[Osmf-talk] Funding of iD Development and Maintenance

[Allan Mustard]

Dear Emilie, et al,

You wrote,

> /I consider it to be quite astounding that we can just say "Well, the
> others have succeeded or failed but it is not directly relevant to us
> cause we are unique". There is an element of truth in that but it is
> an oversimplification. /
Who said, "...it is not directly relevant to us cause we are unique"?  I
missed that.  My response to Mateusz was, "So far in my analysis OSM
appears to be unique, but I am continuing to search for analogs that may
present lessons learned.  This circumstance is why the Board is
proceeding deliberately, cautiously, and in full consultation with the
community."  If you are aware of such analogs, the Board is all
ears--please inform us.  One of the motivations for community
consultation is the desire for people with knowledge the Board lacks to
speak up and offer said knowledge.

You wrote,

> /I am definitely not opposed to getting staff and I think there is a
> need for the foundation to actually hire (like the accountant) for
> specific positions and/or specific missions. I am reluctant to start
> just hiring more staff because we want to be more "professional". What
> are the short term, medium term or even long term visions? How do we
> sustain the foundation as it stands? /
Being more "professional" is not the objective.  Stability, reliability,
and robustness of the technology platform that serves up both OSM data
and data entry services to mappers and data users are the objectives,
just to be clear on that.  I consider the current volunteer sysadmins,
software maintainers, and other non-mapper contributors to be quite
professional but in some cases overburdened.  As a member of the OWG,
you are certainly aware of that.

What do you think the short-, medium-, and long-term visions should be? 
The Board is currently mulling what the outer boundary should be of
growth and hiring.  We emphatically do not envision nor do we desire
becoming like Wikimedia, but that is a poor (a negative) objective--what
*does* the community want OSM to look like?  Does it want a stable,
reliable platform?  If so, what do we require to ensure that?  How much
is enough?  Do we want data entry tools that are attractive to mappers
and encourage newcomers to contribute data?  If so, how much money
should the Foundation raise to invest in those tools?  As I responded to
Mateusz, "We view unrestricted budget growth as a risk factor."  Where
is the threshold between achievement of robustness, stability,
reliability on the one hand and unnecessary bloat on the other?  We need
the community's perspective on that. 

> /I think we have to be careful on how we proceed not so much because
> we will have some staff but because it will have implications on the
> project./
That is precisely why the Board has submitted proposals for community
consultation.  From your point of view, what specific implications does
the proposal portend?  Please be explicit, particularly regarding
anything we missed in the proposed hiring framework.
https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Hiring_Framework&oldid=7348 
We need your input.

> /Comments like "We have enough money for 3 years" are not helpful. It
> is not sustainable especially as we are entering some shift in the
> economy and some corporation attitude WILL shift towards money donation./
There is no doubt that the global economy is entering a new phase and
speaking as an economist, I can tell you the new phase will be highly
unpredictable.  That said, who wants to bet against the notion that
demand for OSM's free services will grow rather than fall during an
economic downturn, simply because they are free?  Also, speaking as an
economist, many other organizations, both commercial and non-profit,
would love to have a three-year operational expense cushion.  It is a
massive luxury and one we intend to protect, which is why the proposals
for iD involve attracting new money.  The fallback position if all
initiatives fail is reversion to a 100% volunteer do-ocracy operating on
a shoestring budget.  We have done that before and can do it again if we
have to, and at the moment we have sufficient funds to do that for
years, so the risk to OSM of a fundraising failure is pretty minimal. 
On the other hand, by raising a relatively small amount of money we can
improve the platform's stability and reliability, continue to develop
some very useful software tools, and also place control of that software
development in the hands of the OSM community, not in the hands of one
or two private companies. 

cheers,
apm

On 8/5/2020 9:56 AM, Emilie Laffray wrote:
> Hello Andy,
>
> thank you for vocalizing a lot of what I have been thinking. You are
> extremely on point.
> It is presented as the way forward without too much context. 
>
> On a different point, parallels have been raised with other open
> source communities and dismissed with a general statement "There is
> nothing like OpenStreetMap". I consider it to be quite astounding that
> we can just say "Well, the others have succeeded or failed but it is
> not directly relevant to us cause we are unique". There is an element
> of truth in that but it is an oversimplification. 
>
> Fundraising and paying for staff are common elements of Open Source,
> whether you look at Wikimedia, The Linux Foundation or even Mozilla.
> They all did in their own way with pluses and minuses. It is not a
> secret that raising money for a charity or an organisation IS
> EXPENSIVE. Are we saying we won't need at some point someone dedicated
> to raise money? It looks like we are considering increasing the
> payroll of the foundation but we will need to pay for that at some
> point and raise more money. 
>
> I am definitely not opposed to getting staff and I think there is a
> need for the foundation to actually hire (like the accountant) for
> specific positions and/or specific missions. I am reluctant to start
> just hiring more staff because we want to be more "professional". What
> are the short term, medium term or even long term visions? How do we
> sustain the foundation as it stands? 
>
> I think we are ignoring as Andy pointed out the cultural shift and its
> implications. Comments like "We have enough money for 3 years" are not
> helpful. It is not sustainable especially as we are entering some
> shift in the economy and some corporation attitude WILL shift towards
> money donation.
>
> As I said before, I am definitely not opposed to paying people (during
> the short time I was part of the OSMF, I strongly believed in the
> micro grant and even pushed for the accountant bit). But I think we
> have to be careful on how we proceed not so much because we will have
> some staff but because it will have implications on the project. This
> is not a call for a status quo but this is a call to think what it
> will imply. 
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 8:56 AM Andy Allan <gravitystorm at gmail.com
> <mailto:gravitystorm at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Wed, 5 Aug 2020 at 14:17, Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org
>     <mailto:frederik at remote.org>> wrote:
>
>     > Perhaps the OSMF could concentrate on the "operative business" -
>     having
>     > members, collecting money, running servers, employing staff,
>     etc. - and
>     > there could be a nondescript charity somewhere that holds domain
>     names,
>     > trademarks, and database rights.
>     >
>     > Or the other way round, possibly you meant that by "arms-length
>     > organisations", that the OSMF becomes the nondescript charity
>     that only
>     > has a couple of trademarks and rights, and all the operative
>     business is
>     > run by the "OpenStreetMap Services Ltd." or whatever, which
>     would be the
>     > organisation that can fail without tearing down the project.
>
>     As I said in my first email, I'm not advocating a bare-minimum
>     do-nothing approach for the OSMF (nor achieving the same thing by
>     switching the bare minimum to another organisation). There's room for
>     OSMF to do plenty of things while balancing the risks.
>
>     But I haven't seen anything to suggest these risks are being balanced,
>     or even assessed. None of the proposals have even hinted that there
>     might be downsides, or alternative approaches, that the members should
>     consider. They've just been presented as an unequivocal good thing,
>     leaving many of the responses with "sounds good" and little more than
>     that.
>
>     Two small examples might illustrate my point:
>
>     1) The decision was made to make the SSRE job permanent from the
>     get-go, rather than other options such as a fixed-term contract. But
>     there's nothing to indicate that the Board have considered or
>     mitigated any risks, like around terminating the contract if we decide
>     that something different is required. Perhaps those risks were
>     discussed? But they haven't been shared.
>     2) The iD contract will be funded by "earmarked donations from
>     companies, chapters and organisations", which notably leaves out
>     individuals. It's a marked shift from our previous approach to
>     fundraising, and risks a disconnect between members and what the OSMF
>     spends money on, and also increases the risks of large-company
>     capture. We've spent many years working on the principle that we
>     should fundraise from individuals to ensure our ongoing independence.
>     Again, nothing showing consideration of these risks have been shared.
>     3) The board is going to appoint members of the new dispute resolution
>     committee. This is again a significant departure from what we normally
>     do in OSMF, where few (if any?) groups have ever been appointed like
>     this. Maybe it's a better way? I dont' have a strong opinion. But we
>     have nothing showing that the risks have been considered.
>
>     Thanks,
>     Andy
>
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