[Osmf-talk] Funding of iD Development and Maintenance

[Tobias Knerr]

On 03.08.20 19:39, Christoph Hormann wrote:
> The main benefit of the volunteer do-ocracy model in OSM is not that it
> is so efficient to recruit and motivate qualified people to do
> important work fast.  It is that it seems to in the medium term perform
> at least some level of market self regulation.

I'm in full agreement that do-ocracy has major benefits for a volunteer
community. It ensures that the people with influence tend to be at least
a little bit competent (because they don't get influence without
producing results). It also makes it more likely that people who gain
influence intrinsically care about the project (because you acquire
influence by sacrificing your own time without direct reward). It
certainly offers additional incentives for contributors (I've certainly
done a lot of things for OSM because I wanted to see it done "right").

And yes, there are upsides to the model when it comes to identifying
strategically important work as well: When you're spending your own
limited time, you'll be reluctant to waste it on something pointless,
and there's something to be said for ensuring that decision-makers
aren't a separate, disconnected group from the people actually doing stuff.

It's not perfect, because people may pick what's fun, novel and
rewarding over what's important, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a
rather successful model. I hope that a do-ocracy spirit will remain a
key trait of OSM – it's part of our core values for a reason.

> But ultimately my question is:  What makes you think a resurrected EWG
> you are going to recruit is going to do any better?

I don't think EWG will necessarily do better at allocating resources
than a pure volunteer do-ocracy model would.

But it will have substantial extra resources available.

The reason for the board's steps towards paying some people for their
labour, at least from my point of view, isn't so much to improve
decision-making or set better priorities. It's to get the benefits of
paid work (in quantity, consistency and reliability) that are hard to
emulate with a pure volunteer model.

And once the OSMF makes use of paid work at all in order to achieve
these benefits, the direct comparison isn't with a volunteer model, but
with alternative suggestions on how to select and direct paid workers.
If you have any, please share your thoughts! The "EWG revival" idea is
still in its infancy at this point. So community input – including on
the hard questions you justifiably pointed out such as what counts as
"core" and on what basis to select people/projects – could be very
valuable in shaping it, or replacing it with a better idea entirely.

Tobias