[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Italia starts discussion with OSM Italian community to become an OSMF chapter

[Cristian Consonni]

Dear all,

Wikimedia Italia has been in touch for some time with some
representatives of the Italian community of OpenStreetMap. The OSM
community in Italy is very numerous  (see this data[1] for a rough
figure) and has a long history, so they were wondering since some time
to create a local chapter of the OpenStreetMap Foundation[2] (OSMF) in
Italy.

Local OSM chapters are similar to Wikimedia Chapters, to the point
that the idea and the draft[3] of chapters agreement for chapters and
OSMF is taken from Wikimedia Chapters agreement.

The idea of creating a local chapter for OSM in Italy has been around
for several months, but the community has not yet taken "the big
step", then some members of this community proposed to join forces
with us, given our greater experience as association.

Further, being <del>addicted</del> dedicated to free knowledge some of
Wikimedia Italia's members are long-time OSMers. Wikimedia Italia has
sponsored OSMit (the Italian OSM conference) in the past and this year
we are planning a joint event in October (more info soon)

At this stage we are still in the discussion phase. so we would like
to hear your feedback.

Cristian

[1] http://osmstats.altogetherlost.com/index.php?item=countries
[2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/Agreement
[3] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/Agreement