[Osmf-talk] Hostile takeover of the OpenStreetMap Foundation?

[Minh Nguyen]

Vào lúc 07:41 2022-11-23, Roland Olbricht đã viết:
> Board members are legally responsible (as opposed to trusted by) to the
> entire OSMF constituency. Two other things are the trust to make the
> best decisions versus the trust to abide laws and bylaws.
> OSM (without F) community members as well as OSMF members are free to
> trust or not trust whoever they want, and that is a good thing called
> freedom. As a person, I do trust all candidates that they act lawful. I
> did not trust all past candidates to always make the right decisions.

This is fair; we are all only human, after all. Thank you for clarifying 
your understanding that board members serve at-large. I had begun to 
wonder whether that was shared universally, but I’m glad it was just a 
misunderstanding. If we can blame a machine rather than a human for that 
misunderstanding, so much the better!

> It is the core reason why we need diversity, what Simon points about,
> and why it is difficult. If fact there are a ton of things (cultural,
> generational, technical environment, even internet connectivity,
> timezones, for conferences also health limitations, passport
> restrictions, or whatever). There are many US members of the OSM
> community who are e.g. both mappers and caregivers, and many member of
> the German community who are not caregivers, so the line here is not
> about nationality but about: "having a guaranteed eight hours for five
> days a week to do OSM work, because anything else is catered for" as
> opposed to "trying to divert the remaining spare time after the day job
> and other obligations to do some OSM work". Paying people for OSM
> activities is indeed a thing that mostly US based companies do, so it
> might be tempting to confuse the "tenured paid to contribute" versus
> "volunteering" line that is meant here with nationality things, which is
> not meant here.

The challenge of caregiving is incomparable. This is one of the reasons 
I’ve found it so difficult to get people to come out to a fortnightly 
local OSM meetup. But I want to emphasize, for those who are unaware, 
that not everyone employed by a U.S.-based company is paid to work on 
OSM as a mapper, developer, or in any other capacity. Though my 
U.S.-based employer happens to be involved in OSM editing, I and others 
contribute as hobbyists during whatever spare time we can find. I’ve 
lost count of how many times I’ve fallen asleep on the keyboard while 
mapping into the wee hours of the morning, often focusing on features 
that have no commercial value whatsoever. (If you’ve ever wondered why 
my some of my changeset comments are nonsensical, now you know.)

OSM is incredibly fortunate to benefit from the contributions and 
sacrifices of people who dedicate their time to the project, whether 
officially, unofficially, or in gray areas in between (for example, 
persuading colleagues to take OSM more seriously). I understand why 
there’s mistrust of American corporate culture, but we can’t take for 
granted the “professional level work on a volunteer basis” that already 
happens everywhere.

> You don't need to be caregiver to be a good board member. However, there
> might be despite best effort times where you will not get an answer from
> me for multiple days because the child comes first and sleep disasters
> exist. Caregivers understand why, others might be annoyed.
Understood. Sorry if it sounded like I was demanding a response by a 
particular time; that was not my intention at all. After all, the post 
went a month without getting noticed, so a few more days is no big deal.

-- 
Minh Nguyen <mxn at 1ec5.org>
Jabber: mxn at 1ec5.org; Blog: http://notes.1ec5.org/