[Osmf-talk] EVERYONE: PLEASE VOTE
Peter Miller
peter.miller at itoworld.com
Thu Aug 20 09:26:05 UTC 2009
On 20 Aug 2009, at 08:42, Jim Brown wrote:
> 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).
>
Thanks
> 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.
The problem about paying for membership from the Ukraine is like to be
repeated around the world. Is this not a reason to allowing people to
join OSM by way of the 'sweat of the brow' as per various recent
discussions? Ettienne gives the official board's position on the
matter which is that things are ok as they stand but says "If the
community feels this is something that ought to be revisited then we
should."[1]
Do we believe that the issue of no-monetary membership should be
addressed before the next AGM? Incidentally, the concept of
'established user' would also be useful when counteracting vandalism
without unreasonably restricting editing rights for new users (ie new
users can edit features and add new features, but they can't move
whole towns or revert other people's changes until they get
'established').
I have created a 'proposals' section on the Foundation wiki page and
also a proposal for such a membership scheme. Please take a look and
add any comments to the section.[2]
>
> 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.
Sounds good.
>
> 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.
It's curious that according to wordnik the word 'oversight' in English
can mean two completely opposite things (ie 'An unintentional omission
or mistake' or 'Watchful care or management; supervision') and the
following words can all be used in the same context:-
supervision
blunder
accountability
scrutiny
omission
guidance
enforcement
coordination
negligence
audit
mistake
leadership
I guess we want more of the leadership and guidance and scrutiny and
less of the mistake, blunder and omission ;)
[1] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2009-August/000136.html
[2] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation#Proposals
Regards,
Peter
>
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> osmf-talk mailing list
> osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20090820/af53ff9a/attachment.html>
More information about the osmf-talk
mailing list