues where there's broader will to move, and to build personal relationships, to plainly know people. We've also not shied away of being opinionated as this project does need a concerted effort to bring it from a million to 10 million contributors.

One key challenge working in the OpenStreetMap community is that it's not clear who calls the shots. The general consensus seems to be that we're coasting in the direction of what we set out to do. That's highly precarious when it comes to situations where bigger decisions need to be taken like fixing the license by taking out viral and limiting share alike stipulations.

Questions

• That's my assertion. Do you agree or not?
• If that's true, what have been the good and the bad experiences. Examples (without naming names)?
• How can new corporations coming into OSM learn from the past? What can they do? What should they avoid?
• What does "the community" want from corporations? What don't they want?
• Why aren't more companies using OSM? Is it the map? The community? The license?
• The "Community" is in fact a bunch of people with varying opinions. If you don't believe that, look at the legal talk forum. That means that corporations will rarely get everyone on their side. How should they address that? Is it OK not to be everyone's friend?