[Osmf-talk] OPENSTREETMAP FOUNDATION - NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

[Nick Black]

I think the issue here is that we all want to have a balanced Board  
that represents the interests and wishes of the membership.  People  
will naturally be concerned when there are several people on the Board  
from one 'bloc'.  That blog could be a company, a country, or a  
viewpoint.  For example, a group of OSM-Foundation members could form  
a cartel.  Tom, Dick and Harry from three separate organizations with  
aligning interests could make an agreement to back each other on the  
Board to gain support for their particular cause.

In short, I think that the sentiment behind Richard W's post is well  
placed - he wants to ensure we have a balanced Board that represents  
the interests of the OSM community.  But the method for achieving this  
that he suggests is not appropriate.  Rather than impose restrictions  
on the democratic process, we should be working to strengthen it.

In 2009 - 2010 I want to see the Foundation significantly increase its  
membership.  With a more solid membership base, we won't have to worry  
about the Board membership not being representative of the goals of  
the OSM community.  That's why I want to get the Local Chapters that  
I've been working on set up and why I think the Foundation needs to  
address the small membership we have at the moment and build a more  
solid membership base.

Frederik - take this is my comment :-)

Frederik - why don't you want people with commercial interests in OSM  
to be represented on the Board?  Where would you draw the line?  As  
OSM becomes more and more usable, more and more organizations will  
start to use it.  When every council, local government, GIS  
consultancy, network operator and so on are using OSM, who will be  
left to stand on the Board?

--
Nick




On 29 Jul 2009, at 11:58, Richard Fairhurst wrote:

> 80n wrote:
>
>> We have recently begun discussing the possibility of implementing a
>> conflict of interest policy [1] which is perhaps the best way of
>> dealing with this and avoids the need to implement any arbitrary one-
>> company-one-delegate type rules.  Any board member with an
>> identified conflict can be excluded from discussion and decisions
>> relating to the subject.
>
> It would be good to have a draft of this policy available before the
> election, to help inform voting.
>
> Failing that, those candidates with a potential conflict of interest
> could describe the circumstances under which they would recuse
> themselves from discussions.
>
> cheers
> Richard
>
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--
Nick Black
twitter.com/nick_b
nick at blacksworld.net