[Talk-de] Hello from England
SteveC
steve at asklater.com
Mi Jul 1 12:55:43 UTC 2009
On 30 Jun 2009, at 16:24, Rotbarsch wrote:
> Hi Steve, hallo zusammen!
>
> Zitat von SteveC <steve at asklater.com>:
>
>> One thing I noticed a lot everywhere though was some
>> misunderstandings
>> on what the foundation, the OSMF, are doing. It feels a little like
>> FUD[1].
>
> T> Eine Sache, die ich oft vorfanf, waren Missverständnisse über die
> Arbeit der T> Foundation. Es fühlte sich teilweise etwas an wie eine
> Schmutzkampagne.
>
> von einer Schmutzkampagne gegen die OSMF habe ich nichts mitbekommen.
> Das würde ja heißen, dass jemand bewusst und planmäßig die Foundation
> schlecht macht. Ich denke, dass schon Vorbehalte gegen die Foundation
> bestehen, die Du aber vielleicht ein Bißchen zerschlagen kannst, was
> Du ja auch vorhast.
>
> I did not recognize something like a FUD campaign against OSMF. That
> would mean that somone wants and plans to make the public opinion of
> the Foundation bad on purpose. I think there are reserves against the
> foundation, but it might come out that you make them less hard by this
> discussion, like you planed.
Oh I didn't mean to imply there was a 'campaign', only that FUD
naturally comes about when there is not enough communication.
> Ein Aspekt ist, dass Du drei Rollen in OSM besetzt. Nicht jede Deiner
> Rollen kann dieselben Ziele haben. Zunächst bist Du Gründer von OSM,
> was Dich zu soetwas wie ein Star für uns macht. Zweitens bist Du
> Leiter eines Unternehmens, dass viel Geld bekommen hat um noch mehr
> Geld damit zu verdienen, wobei OSM-Knowhow -Daten benutzt werden
> sollen. Dies macht Dich zu einer Person, auf die wir ein Auge werfen.
> Drittens bist Du Vostandsmitglied in der OSMF, einer Organisation, die
> für sich in Anspruch nimmt, für OSM als ganzes zu sprechen. In der
> letzten Rolle würden wir Dir als Gründer von OSM grundsätzlich
> vertrauen...
>
> One thing is, that you have three roles in OSM. Not each of your roles
> can have the same goals. First you are founder of OSM for which you
> are something like a star for us. Second you are leader of a company,
> which gets a lot of money to make more money using OSM knowledge and
> OSM data, which makes you a guy where we keep having an eye on. Third
> you are board-member of the OSMF, an organisation that claims to speak
> for OSM. In the last role we would usually trust you as you are the
> founder of OSM...
I understand there is FUD about my roles, and what I find interesting
is that there have never been specific claims made about anything I
might have done wrong based on the multiple roles. I'd like to say a
couple of things though on those roles.
The founder thing - it is getting strange when people ask to take my
picture :-)
The company - we pour a *lot* of resources in to OSM to help it grow.
We are the biggest sponsor of SOTM, we sponsored a lot of money for
the server. We pay people to work on API 0.6. We host events. We run
many mapping parties in the UK and the USA. We try to be as open and
community friendly as possible.
The OSMF - To suggest it is only I running things is very wrong. I am
on the board and I simply could not unilaterally make decisions.
Whenever something comes up where I may have a conflict of interest I
recuse myself, but this happens pretty rarely. The board has made
statements in the past of their confidence in me to not be evil. Also,
a lot of the work is not done by me, or the board. It is done by
working groups, each is very active with many people and I don't think
they feel I am a dictator or run things.
There have been a couple of things like it was better for the OSMF to
own the domains, so I gave them to the OSMF. The trademarks such as
they are, too.
The license is interesting, because if you think about it and I was
evil then I would join the people who like the public domain. Because
then it would be much easier for my company, and others, to do what
they liked with the data and kill OSM. Instead we have taken the
harder path because I think it is much better for the long term
survival and health of the project to have a reciprocal license.
> Ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob es jemanden geben könnte, der diese
> Rollen (speziell die zweite und dritte) sauber trennen könnte. Kannst
> Du es? Warum?
>
> I am not sure at all if it would be possible for anyone to sperate the
> roles (especially the second and third) tidy. Is it for you? Why?
Well many people have different roles. For example Eric Schmidt is on
the board of Apple and co-CEO of Google. At times he recuses himself,
say when Apple discusses the iPhone. I have done this, as I said,
before but it is rare because the issues do not come up. If you have a
specific thing you think I have done wrong, please tell me and I will
fix it.
> Verstehe bitte, dass wir uns unwohl fühlen, wenn jemand zu uns sagt:
> "Wenn Du die deutsche Sektion der OSMF werden möchtest, musst Du
> unterschreiben, dass Du alle URLs, alle Mailinglisten und alles was Du
> aufgebaut hast an die OSMF abgeben musst, wennn Du eines Tages
> beschließt, wieder getrennte Wege zu gehen." Das fände ich o.k., wenn
> OSMF für diese Infrastruktur bezahlt hätte. Aber in unserem Fall wäre
> das einfach inakzeptabel, denn es ist durchaus möglich, dass wir mal
> unterschiedliche Meinungen über OSM haben werden.
>
> Please understand that we feel uncomfortable if somebody says: "If you
> want to become german section of OSMF you have to sign, that when you
> decide to go different ways later again you have to give all URLs, all
> mailinglists and everything you build up to OSMF." This might be IMO
> o.k., if OSMF paid for those infrastructure. But in our case it seems
> in my eyes inacceptable, because it is possible, that we will have a
> different opinion about OSM in future.
Okay I'm trying to understand this paragraph. I think the first part
is clear about signing up to the OSMF. The second might need expansion
if I don't answer here:
I don't personally think you have to sign up to the OSMF, but I think
it would be a good thing. I am not knowledgeable about everything in
German culture so perhaps having a local organisation is seen as a bad
thing? I merely think some kind of organisation - official or not - is
good to make things happen and provide a bit of structure.
Usually I am more of an anarchist, and allow things to just work how
you like, but for things like organising a conference or license
change and so on... you need regular meetings and structure to make it
happen. The OSMF does the smallest amount possible to make that
happen. I personally think it is the OSMFs job to get out of the way
of our key initiative - mapping. Do as little as possible to
facilitate the things that it needs to. I really honestly don't think
the OSMF should be this big multi-national organisation which takes
over everything. Not at all. I do think though it would be great to
have more German involvement as it is simply where some things are
discussed and organised.
Let me tell another story - when I started OSM I approached Jimmy
Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, at a talk he gave. I talked about OSM
and wondered if I could work with or help the Wikimedia Foundation. He
said he could only help if we became a wikimedia project and that was
sort of the end of the conversation. I thought that was nuts, and here
we are today. So I don't think 'you can only map if you are a member
of OSMF' or the OSMF should come to Germany and tell you all how to do
things. I think that would be crazy!
I more think that each country or region will naturally start to make
a bit more of an organisation and it is good that we work together.
For example, if there is a German SOTM I would think you would like
our help as we have run three of them and have sponsors and a lot of
experience and so on. But if you think we're evil and want to do it
all yourselves - go ahead, but I think it's your loss.
> Mag sein, dass ich etwas falsch verstanden habe, aber die obigen
> beiden Punkte sind die wichtigsten, die mir in den Sinn kämen, wenn
> mich jemand fragen würde, ob irgendetwas an der OSMF verkehrt wäre.
> Danke, dass Du mir nun einmal die Möglichkeit gegeben hast, Dich
> direkt damit zu konfrontieren.
>
> I might be wrong with my understandings of what happened with OSMF,
> but those two points are the most inmportant for my which comes in my
> mind when I would be asked "Is there anything wrong with OSMF?" Thank
> you to give me now the chance to tell them you "directly".
Cool, keep it coming.
> Wegen der Lizenz: Ich denke, wenn Du nicht gerade Deine zweite Rolle
> innehättest, würde ich Dir mit jeder Lizenz, die Du vorschlägst
> vertrauen...
>
> About the license: I think if you would not have the second role I
> would just trust you with any license you would bring up...
Again - have a look at the minutes of the legal working group. It is
not just me, it is a committee of 3 board members, me, Henk and Mike,
a very active team member Grant and super helpful members Matt and
Ulf. Please email them personally and ask if I have been evil or if I
just run everything. It doesn't work like that. We are not even
responsible for the license - that is Open Knowledge Foundation. We
just channel community feedback to the OKF and run the implementation
plan with help from other lawyers chacking things for us. We don't
write the license itself.
Best
Steve
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