[Osmf-talk] AoA Discussion

[Steve Coast]

On 7/19/2011 2:16 AM, Tom Chance wrote:
> On 18 July 2011 22:21, Chris Fleming <me at chrisfleming.org 
> <mailto:me at chrisfleming.org>> wrote:
>
>     Does anyone think that corporate members should get a vote?
>
>
> No, as others have said I think there is a role for companies to sit 
> on an advisory board, and their employees are free to join as ordinary 
> members.
>
> I also think a basic principle of our Articles should be one member, 
> one vote. It is wrong to start introducing rules that weight votes in 
> favour of people such as myself who have been involved for many years, 
> have many nodes, etc.
>
>     Finally is the fee putting people off joining, £15 a year is a lot
>     of money to some people. When OSMF was setup the option of joining
>     by sending a postcard to the foundation was offered, but to my
>     knowledge it was never taken up. But perhaps this is a impediment
>     to joining and if so the foundation may want to be more flexible
>     on the fee?
>
>
> You could introduce a tapered membership fee based on voluntary 
> declaration of earnings, which I have seen used in a number of 
> organisations. For example:
>
> unwaged: £1/year
> up to £20k/year: £5/year
> up to £35k/year: £10/year
> above £35k/year: £15/year

I think the income thing is unnecessary and the prices you quote are far 
too small.

Just have graduated membership and allow people to self-select a-la 
http://blog.stevecoast.com/how-i-ran-a-successful-unconference-in-6-hour

So, the fees would go 1, 10, 100, 1000 or something like that. Just a 
suggestion.

Steve

>
> But I would guess that there is a more fundamental reason why OSM 
> contributors don't necessarily join the OSMF, and that is the OSMF's 
> actual role.
>
> Let's say I'm an OSM contributor and I read the "About" page on the 
> OSMF web site. Why bother paying to join an organisation that, 
> according to its web site, just keeps servers ticking over and 
> organises an annual conference?
>
> Under the proposed ODbL structure, the OSMF takes on a more formal 
> controlling role over licensing.
>
> The Board and Working Groups clearly have a controlling influence over 
> the way our systems are run, not least because many of the key 
> developers and sysadmins sit on those bodies.
>
> It is not clear from the Memorandum of Association and the Articles of 
> Association whether an AGM could for example vote to overrule a 
> decision of a sysadmin or developer, thereby taking a more controlling 
> influence over the project.
>
> The relationship between the OSMF and the OSM project is far more 
> ambiguous and problematic than the OSMF "About" web page suggests. 
> Clarifying that might help OSM contributors who are more concerned 
> with tagging disputes and the next API revision to decide whether the 
> OSMF is relevant to them.
>
> Regards,
> Tom Chance
> -- 
> http://tom.acrewoods.net http://twitter.com/tom_chance
>
>
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