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

[Michal Migurski]

> On Oct 27, 2020, at 2:57 AM, Andy Allan <gravitystorm at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.

Thanks for rolling with the animal metaphor, Andy. :) 

I’ll cut your mail here since it’s all available in the list archives, and respond briefly.

The metaphor of OSM as a garden tea party emphasizes the speculative, volunteer nature of the project in its Isle of Wight days. The map hasn’t been a garden party for some time now. It has been emerging as critical infrastructure for a variety of needs since the Haiti earthquake more than a decade ago.

Maybe a more apt metaphor is all the animals of the forest visiting the forest post office?

Like a postal service, it is in the nature of OSM for it to have the best coverage and widest service when there is just one. When the elephants make bigger demands with their larger parcels, the right response for a service is to accommodate them. Splitting the service for elephants and non-elephants eliminates its ability to maximize coverage, resulting in two smaller, less-good services vs. the original single service.

Also like a postal service, it is important for support to be fully socialized. When some animals (of any size) are rich in nuts and leaves, *tax them* to fund the thing for all the animals. Needs and means don’t necessarily coincide. There are poor elephants and rich rabbits. OSM is seeing good progress on this initiative in 2020 with board decision to fund a full-time senior SRE role via large donations. All of my organizational homes over the years have wanted to fund OSM, but could rarely figure out how to do it because the Foundation of recent years has been run like a garden party.

I am happy that Rory is getting legal advice for the contractual-vote proposal, albeit very late. It’s much easier to support something like this when it’s been checked against all the animal scenarios rather than just the story of rich elephants ruining a nice party.

-mike.

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