[OHM] Administrative changes to the OHM Github organization

Fri Nov 1 20:39:55 UTC 2019

Hi Jeff and thank you for sharing your concerns and questions.

> Can you share some of the details about the "concerns about the
sustainability of the project" or of how the gatekeeper approach will work?

I do not intend to turn this into a gatekeeper approach long term. To begin
I think we need to make sure the code on Github represent the code on the
server. Baby steps. Regarding pull request those will be managed by whoever
maintains a repository. The only repository which today represents code
running on the server is the task manager one. Bert who maintains it have
already full access to it and can merge pull requests.

Before this change anyone of the many owners could delete any code, invite
anyone, commit whatever code, and edit git history. We can't have it that
way and we can certainly not deploy code we do not trust.

> If I made a pull request to completely rebase the whole project, as the
code base is 7 years old, how would that be reviewed?

No matter the organisation that would require both meetings and
coordination. I assume in the end when it comes to Github the repository
would be replaced with a new one.

>what are the metrics of success for this model?

The first aim is to to actually clean up Github and make sure it represents
the code on the server. To allow incremental change in the first place.

>Contrary to Albin's assertion, I for one, am very confident about the
future of the project, but I do have concerns about our current lack of
governance and individual control over any parts of our operations.

I read such concerns as sustainability concerns. I'm deeply sorry if I have
misrepresented someones concerns.

>This project was started as a community effort, with community
consultation, and community input to how things should be done. I am hoping
that will continue.

It's my belief that this change and the clean up will allow community
contributions to be merged and deployed to begin with. Without that
possibility community meetings and input doesn't do much. While general
concerns regarding governance are related to this I consider such concerns
out of scope for this particular effort. Solutions to those concerns would
also require wider community consultation.

Best regards
//
Albin Larsson

On Fri, Nov 1, 2019, 15:53 Jeff Meyer <jeff at gwhat.org> wrote:

> Albin, Rob -
>
> Thanks for bringing these issues to light & thank you both for your
> leadership & hard work.
>
> I don't speak for the community, but there may be many questions out there
> about these points, I certainly have many questions, I don't agree with
> many of the points above, and I'd love to see if we can organize some
> community solutions.
>
> Can you share some of the details about the "concerns about the
> sustainability of the project" or of how the gatekeeper approach will work?
> E.g. how will pull requests be approved? If I made a pull request to
> completely rebase the whole project, as the code base is 7 years old, how
> would that be reviewed?  Also, what are the metrics of success for this
> model?
>
> Contrary to Albin's assertion, I for one, am very confident about the
> future of the project, but I do have concerns about our current lack of
> governance and individual control over any parts of our operations.
>
> I'll send more thoughts in the next couple of days, but I find these steps
> to be quite strong reactions to some vaguely-referenced & not openly
> discussed concerns.
>
> This project was started as a community effort, with community
> consultation, and community input to how things should be done. I am hoping
> that will continue.
>
> Regards,
> Jeff
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 11:48 AM Rob H Warren <warren at muninn-project.org>
> wrote:
>
>> I want to thank Albin for taking care of the github organization, which
>> is a thankless job. Projects on github were no longer manageable and not
>> being able to track what was deployable and who-owned-what was hindering
>> operations. OHM is going through the same issues that OSM and other open
>> source projects have to deal with and this was necessary. Going forward,
>> pull requests are going to be required to specific repos for any
>> operational deploy.
>>
>> There are many critics of this gatekeeper approach[1]; balanced out by
>> the chaos that results when too many cooks spoil the broth. Vectored tiles
>> and the timeslider *will* be integrated into the main site and a clustered
>> tile service is on its way. Please realize that the devil is in the
>> details, there is technical debt and there are moving parts that are not
>> obvious.
>>
>> OHM is based on the OSM stack with all of its glitter and warts. Yes, it
>> has acknowledged problems. It was also designed by people with the
>> foresight to support third party applications and authentication. If you
>> think some great application is missing, go ahead and build it; no one will
>> stop you. But before you do, take the time to read through the relevant
>> standards and ask around: all of these standards have more than one gotcha!
>> It's your time that's wasted if it doesn't work and half-baked solutions
>> will not get deployed.
>>
>> It may be time for a code of conduct[2,3], through I'm not sure how to
>> formalize "We're not your employees" and "Be a decent human being". I've
>> hesitated to discuss this publicly so far, but my watershed moment was
>> earlier this year when OHM "followed me to work". Someone (who could be a
>> stand-in for "Pig-Pen" in the Peanuts comic) managed to get into a
>> corporate event to share their strong enthusiasm about OHM. It's still
>> unclear how a badge was issued but it did not reflect positively on anyone.
>>
>> Besides the routine administrivia, I've received demands/requests for
>> root access, password files and raw database dumps. DNS requests for
>> services that were meant to die. Sometimes the request is politely written,
>> sometimes not. The behaviour is best described by the quote: "The reason
>> it's so vicious is because it doesn't matter".  Also, we may have never
>> written this down because it should be earthquake obvious but: OHM has a
>> responsibility to its users and will not release its user data. Period. I
>> can't make it any clearer.
>>
>> Lastly, OHM is a community project with a decentralized structure that
>> caters to a wide audience. This includes the survivalist in his log cabin
>> on a 27th floor NYC condo,  the teenager in his parent's basement with an
>> unhealthy interest in the Sumer trade routes and other documenting
>> ...forgotten payphone locations? We don't judge, you are all welcome. Do
>> what you are passionate about, go your own way and do good work.
>>
>> All my best,
>> R
>> [1] https://blog.emacsen.net/blog/2018/02/16/osm-is-in-trouble/
>> [2]
>> https://nolanlawson.com/2017/03/05/what-it-feels-like-to-be-an-open-source-maintainer/
>> [3] https://lwn.net/Articles/759654/
>> _______________________________________________
>> Historic mailing list
>> Historic at openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/historic
>>
>
>
> --
> Jeff Meyer
> 206-676-2347
> osm: Open Historical Map (OHM)
> <http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Open_Historical_Map> / my OSM user
> page <http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/jeffmeyer>
> t: @OpenHistMap
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Historic mailing list
> Historic at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/historic
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/historic/attachments/20191101/ca711b6d/attachment-0001.html>