[Osmf-talk] clarification of the AoA amendment on board committees

[Michael Cheng]

Based on my experiences on the LWG before and after Simon's departure, it
does feel like the LWG has lost and is in the process of losing more and
more of its remit.

After years of painstaking work collecting community feedback through
numerous SotMs, BoFs and other stakeholders (mostly done by Simon, Kathleen
and others), the LWG put together this draft
<https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Draft_Attribution_Guideline> that was
basically discarded earlier this year. Rather than engaging the LWG and
asking us to fix it, a completely new draft was created and the LWG has
been told on a number of occasions that the Board will be voting imminently
on this new draft without LWG input. That seems to me like the definition
of losing the remit. If we are really saying the remit is still with the
LWG, then we would still be working off of that draft
<https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Draft_Attribution_Guideline> as the
source of truth and aiming to improve it to the point that it is ready for
board consideration. That draft bakes in years of community feedback, some
of which is now lost.

The pattern of unilaterally overruling or taking over WG operations does it
make it harder for us to work effectively, when at any time it feels like
someone could jump in and discard or reverse any progress you've made. Not
understanding the scope of a WG's remit also has a chilling effect on the
overall inclusiveness, trust and openness within WGs as folks will be
worried about broaching a topic that might intrude into an area of
responsibility that the Board may consider to be theirs.

At the end of the day, the WGs serve at the pleasure of the Board and if
this is the direction we're going in then I'm happy to commit to it. While
I agree with Simon's comments more generally, for me, losing the remit has
no effect at all on my personal willingness or motivation in participating
in the LWG. OSM's awe-inspiring mission has and continues to be incredibly
compelling and I'm grateful for the opportunity to participate, in whatever
capacity OSM needs.


On Thu, Dec 3, 2020 at 10:34 AM Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:

>
> Am 03.12.2020 um 16:31 schrieb Allan Mustard:
> >
> >> simply removing part of a WGs remit and not even bothering to tell
> >> them about it as the board did in January with the LWG
> > We're still working on that.  It was bad communication, not bad faith,
> > and the remit was not removed.
>
> For those that don't have the January board minutes in front .
>
> The board moved responsibility for a major part of licence enforcement
> from the LWG to a board member, it is true that change hasn't gone in to
> force yet because it is contingent on new attribution guidance being
> approved by the board. There was no prior nor post the decision
> communication of this to the LWG.
>
> Simon
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> osmf-talk mailing list
> osmf-talk at openstreetmap.org
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/osmf-talk
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/attachments/20201203/5530f3ec/attachment.htm>