[OHM] Administrative changes to the OHM Github organization

[Richard Welty]

i don't think the path forward was properly explained. i may well
have misinterpreted what was sent out, but it sounded unwelcomming to
me and gave the impression that my code in Examples was likely to end
up unmaintained and dying; my withdrawal of the code was purely because
i worried about that, because unmaintained examples plague other open
source projects (notably OpenSSL which has horrid problems in this
regard.)

i'm not averse to reconsidering my decision, but i agree with Jeff's
concerns about how we got to where we are right now. i am not
abandoning OHM by any means, it's the only vehicle out there that
does what i need for the geo data part of ghost tracks.

richard

On 11/2/19 10:22 PM, Jeff Meyer wrote:
> Hi all -
> 
> Here is some background & questions with some details below:
> 
> I’ve been paying developers to work on OHM features for the last couple
> of years - timeslider, working search, refreshing site to current OSM,
> etc., with some new features coming soon, including: new inspector, new
> styles. The goal of this has been to deliver cool time-based mapping
> features to the community. They were also in line with documented OHM
> wish/need items.
> 
> We have not been able to deploy any of this software deployed, which I
> believe is driving the friction identified by Rob & Albin below.
> 
> I agree with some of the goals outlined by Rob & Albin:
> - Having code reviewed by community members before deployment
> - Having a repo branch that represents deployed production code
> - Need for a code of conduct
> - We should align our github repos with best practices
> 
> While I disagree with some of Rob & Albin's other actions/decisions, I’m
> also not sure the community fully understands their concerns. For
> example, I don’t believe there was discussion of these concerns in any
> public, group forum over the past year. Regardless of that, I want to
> see if we find a model that works so that everyone feels respected and
> valued. Right now, that’s clearly not the case. I’m also very sorry that
> it reached this breaking point.
> 
> Rob & Albin -
> 
> I sincerely hope that you will reconsider the recent pronouncements,
> restore the community access to github, and open a more interactive
> discussion about how to resolve your concerns. I’d suggest at least 2
> group meetings and a deadline to have a new model within a month, but
> would gladly engage in alternative community approaches.
> 
> Key question: I know you have the community’s best interests at heart,
> but do these decisions have the support of the community? How do you
> know? What if they don’t?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jeff
> 
> P.S. I recently came across a relevant quote:
> 
> “Open source projects hinge entirely on contributors. Without regular
> patches, the project dies. Or, as someone put it, rather ironically, in
> the email that drove me out of the project:
> ‘A protocol spec only dies when people refuse to work together on it.’ “
> - https://sealedabstract.com/rants/nanomsg-postmortem-and-other-stories/ 
> 
> DETAILS
> 
> A quick bit of background on my involvement with OHM: 
> 
>   *
> 
>     I’ve been intrigued with the concept of an any geo, any time based
>     map since 2004
>     <https://www.slideshare.net/gwhathistory/global-world-history-atlas-introduction-2004>
> 
>   *
> 
>     Around 2012, I came across the OSM community and the OSM stack and
>     talked with a bunch of people (Steve Coast, Ian Dees, Mikel Maron)
>     about using it for historical mapping. Turns out, it had been
>     discussed by a bunch of other people prior to that (Frankie Roberto,
>     Schuyler Erle, Tim Waters, Sanjay & others) 
> 
>   *
> 
>     In late 2012 and early 2013, I helped set up the original OHM
>     website along with Rob, Tim Waters, Sanjay, & others & hosted the
>     first Hangouts
> 
>   *
> 
>     From 2015-2017, I had to check out of the community for a few years
>     due to work, getting married, etc. I regret that absence deeply.
> 
>   *
> 
>     In early 2018, came back to my passion, OHM, and found that little
>     had changed in terms of features to the core website. The OHM
>     Tasking Manager <http://tasks.openhistoricalmap.org/>was up (Thanks,
>     Bert) & that was and is awesome. The site itself was still up in
>     spite of a scary outage and hosting transfer (Thanks to Rob!). But,
>     it was lacking new features and the site were out of sync with
>     mainline OSM. Unsatisfied with the pace of OHM feature dev over the
>     past 5 years and not seeing any motion for that to change, out of my
>     own pocket, I hired a nonprofit dev firm
>     <https://www.greeninfo.org/>with ties to Stamen
>     <https://stamen.com/>and OSM board members. I asked them to start
>     working on desired features already identified within the community.
>     Later, we added members of Development Seed
>     <https://www.developmentseed.org/>, another firm with very close
>     ties to the OSM community and also the original OHM sysadmin,
>     Sanjay. I viewed all of these people as legitimate 1st-class members
>     of the OHM community and with OHM’s goals and best interests at
>     heart. All of the work performed has been designated open source and
>     as close to license free as possible. No one involved in this effort
>     has any commercial interest in the work being done. We all just want
>     to get features added to OHM and to see it thrive. I have not wanted
>     to identify myself as the source of the funding of these efforts on
>     this list, as I have thought it wasn’t important, don’t want any
>     credit, and don’t want this to be viewed as 1 person’s project. It’s
>     not. It’s a community effort.
> 
>   *
> 
>     They have built the time slider you’ve seen on our prototype site,
>     made search work, and are working on a new inspector and map style.
>     We are currently trying to get this software deployed, which is
>     driving some of the friction identified in Albin & Rob’s mail.
> 
>   *
> 
>     I’ve also worked to make the OHM community more active and have been
>     hosting frequent meetings, postings to the aliases, attendance at
>     conferences, and outreach to other groups, which I’ve tried to share
>     with the community.
> 
>   *
> 
>     My ultimate goals have been to:
> 
>       o
> 
>         Get the OHM feature-rich enough to be a more appealing platform
>         a wider user base
> 
>       o
> 
>         Make OHM a more appealing part of grant proposals
> 
>       o
> 
>         Essentially to make OHM a little closer to its stated vision of
>         a rich environment for historical mapping
> 
> 
> I would suggest we use HOT OSM as a good comparable and example of how
> to encourage participation across a community and to create a rich
> environment for application development. https://github.com/hotosm
> 
> 
> I’d also suggest we look at some basic best practices for github
> organization management,
> https://github.com/todogroup/guides/blob/master/participating-in-open-source.md
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Nov 1, 2019 at 1:40 PM Albin Larsson <albin.post at gmail.com
> <mailto:albin.post at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     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
>     <mailto: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,


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