[OSM-talk] [osmf-talk] Membership applications from Skobbler employees

Nic Roets nroets at gmail.com
Wed Aug 24 11:45:49 BST 2011


On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Richard Fairhurst
<richard at systemed.net> wrote:
> Oliver Kuhn, Chief Commercial Officer of Skobbler, is of course already on
> the OSMF board and has posted that he personally believes OSM should
> concentrate on the needs of "data consumers" like his
> (http://www.abalakov.com/openstreetmap-map-data-who-cares), steering
> contributors towards projects such as addressing
> (http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2010-July/051511.html), and
> that it could consider weakening the share-alike clause
> (http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/legal-talk/2010-June/003398.html).
>
> Again, there's no suggestion that Oliver has been using his OSMF position
> to push these aims, and I'm sure he wouldn't.

Well, if you are sure that he does not want push any of his issues,
you also need to consider the possibility that he wants to maintain
the status quo, i.e. block other members from pushing their issues.

Regardless of his intentions, I certainly don't see the typical
Skobbler employee as representative of the community. (Have they
opensourced any significant piece of software ?) I've collected a lot
of street addresses during the last year, but every time OSMF becomes
less representative, my motivation drops.

And the suggestions from Henk and Frederik will not solve the problem
of representation: Henk wants a 30 day waiting period before members
can vote. Frederik wants to ban the practice of sponsoring membership
fees.

As Milo said, others like wikimedia have tackled these problems.



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