[Osmf-talk] Framework for the foundation's hiring practices

[Roland Olbricht]

Hi all,

I'm glad to hear that the board consults with the community.
As the power shall come from the community I would like to suggest the
following:

Let every job description be approved by the community, both by
discussion and voting (similar to or together with the board elections).
And require every employee to produce a report to the community of their
work once every quarter of the year or so. This ensures two things:
- the employees are effectively responsible to the community, not the
board, a working group or another entity. No group within OSM gets under
suspicion of sinister plans.
- we the community get first hand information on where volunteer work
apparently is lacking.

Make a distinction between short term contracting and long term
employment. For that purpose any position should be planned and funded
for at least three years. Tasks without that duration are then contract
working and not meant to be made permanent or awarded in sequence.
Again, this is intended to avoid a director's pet project to turn into a
permanent position defended by its then holder (without making it
impossible).

Good examples for permanent tasks are:

- administrative assistance (we clearly should have a budget for minimum
three years ahead for Dorothea)
- potentially system administration (I expect that Chef does most of
what we think is system administration, and that the OWG members rather
mostly deals with irregularities)

Good examples for short term contract work are:

Implementing things like vector tiles from Alan's list, if this is at
all a problem for the OSMF (and not a problem of third parties to agree
on standards). It is better when it is done and finished than when we
get a department on permanent construction work.

Some issues from the issue tracker may qualify as well.

 > * We need to define criteria for when we -can’t- wait for volunteers to
 > step up.

Emergencies do not last for three years or longer. Most bureaucries stem
from events where the response teams accidentially got permanent and now
draw attention to a problem of lesser importance because they are there.

Best regards,

Roland