[Osmf-talk] Funding of iD Development and Maintenance

[Andy Allan]

On Tue, 4 Aug 2020 at 09:42, Mateusz Konieczny via osmf-talk
<osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org> wrote:

> WMF basically failed, or at least it went poorly and situation continues to degrade.
> Has anybody tried to write a history of what went wrong?
>
> I would prefer to be certain that we are not following in their footsteps.

I think this is a key point. The road to a dysfunctional organisation
is paved with a series of decisions that all seemed reasonable at the
time.

I'm becoming concerned that OSMF is striding quickly without fully
reflecting on where it wants to go, and the risks involved. While I
support the individual steps currently being taken (with microgrants,
SRE, software funding, dispute panels) there's a risk that the whole
is not the sum of the parts. And I'm also not sure if we're seeing the
whole roadmap from the Board, since if new concepts continue to be
announced at the current pace, the OSMF will be unrecognisable by the
end of the year!

I'm not averse to change. But I am averse to OSMF taking organisational risks.

Because OSMF simply cannot fail. It holds rights on the database that
are not and cannot be available to any other organisation. It holds
the copyrights and domains. It holds the user accounts. If something
goes seriously wrong with OSMF, there is no way to recover, and no
other organisation can provide an alternative for these key concerns.
So it's imperative that OSMF continues to function. But the more that
OSMF adds to its remit, the more organisational risks are involved. So
while I'm not advocating a bare-minimum do-nothing OSMF, I'm also not
advocating a let's-try-everything-what-could-possibly-go-wrong
approach either.

I'd like at least for some reflections on the board as to what they
are doing to consider and mitigate the risks in these new ventures,
and what alternative structures (e.g. arms-length organisations, or an
'OSM-Development' local chapter) are being considered to insulate the
irreplaceable parts of OSMF from any risks. I would hate to find that
some unlikely-but-still-possible scenario in the future - whether
'organisational capture' by large funders, or an employee lawsuit
draining the reserves, or disillusioned volunteers departing - being
met with a reaction of 'Oh, we didn't think about that!'

Thanks,
Andy