<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1251">
</head>
<body>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Thanks for the
comment. We will meet with the OWG and sysadmins at the
face-to-face meeting in London next month and learn from them
what they need aside from what was contained in the OWG's
recently approved budget request for 2020. As you should be
aware, if you listened in to today's meeting, the OWG proposed
three budget options: low, medium, and high. The board approved
the high option, recognizing that the OWG's needs are real and
that support of its needs is one of our highest priorities.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">You are spot on that
the OWG needs more members. The current members are
overworked. I would ask that you volunteer anyway, given that
telecom also involves budgeting and hardware/software
maintenance and management--your skills would most likely be
applicable. Then I would ask you to help recruit some other new
OWG members If you come to Cape Town in July, I will buy you a
beer for every new OWG member you recruit. </font><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><font face="Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif">:-) </font></font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The Board will look at
this ongoing problem, however, from a more global perspective
than merely slow servers--with respect to operating the servers,
has the OSM "do-ocracy" reached the outer boundaries of what a
"do-ocracy" can reasonably handle? We may need to examine other
support models. Some of them will be controversial, but OSM has
clearly grown a great deal since 2004, what worked 15 years ago
may not necessarily be a good model today, and we owe it to the
community to brainstorm about what to do about the impact of
that growth on our ability to manage infrastructure.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Regarding tile servers,
the current debate is whether we should serve up tiles at all.
Based on the SWOT analysis and my (to date 32) conference calls
with various people in the OSM global community, there is a wide
variety of viewpoints: that we should not serve up tiles to
anyone (the "dog in a manger" approach), that we should serve
unlimited tiles to all comers (the "black hole for resources"
approach), that we should serve both raster and vector tiles,
that we should serve raster but not vector tiles, and vice
versa, and everything in between. I anticipate a vigorous
debate about this across the OSM community before any decisions
are made. This is in any case on the Board's radar.<br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">As for your comment
that running the servers is "one of the few actual
responsibilities the Foundation has," I respectfully beg to
differ. My understanding of the Companies Act of 2006 and the
Articles of Association is that the Board bears other fiduciary
responsibilities to OSM and to the community, and you may rest
assured that when it comes to this board, its members take
those fiduciary responsibilities very seriously. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Thank you again for
caring and writing.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">cheers,<br>
apm</font><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/27/2020 3:31 PM, Clifford Snow
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CADAoPLp1ZUectHh=RUOHXWYGwy-p80cZobriDZn0MdK9WzmVug@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=windows-1251">
<div dir="ltr">I listened in on today's Board meeting. I'd like to
suggest going forward that the Board get regular status reports
from the Operations Working Group. Lately tile have been slow to
load, at least in the US. Grant Slater has been great about
communicating with the community when problems arise.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Since running the servers is one of the few actual
responsibilities the Foundation has, it should be one of the
key priorities. According to Grant, we need about 30% more
capacity. OWG is also looking for more members to help. (I'd
love to volunteer, but my background, telecommunications,
mainly involved getting data between data centers and the
user) Having the Board step up to insure our IT infrastructure
is capable of meeting the needs of the user would be a welcome
step.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Sincerely,</div>
<div>Clifford</div>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
<div dir="ltr" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>@osm_washington<br>
</div>
<div><a href="https://www.snowandsnow.us"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">www.snowandsnow.us</a></div>
<div>OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
osmf-talk mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:osmf-talk@openstreetmap.org">osmf-talk@openstreetmap.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk">https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>