[Osmf-talk] Chairman

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Tom Hughes wrote:
> Well all I got back when we asked was that the foundation didn't feel it 
> was something that they wanted to get involved in... Maybe that was a 
> communication failure but that was what got reported to me.

I think generally it is good if the foundation does not want to get 
involved. (Imagine the other extreme - how long could you stand being 
micro-managed by some non-technical person with an OSMF director hat on?)

Anything where the foundation gets involved will have a tendency to 
permanently stick to the foundation and cause a bloat of scope - e.g. if 
it was always the people operating the servers who decided when to shut 
the server down for maintenance, but now the OSMF comes along and tells 
you when, then the next time maintencance comes up you'll go "hold on, I 
better ask the foundation if that's ok with them". Then the directors go 
"well what do we know... let's discuss next week", and you complain, and 
Nick then says "see, that's an excellent reason we need paid staff".

I agree that sometimes you might need someone to take the blame. But 
whenever you approach the OSMF with something like that, be aware that 
you're creating a precedent, and that you ultimately help create a 
foundation that collects money to pay staff who then manage you ;-)

The way it has been solved now seems ideal - maybe we should consider 
ourselves lucky that OSMF didn't want to get involved this time?

Bye
Frederik