[Osmf-talk] Possible AoA Amendment #2: Your boss can't force you to vote a certain way

[Andy Allan]

On Sun, 25 Oct 2020 at 22:51, Mikel Maron <mikel.maron at gmail.com> wrote:

> >  So far we have one side saying we need to amend the AoA, and the other side (consisting, I note, of prominent employees of large corporations) saying that it's all fine, or it's too late, or we should have done it differently but let's run this coming election as-is. This doesn't fill me with confidence.
>
> That's not even accurate about the "sides". Nor about what I am saying, for one. This kind of suspicion is exactly the thing I'm worried about will gain steam with this hastily developed proposal. Sucks to see me and others painted this way.

I don't want to cast aspersions about your personal integrity, or
motivations, or anything like that. Same for Mike. I've known you both
for too long, and too well, for that. But when we ask people who have
chosen to work for large corporations about the risks and behaviour of
large corporations, then your viewpoints are, necessarily, coloured by
your own positive personal experiences. The analogy of asking fish
what they think about the water springs to mind.

When all the animals in the forest get together for their annual
garden tea party, the elephants are of course invited too. They are
all nice elephants, they are wise and they are kind and they all mean
well. But a small mistake, a stumble or some over-enthusiastic teenage
elephant can lead to disaster for the whole event. And the elephants
are all nice, and honourable, and think well of themselves, but of
course the other animals are aware of the risks of having the
elephants at the party.

In fact, this analogy starts to break down when you consider the
actual sizes of the organisations involved, compared to the size of
the OSMF. Instead of 'all the animals in the forest' and a few
elephants, please imagine a solidary rabbit holding a garden party
alone on the savannah, with a tiny little rabbit-sized teacup in one
paw and a tiny little rabbit sized scone with cream and jam in the
other. This is the OSMF.

In front of the rabbit is an elephant. It's a nice and kindly elephant
but it towers over the rabbit. And this elephant is just one of a row
of ten elephants standing side-by-side. Each of those ten elephants
has 9 elephants in a line behind it, making a square of 100 elephants.
And there are three of these squares, and another 32 elephants
bringing up the rear. This is the size of the Facebook herd. The
Microsoft herd is even bigger: it has 6 squares of a hundred
elephants, and 74 more elephants besides. The Apple herd has 8 of
these squares, and another 59 elephants besides.

Now in each of these three herds, very few elephants have even heard
about the rabbit, and even fewer have any interest in the rabbit's
tiny little garden party. They have much more important things to be
getting on with. But again, even if we assume that every elephant in
every herd is entirely wise, generous, and acts kindly towards the
rabbit, just one small mistake or stumble and there will be a squelch
and one distraught elephant will have a tiny little bit of strawberry
jam on its foot.

Like it or not, elephant herds trample around, and corporations do
too. And if we lie down on the ground with our chins on the grass
beside our rabbit, and look up from its perspective to see all those
elephants, and the other herds besides, we would forgive the rabbit
for being just a tad nervous about the scones, and a tad wary when the
elephants suggest delay.

Thanks,
Andy

[1] For this analogy, the rabbit is a European rabbit of 1.6kg, and
the elephants are 6000kg African elephants. Average sizes from
wikipedia.
The sizes of the three companies mentioned are based on their market
capitalisation: FB $810bn, MS $1645bn, A $1984bn. All are major
corporate sponsors of OSMF, conference speakers, have production
products using OSM data, or all three.
A comparable financial size for the OSMF is hard to determine, but I
have used $650k USD as the sum of cash on hand in the 2018 financial
report. However, the cost to gain 51% of members' votes is
approximately $14k USD, so if you prefer to use that figure, the
elephant herds are around 46x bigger than described above. Sticking
with the $650k USD value, we have a conversion of $1m USD to around
2.46kg