[Osmf-talk] Awareness on Membership software (CiviCRM) issues under Membership WG and Board review

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 8/6/24 16:51, Christoph Hormann via osmf-talk wrote:
> And given the repeated occurrence of severe issues with the membership
> management of the OSMF it might worth considering that a proper
> operational management of the membership database and the membership
> application processing with systematic testing of any configuation
> changes before deployment might be advisable.

While this sounds like a reasonable request, I fear that it will lead to 
calls of replacing the free, open, and self-hosted CiviCRM with a 
closed-source, siloed, software-as-a-service thingie operated by a third 
party for money.

It would hitherto be the underpaid service staff of some IT company that 
controls who's eligible to vote in the OSMF. This would be an 
undesirable development in my opinion; I am more willing to accept the 
occasional glitch (or in your words, the occasional "severe issue") in a 
self-hosted thing that we control than handing control over so someone 
who is only accountable to their venture capitalists or shareholders.

In other words, be careful what you wish for.

I, for one, salute the OSMF for sticking with the free, open, and 
self-hosted solution instead of "just switching to something professional".

Had map users around the world, when encountering glitches with OSM, 
opted to "just switch to something professional", we wouldn't have a 
20th birthday to celebrate this week.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"