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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 25.11.2017 um 12:42 schrieb john
whelan:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAJ-Ex1GsweAsSByWQPovbp6QmE757Lu2XXmSQF_-S=khZSFuwA@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">This is
boring and sensible and not what we have come to expect from
candidates this time.<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br>
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">There
is so much money riding on OSM these days that I wonder if we
should have some sort of remuneration for board members or at
least some paid staff. It might attract a wider variety and
make us a little more independent of commercial interests but
this would be a very big change for the board and membership
to consider. It would also need to be thought about. I
understand in the US nonprofits may not pay their directors
but certainly in Canada Cooperatives at least can and do.</div>
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<br>
There are (at least) a couple of aspects to this:<br>
<br>
- what role does the board actually have: is it more strategic, or
is it essentially a working executive board (and other variants).
Historically it seems to have wobbled back and forth but in general,
been "weder Fisch noch Vogel" (German expression: "neither fish nor
bird"). If we moved to a paid board, we would likely still want to
have a separate non-paid oversight board of some form.<br>
<br>
- staff in any form would currently increase the dependency on a)
commercial entities, and b) on US interests (since essentially all
such entities with enough funds for larger donations are US based)<br>
<br>
On the later point: OSM has as far as I know never received any
larger contribution to operating costs from your typical sources of
idealistic donations, again lots of these are US based and only
support US organisations, or are very project orientated which IMHO
doesn't really work for core OSMF. It is quite possible to obtain
funds for specific software projects, but then there is no real need
to go through the OSM, which is OK, except that the side benefits
tend to not benefit the OSMF either (classical example Mapbox, both
Tilemill and iD were originally financed by the Knight Foundation
that besides funding the actual projects kickstarted the whole
company).<br>
<br>
Simon<br>
<br>
PS: there is the other problem that why on earth would you want to
pay the board first? Surely you would want to pay the people on the
OWG, DWG and LWG before the directors, given they are actually core
to operations not the board, unluckily that would probably amount to
a couple of million just for starters.<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAJ-Ex1GsweAsSByWQPovbp6QmE757Lu2XXmSQF_-S=khZSFuwA@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">Cheerio
John<br>
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br>
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br>
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<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On 25 November 2017 at 00:37, Paul
Norman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:penorman@mac.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">penorman@mac.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
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.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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<p>I've announced my standing for board previously, after
feedback from a few people. I've now posted my
manifesto, at <a
class="m_17521487816064480moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/pnorman/diary/42816"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.openstreetmap.org/<wbr>user/pnorman/diary/42816</a>.</p>
<p>I'm Paul Norman, OSM user pnorman. I've been mapping
since 2010, and involved in other facets of
OpenStreetMap since 2011. For the last three years, I’ve
been on the OSMF board, and am running for re-election.
During my time I’ve seen the board grow in productivity,
the finances become more stable, and us make good
strides in transparency.<br>
<br>
Outside the board, I’m also involved with the OSMF on
the Data Working Group, License Working Group, and
Membership Working Group. As a software developer, I’m a
maintainer of OpenStreetMap Carto and osm2pgsql, as well
as being involved in many parts of rendering toolchain.<br>
<br>
In my work life I’m an independent software developer,
working on map rendering, cartography, and PostGIS for
clients. My main contract right now is with Wikimedia
Foundation, as the developer on their maps team. In the
past I’ve worked for CartoDB, Mapquest, and other
companies.<br>
<br>
Looking back at what I put in my 2014 manifesto, I’m
moderately pleased with the progress we’ve made in both
transparency and productive board meetings. Neither are
perfect, but they’re a vast improvement over three
years. Overall, I’m satisfied with my time on the board.
I accomplished some of what I wanted to, and think my
manifesto desires were realistic.<br>
<br>
My concerns are now<br>
<br>
<b>Conflicts of interest</b><br>
<br>
6/7 board members work with OSM somehow in their jobs.
This includes four with employers who sell services
based on OSM data and can easily run into conflicts of
interest. We are not managing this, which might have
worked in the past, but is not a good practice. There’s
stuff we need to set up like having an email discussion
out of sight of the people with conflicts. Right now
it’s considered acceptable for a board member to take
part in discussions where they have a conflict of
interest. Clear rules would also protect board members
from pressure from their employer.<br>
<br>
On a working group whenever there’s occasionally been an
intersection between my work and the WG. In these cases
I’ve removed myself from the discussion. This is what we
should all be doing on the board.<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, as someone who is paid to work with OSM
data, I run into conflicts of interest myself, but in
practice, I have less than most with the nature of who I
work for.<br>
<br>
<b>Support, but not control</b><br>
<br>
The job of the OSMF board is to support the mappers
building the map, but not control them. I worry we are
losing sight of that, and people increasingly want to
exert control and consider the mappers secondary. We
need to protect the ability for people to independently
do activities, even if it’s not something the board
agrees with.<br>
<br>
<b>Volunteer capacity</b><br>
<br>
A lack of volunteers was an issue when I ran three years
ago. It’s a bit better, but still one of the biggest
issues facing the OSMF. Working groups need more people.
A growing number of members have been attending board
meetings, but I’d like to see multiple ones at every
meeting. We need good people on the board, but we also
need an active membership who are interested in what we
do, watch us, what we do, track that we deliver, and
offer appreciation in return.<span class="HOEnZb"><font
color="#888888"><br>
</font></span></p>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<p>Paul Norman<br>
</p>
</font></span></div>
<br>
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