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<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Andy, et al, out of the
issues we are discussing in this proposal, what decisions would
be irreversible? <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The Board and those
community members who have responded are well aware of some
risks, and the questions before us are to determine the risks,
assess those risks, seek mitigations for the risks we can
possibly mitigate, and build safeguards around all the risks we
can identify. If there are specific risks that worry you, or
that you think we have missed, please spell them out
explicitly--please don't just accuse me of a lack of awareness
without telling me of what I am unaware. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Among the risks I worry
about are loss of our two sysadmins, which would leave us with
none; loss of our maintainer of the default editor; system
failure due to inability to grow to meet demand, which would
likely lead to a project fork by companies who at this point
need our data; and control of programmers and developers by
third parties rather than the community and the Foundation that
represents the community's interests. I, at least, do not
consider risks such as these to be trivial.</font></p>
<p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">cheers,<br>
apm</font><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/13/2020 4:56 AM, Andy Allan wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAJmUSViHueS+nqxbyqH28f9g4VrSRkPVnL_=Bvm+c4+r6NWirA@mail.gmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On Thu, 6 Aug 2020 at 00:31, Allan Mustard <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:allan@mustard.net"><allan@mustard.net></a> wrote:
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">OSMF won't fail, simply because the "worst-case" scenario is reversion to the 100% do-ocracy of volunteers, which has its drawbacks but is doable, has been sustainable for nearly 16 years, and is very low cost. That particular downside risk is very small, as in very close to zero. The question is whether there are improvements to the platform within our reach, for which funds could be raised, that would not undermine the volunteer spirit of the OSM community and thereby to endanger the project. The Board is listening to all voices, not only the loudest, and we encourage all with information and perspectives to share, to speak up.
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I'm unfortunately not reassured by your comment. If the head of the
local council said "Don't worry, if this new dam doesn't work out as
we intended, the worst-case scenario is we'll drain the reservoir and
move back into the village" then I wouldn't be reassured by that
either. Both show a lack of awareness that some decisions aren't
reversible, and sometimes you can't simply go back to what you did
before.
Thanks,
Andy
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