[Osmf-talk] EVERYONE: PLEASE VOTE

Thu Aug 20 07:42:50 UTC 2009

Hi Peter (and Peter J ),

Thanks for the comments.  I'd like to clarify the events over the last few
weeks for people.  And explain why the bump this week in signups (which I
think has been from a wider group than CloudMade, but I don't have access to
the lists to know).

I have been encouraging everyone I know, who is interested in maps, to join
OSM and the OSMF.  This includes friends, co workers and suppliers.  Over
the last week or so a number of people have indicated to me that they could
not join because of either the lack of a credit card (in a couple cases) or
the inability to authorize a Ukrainian card in PayPal (in most cases).  I
told them they could register with my card if needed and that I'd do the
transaction for them.  I did the transaction in one go which is why the one
day bump.

I've asked the people to then follow up with Mike C to be sure the
membership records were correct (which I think most of them have done).  And
I reached out to Mike as well to clarify what was going on.

What these people do with their membership is up to them.  I have been
adament that each time I encourage people to sign up, I make it clear that
they are to vote exactly as they see fit.  I do not, in any way, direct
their vote, nor do I want to know how they vote.  What matters to me is
having a strong, healthy organization.  

I'd like to add that I completely agree with the comments about oversight
and questioning being  important and that a sign of a healthy community is
people caring about things like this - hence my desire for transparency.
And I take no offence at the questioning.  I've tried to do what I can to
strengthen OSM and OSMF and I'm happy to tell people about it.

I'd happily discuss this with anyone who wanted to reach out to me.

Best Regards,

Jim

Jim Brown - CTO CloudMade

mobile: +44 (0)7595 367 664

email:   jim at cloudmade.com

skype:  jamesbrown_uk

From: osmf-talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org
[mailto:osmf-talk-bounces at openstreetmap.org] On Behalf Of Peter Miller
Sent: 20 August 2009 07:45
To: Peter Batty
Cc: osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
Subject: Re: [Osmf-talk] EVERYONE: PLEASE VOTE

On 20 Aug 2009, at 06:14, Peter Batty wrote:

One other brief comment I would make about all this sudden alarm at the
prospect of Cloudmade having two board members is just to observe that this
has already been the case for the past year.

During this time the OSMF board seems to have functioned perfectly well as
far as I can see. I am unaware of any inappropriate behavior by the board
during this time to favor Cloudmade (and if anybody knows of any then they
should raise the specific concerns that they have). I agree with James that
it is really inappropriate to suddenly raise such a big fuss 24 hours before
the vote closes, when we have already been in the situation that is
supposedly such a concern for a year, without any apparent problems.

I reiterate that it is my opinion that Nick and Steve both have made and
will continue to make outstanding contributions as individuals to OSMF, and
that their company affiliation is incidental to the work they do in this
regard. I support both of them continuing as board members.

In fairness to Frederik the 'alarm' was the sudden joining of enough new
members who are employed by CM to theoretically change the outcome of the
election in a major way and I think that was justified. Frederik has access
to list of members because it was him, I understand, who got the list set up
in the first place and until then there was no place for members to discuss
issues of concern to them with other members. I find this list very useful.
I don't  believe that he has revealed any personal information so I don't
believe the Data Protection Act is a relevant issue to raise.

I agree that the issue about having more than one director from the same
company on the board is a separate one that was been discussed in the past
month on the list with a general view that disclosure was important but that
a codified limit was not practical or desirable. There is a live proposal
that we should limit board members from a single company to 40% but it is
not an 'alarming' issue that needs to be raised again at this late hour.

I appreciate Steve's comment that CM, Nick and him are in 'a very difficult
position and don't always make the right choices'. The OSMF is a very young
organisation that is having to find its feet very fast and is doing so by
bumping into issues along the way and resolving them in a typical messy
human way. What is good is that it is making huge progress.

Personally I think we will continue to need people to being watching for
issues from the outside and 'helping' the organisation grow up nice and
strong and healthy and that is exactly what seems to be happening and
something I support.

On this particular issue I do strongly advocate a system where membership of
the foundation can be earned by the 'sweat of the brow' (ie sustained
contribution to OSM over a period of time) rather than only with cash. I
believe this would dramatically increase the number of members (some of whom
might actually vote) and remove the current bias towards the west and
towards those with spare cash. I raised the question on the foundation list
last month [1] and there was a useful discussion about it but the view of a
board member was that it was not an issue that was getting attention.
Possibly in light of the above it should do. 

For the record, I renewed my lapsed membership last month and an additional
member of ITO's staff joined recently and will, I understand, be voting. As
a company policy I have provided no guidance to our staff on whether to
join, whether to vote or who to vote for. I have however put work into the
wiki and on the lists over the past month to ensure that the relevant
information about candidates is available to all members.

My personal view is that we have an excellent selection of candidates to
choose from and that any combination of 7 of them would make a great board.

Regards,

Peter

[1]
http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2009-August/000131.html

-- 
Peter Batty - President, Spatial Networking
W: +1 303 339 0957  M: +1 720 346 3954
Blog: http://geothought.blogspot.com
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