I wrote a comment today on the OSM-Carto issue tracker that i think should get some broader exposure:
In light of this, improving documentation of our road rendering system would be of immense value. Not only in the short term for OSM-Carto development, but also in the long term for the future of OpenStreetMap as a whole and for map design in general. There are only a hand full of people at the moment who have an in-depth understanding how road rendering in OSM-Carto works – and for most of them this is already historic knowledge (meaning: they are not active in CartoCSS/Mapnik map style development any more).
Unfortunately, those who would have the economic capacity to do so (companies using OSM data, academic institutions, to a lesser extent the OSMF) have shown no interest in investing in the historic memory of OpenStreetMap. And while we, in OSM-Carto, recognize the immense value of this knowledge for the future of OpenStreetMap and OSM based map design we, of course, lack the economic means to ensure this knowledge is preserved for future generations.
So, if anyone following this issue tracker has the means to support an endeavor to preserve the 1.5 decades of historic knowledge and map design experience around the development of OSM-Carto and to document how the most sophisticated operational OSM based map style works or has the means to lobby those who have these means to invest here, then please feel highly encouraged to become active here.
OpenStreetMap has meanwhile grown older than most digital social endeavors, while staying at least moderately healthy so far. But it has not yet survived a true generational succession. Many people from the early years of OpenStreetMap still cover key functions within the project.
For any community of people to be sustainable in the long term it has to accomplish two important things
- be able to manage a true generational turnover
- develop a balance between
- the need to give new generations of community members the room and the ressources to develop beyond the horizon of the previous generations (and this way becoming capable of true evolutionary development)
- the need to develop and maintain the collective wisdom and experience across generations (allowing for long term innovative advancement and a conscious selection of the evolutionary path)
The first point is a social matter, OpenStreetMap definitely struggles with the generational turnover. I discussed this in context of the OSMF in the past – where there are, in particular, a few influential people clinging to their influence. But accomplishing this also depends a lot on the balance described in the second point – which is not only a social question but also an intellectual and an economic challenge.
In the context of celebrating the birthday of OpenStreetMap, commenters have, in the past, often used metaphors of youth and coming of age. I think this might be the wrong perspective. In the fast moving digital world 20 years of age might be more like 40 or 60 years in terms of a human life.
Map design is a particularly good example for the challenges OpenStreetMap faces at this stage of its development in my opinion. Not only because it depends so much both on people with a broad perspective and much experience and – at the same time – on new approaches being tried and developed by unprejudiced minds. But also because, even during the short history of OpenStreetMap, we have had already various examples where substantial wisdom and knowledge was lost because those who carried that knowledge dropped out of the project without being given the space, the appreciation and the support that would have been needed to allow them to substantially pass it on (Osmarender and TopOSM just to mention two prominent cases). At the same time, young people with talent and interest in map design do not get the supportive environment they would need to develop their skills – as i have also pointed out in the past.
Some might say: What does it matter? Evolutionary development inherently involves failures and losses. Quite true. But OpenStreetMap does not exist in a vacuum. The world around us evolves as well. And i have doubts that OpenStreetMap can afford to retreat to its island and simply start over with every new generation of map designers.
March 5, 2025 at 13:47
Well, regarding the OSM – it’s a rolling stone and sometimes it seems there is no force whatsoever which can direct it the right way. The commercial companies pays milions and millions to hire and keep the right people and then here is the OSM with community of the ego-masturbators which reliably discourages anyone new.
March 5, 2025 at 16:57
Thanks for the comment. I think this probably reflects a widespread perspective of contributors to OSM who view the project similar to various commercial platforms (think of github, reddit, youtube etc.) – i.e. a feature of the commercial internet (meaning: its existence is ensured and depends on the commercial interests behind it – which are not part of the project itself) where people participate in out of individual self interest and which they ultimately have no control over.
I don’t want to argue if this is an accurate view – that is something hard to objectively determine. But i want to point out that in the blog post i am looking at OpenStreetMap as a community (in the sense of a group of people who identify as such based on shared values and norms). Who exactly is part of that community can be argued about of course. As can be to what extent this community is socially stratified. But the necessity for knowledge retention and generational succession in such a community for long term viability is hard to dispute with the premise that there is a community that is not fully dependent on an outside power like a commercial entity. And that has – at least historically – not been the case in case of OpenStreetMap.
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March 5, 2025 at 17:01
Documenting software written by others is the greatest possible punishment for a programmer. I wish you good luck in finding such a masochist.
March 5, 2025 at 19:59
Thanks for the comment. It is funny (though also kind of expected) that people think immediately (and exclusively?) about software development when it comes to knowledge retention and generational succession in OpenStreetMap. I am not talking about software development here though.
I would not even consider documentation of concrete software as part of the collective wisdom and experience of a community that needs to be maintained and developed across generations. The OSM-Carto road rendering is of long term value for OpenStreetMap not as a concrete implementation (software) but as a design approach to depicting roads based on OSM data. This is what StyXman tried to document – in parts – on github. The software analogy would be an algorithm. Donald Knuth spent a substantial part of his life documenting algorithms and i don’t think anyone would call him a masochist because of that.
March 8, 2025 at 19:46
Thanks for your answer.
> It is funny (though also kind of expected) that people think immediately (and exclusively?) about software development when it comes to knowledge retention and generational succession in OpenStreetMap.
That’s not meant to be funny, but a comparison to something I know. You can easily replace “programmer/documentation” with “sculptor/cleaning the studio” or, even better, “author/proofreading the manuscript”. Almost any creative work that is intrinsically satisfying also involves boring work that simply has to be done. And because it’s boring, nobody™ will do it voluntarily.
> I am not talking about software development here though.
Neither am I.
> I would not even consider documentation of concrete software as part of the collective wisdom and experience of a community that needs to be maintained and developed across generations. The OSM-Carto road rendering is of long term value for OpenStreetMap not as a concrete implementation (software) but as a design approach to depicting roads based on OSM data.
When I read “important” or “value”, I look for the corresponding “for whom”. Because there is no abstract “important” or “valuable”. I think you overestimate the number of people who think the OsmCarto/Mapnik render rules and/or the documentation of the ideas that led to them are important. The same goes for the new render tool chain you proposed.
Of course, this doesn’t just apply to your work: the creators of the OpenTopoMap i.e. called for help at least four times, and there was no one who would have taken money to rent a server, copy the code, and get it working again. This is where the ‘why’ comes into play: *why* would someone have done this? The question of “why” (would someone do this or that) is far too rarely asked in the world of OSM. To move the project forward, the OSMF should address it.
Saying “I think this project is important” is fundamentally different from real action (and time and money), ensuring that the project stays alive and continues to develop.
> This is what StyXman tried to document – in parts – on github. The software analogy would be an algorithm. Donald Knuth spent a substantial part of his life documenting algorithms and i don’t think anyone would call him a masochist because of that.
Mr Knuth did an amazing job analysing and explaining data structures and algorithms, but he proofread his work badly. Half a century later, it still contains typos. That’s because proofreading is boring. Proofreading 10,000 pages, even more so. So he didn’t. At least not with the same effort he put into writing the books.
Additionally: Mr Knuth created *his* work. He has full rights, and I assume he’s made quite a fortune selling his books. Documenting rendering rules/ideas does not make the rules/ideas yours. You couldn’t even release the result as CC0. Therefore, I think that Knuth is a bad example.
In any case, I hope you find a volunteer to do the boring work. Or that the OSMF will pay someone to do it. But I would not bet on it.
March 8, 2025 at 21:34
I am not quite sure if you are fundamentally misunderstanding the message of the blog post or if you are rejecting the premise of looking at OpenStreetMap as a community of people within a functionally differentiated society.
Although i think i made this very clear in the post already once again: This is not a call for people to do work i personally would like to get done (out of personal interests) but i find unattractive to do myself or to pay people for doing that work. I am discussing the objective necessities for the OpenStreetMap community to develop sustainably in the long term.
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March 10, 2025 at 10:36
Personally I think this is more about Carto than OSM in general. OSM has many ways to encourage and support folks – wiki’s, forums, mailing lists, slack, discord. There is a regular addition of new users and many continuing users that have been around for years doing what they have the skills to support.
March 10, 2025 at 11:18
Thanks for the comment. At the risk of sounding like a broken record: There are no technical solutions to social problems. Fancy communication platforms is something any garden variety tech project has. It might help with recruitment if you consider that purely a numbers game. But the challenges i described are not about numbers of contributors.
Map design and OSM-Carto are just an example for the issue described, they are not the issue itself – even if they are a good example, since map design is a key skill for the OSM community to be innovative in for independent, self determined long term development and OSM-Carto has been (and still is to some extent) a major carrier of map design innovation within the OSM community.
One thing i can say about communication platforms though is that the more recent trend of moving away from open channels with a permanent public record towards gated communities and volatile channels without a public record is quite definitively a contributing factor to issues i pointed out.
March 11, 2025 at 15:04
From my point of view, tastrax did not write about communication channels. Just like I didn’t write about programming. What he basically said was:
1. There are always (new) people.
2. You can reach these people.
3. If these people don’t care about OsmCarto, it’s not a problem of OSM in general, but one of OsmCarto.
I would like to add: the project that is important *to you* is not important *to them*. (The “Sie/sie” pun works only in German language.) It is so unimportant *to them* that even a mention of it in the weekly news led to just a single reaction. :-/
March 11, 2025 at 18:40
Then you are rejecting the basic premise of the blog post – that OpenStreetMap is a community of people (or a social group – if you don’t like the term community) with shared values and norms with a group cohesion that lasts beyond the involvement of individuals and that develops as a collective on such time scales. Only if OpenStreetMap is a community you can discuss things like knowledge retention and generational succession or more abstract things like what is important for the community in the long term in a meaningful way.
If you look at OpenStreetMap purely as an ad-hoc cooperation of individuals selfishly pursuing their individual interests of the moment or a set of one-to-one contracts between autonomous stakeholders to cooperate for their benefits, then my whole discussion is indeed fairly meaningless. About the only thing you could then objectively discuss about the well-being of the project would be business metrics.
As i already hinted at, it is not at all uncommon to look at OpenStreetMap this way, especially in the ultra-individualist societies where most of OpenStreetMap’s contributors come from. But the fact that people have such a mental model of OSM does not mean this is an accurate description. If you look at OpenStreetMap in detail it is hard not to recognize many aspects that are characteristic for a community/social group.