[Strategic] Server hardware donation offer

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

Kai Krueger wrote:
> Perhaps it might be worth thinking about splitting and extending TWG 
> into a TWG-core and a TWG-auxiliary. 

[...]

> So imho TWG-auxiliary could play a valuable role in supporting the 
> OSM-eccosystem. It might need a bit of experimenting what the best way 
> is to organise things, but OSMF really should find a way how to 
> incorporate these kind of generous donations by companies and 
> individuals in the interest of OSM as a whole.

Bringing OSMF on board here has pros and cons. The only "pro" I can 
think of is that donating parties might feel better giving stuff to 
"official OSMF" than just handing the root password to the local OSM group.

The cons are (a) that OSMF would have to do at least some book keeping, 
(b) that at least theoretically OSMF would be able to dictate what runs 
on these servers, and with that power comes the responsibility to look 
after them (imagine the hypothetical claim that porn was distributed via 
some OSMF-TWG-auxiliary server somewhere!), and (c) that OSMF is 
becoming more bureaucratic by the minute (before long, TWG-auxiliary 
would have to fill out budget forms and write reports), so anything that 
works without OSMF involvement should indeed do so.

I agree that it would be good if people offering "auxiliary" services 
would talk a bit more to each other. But then again the people doing the 
best stuff are often idiosyncratic folks with some sort of communication 
deficiency and would rather just hack something on their own small 
server or at university or so than become part of a group...

On the whole, I don't think it is a good idea to add more and more 
services to the list of "OSMF operated services", auxiliary or not. 
Trying to bring together supply and demand is a good idea, but I don't 
see OSMF involvement as beneficial here - at least beyond setting up a 
mailing list or so!

Bye
Frederik

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