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This article is a bit scattered. But it makes one good point: Big Tech companies are profiting off of the OSM data set, while employing no one working on OSM. H
by yosito 5y ago
This article is a bit scattered. But it makes one good point: Big Tech companies are profiting off of the OSM data set, while employing no one working on OSM. How do we change that?
- simonh 5y agoApple and Microsoft do contribute a lot of data back to OSM though, as pointed out in the article, and they help fund it. OSM doesn’t employ anyone full time, but there are Apple and MS employees that contribute to OSM near or actually full time. So what exactly is it you think needs changing?
- matkoniecz 5y agoStrictly speaking OSM does not employ anyone partly because it is not some legal entity. (Open Street Map Foundation has very limited employees and contractors, see https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Contractors_and_employees https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Contractors_and_employee... )
- burkaman 5y agoWe don't need to change that because it isn't true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29714360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29714360 The author is using very specific phrasing ("in the OSM community") that apparently excludes corporate employees that contribute to OSM.
- tapiok 5y agoof course it is true OSM mappers provide free labor (also) to corporate giants. They have vested (economic) interest to not fork the OSM project exactly for this reason. Maybe they will do it one day though.
- betwixthewires 5y agoThese companies contribute ~17% of worldwide road change updates, if that's not employing anyone to work on OSM then what exactly do you mean by "work on OSM?"