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<p>Dear Emilie, et al,</p>
<p>You wrote,<br>
</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite"><i>I consider it to be quite astounding
that we can just say "Well, the others have succeeded or
failed but it is not directly relevant to us cause we are
unique". There is an element of truth in that but it is an
oversimplification. </i></blockquote>
Who said, "...it is not directly relevant to us cause we are
unique"? I missed that. My response to Mateusz was, "So far in
my analysis OSM appears to be unique, but I am continuing to
search for analogs that may present lessons learned. This
circumstance is why the Board is proceeding deliberately,
cautiously, and in full consultation with the community." If you
are aware of such analogs, the Board is all ears--please inform
us. One of the motivations for community consultation is the
desire for people with knowledge the Board lacks to speak up and
offer said knowledge. <br>
</p>
<p>You wrote,<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><i>I am definitely not opposed to getting
staff and I think there is a need for the foundation to
actually hire (like the accountant) for specific positions
and/or specific missions. I am reluctant to start just hiring
more staff because we want to be more "professional". What are
the short term, medium term or even long term visions? How do
we sustain the foundation as it stands? </i></blockquote>
Being more "professional" is not the objective. Stability,
reliability, and robustness of the technology platform that serves
up both OSM data and data entry services to mappers and data users
are the objectives, just to be clear on that. I consider the
current volunteer sysadmins, software maintainers, and other
non-mapper contributors to be quite professional but in some cases
overburdened. As a member of the OWG, you are certainly aware of
that.<br>
</p>
<p>What do you think the short-, medium-, and long-term visions
should be? The Board is currently mulling what the outer boundary
should be of growth and hiring. We emphatically do not envision
nor do we desire becoming like Wikimedia, but that is a poor (a
negative) objective--what *does* the community want OSM to look
like? Does it want a stable, reliable platform? If so, what do
we require to ensure that? How much is enough? Do we want data
entry tools that are attractive to mappers and encourage newcomers
to contribute data? If so, how much money should the Foundation
raise to invest in those tools? As I responded to Mateusz, "We
view unrestricted budget growth as a risk factor." Where is the
threshold between achievement of robustness, stability,
reliability on the one hand and unnecessary bloat on the other?
We need the community's perspective on that. <br>
</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite"><i>I think we have to be careful on how we
proceed not so much because we will have some staff but
because it will have implications on the project.</i></blockquote>
That is precisely why the Board has submitted proposals for
community consultation. From your point of view, what specific
implications does the proposal portend? Please be explicit,
particularly regarding anything we missed in the proposed hiring
framework.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Hiring_Framework&oldid=7348">https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Hiring_Framework&oldid=7348</a>
We need your input.<br>
</p>
<p>
<blockquote type="cite"><i>Comments like "We have enough money for
3 years" are not helpful. It is not sustainable especially as
we are entering some shift in the economy and some corporation
attitude WILL shift towards money donation.</i></blockquote>
There is no doubt that the global economy is entering a new phase
and speaking as an economist, I can tell you the new phase will be
highly unpredictable. That said, who wants to bet against the
notion that demand for OSM's free services will grow rather than
fall during an economic downturn, simply because they are free?
Also, speaking as an economist, many other organizations, both
commercial and non-profit, would love to have a three-year
operational expense cushion. It is a massive luxury and one we
intend to protect, which is why the proposals for iD involve
attracting new money. The fallback position if all initiatives
fail is reversion to a 100% volunteer do-ocracy operating on a
shoestring budget. We have done that before and can do it again
if we have to, and at the moment we have sufficient funds to do
that for years, so the risk to OSM of a fundraising failure is
pretty minimal. On the other hand, by raising a relatively small
amount of money we can improve the platform's stability and
reliability, continue to develop some very useful software tools,
and also place control of that software development in the hands
of the OSM community, not in the hands of one or two private
companies. <br>
</p>
<p>cheers,<br>
apm<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/5/2020 9:56 AM, Emilie Laffray
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CA+Zmw32Y2SDYL8YxpYAZV6LGK5+CBxwWsuO3M_8ZJfi_Xu1+CA@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
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<div dir="ltr">Hello Andy,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>thank you for vocalizing a lot of what I have been
thinking. You are extremely on point.</div>
<div>It is presented as the way forward without too much
context. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>On a different point, parallels have been raised with other
open source communities and dismissed with a general statement
"There is nothing like OpenStreetMap". I consider it to be
quite astounding that we can just say "Well, the others have
succeeded or failed but it is not directly relevant to us
cause we are unique". There is an element of truth in that but
it is an oversimplification. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Fundraising and paying for staff are common elements of
Open Source, whether you look at Wikimedia, The Linux
Foundation or even Mozilla. They all did in their own way with
pluses and minuses. It is not a secret that raising money for
a charity or an organisation IS EXPENSIVE. Are we saying we
won't need at some point someone dedicated to raise money? It
looks like we are considering increasing the payroll of the
foundation but we will need to pay for that at some point and
raise more money. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I am definitely not opposed to getting staff and I think
there is a need for the foundation to actually hire (like the
accountant) for specific positions and/or specific missions. I
am reluctant to start just hiring more staff because we want
to be more "professional". What are the short term, medium
term or even long term visions? How do we sustain the
foundation as it stands? </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I think we are ignoring as Andy pointed out the cultural
shift and its implications. Comments like "We have enough
money for 3 years" are not helpful. It is not sustainable
especially as we are entering some shift in the economy and
some corporation attitude WILL shift towards money donation.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As I said before, I am definitely not opposed to paying
people (during the short time I was part of the OSMF, I
strongly believed in the micro grant and even pushed for the
accountant bit). But I think we have to be careful on how we
proceed not so much because we will have some staff but
because it will have implications on the project. This is not
a call for a status quo but this is a call to think what it
will imply. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 8:56 AM
Andy Allan <<a href="mailto:gravitystorm@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">gravitystorm@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On
Wed, 5 Aug 2020 at 14:17, Frederik Ramm <<a
href="mailto:frederik@remote.org" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">frederik@remote.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> Perhaps the OSMF could concentrate on the "operative
business" - having<br>
> members, collecting money, running servers, employing
staff, etc. - and<br>
> there could be a nondescript charity somewhere that holds
domain names,<br>
> trademarks, and database rights.<br>
><br>
> Or the other way round, possibly you meant that by
"arms-length<br>
> organisations", that the OSMF becomes the nondescript
charity that only<br>
> has a couple of trademarks and rights, and all the
operative business is<br>
> run by the "OpenStreetMap Services Ltd." or whatever,
which would be the<br>
> organisation that can fail without tearing down the
project.<br>
<br>
As I said in my first email, I'm not advocating a bare-minimum<br>
do-nothing approach for the OSMF (nor achieving the same thing
by<br>
switching the bare minimum to another organisation). There's
room for<br>
OSMF to do plenty of things while balancing the risks.<br>
<br>
But I haven't seen anything to suggest these risks are being
balanced,<br>
or even assessed. None of the proposals have even hinted that
there<br>
might be downsides, or alternative approaches, that the
members should<br>
consider. They've just been presented as an unequivocal good
thing,<br>
leaving many of the responses with "sounds good" and little
more than<br>
that.<br>
<br>
Two small examples might illustrate my point:<br>
<br>
1) The decision was made to make the SSRE job permanent from
the<br>
get-go, rather than other options such as a fixed-term
contract. But<br>
there's nothing to indicate that the Board have considered or<br>
mitigated any risks, like around terminating the contract if
we decide<br>
that something different is required. Perhaps those risks were<br>
discussed? But they haven't been shared.<br>
2) The iD contract will be funded by "earmarked donations from<br>
companies, chapters and organisations", which notably leaves
out<br>
individuals. It's a marked shift from our previous approach to<br>
fundraising, and risks a disconnect between members and what
the OSMF<br>
spends money on, and also increases the risks of large-company<br>
capture. We've spent many years working on the principle that
we<br>
should fundraise from individuals to ensure our ongoing
independence.<br>
Again, nothing showing consideration of these risks have been
shared.<br>
3) The board is going to appoint members of the new dispute
resolution<br>
committee. This is again a significant departure from what we
normally<br>
do in OSMF, where few (if any?) groups have ever been
appointed like<br>
this. Maybe it's a better way? I dont' have a strong opinion.
But we<br>
have nothing showing that the risks have been considered.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Andy<br>
<br>
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