On Mon, 29 Mar 2010, Frederik Ramm wrote: > Maybe, but I am happy with OSMF keeping a low profile. Before the last > election to the OSMF board, lofty plans were circulated how to make OSMF into > a strong organisation with 10.000 members and hire full-time personnel for > fundraising and management. I opposed these ideas because I feel that such an > organisation would quickly turn into a self-feeding behemoth that is more at > home in the corporate world than in OSM.
My point is that the OSMF does `cash' from contributions such as GSoC while the local parties cannot participate in instead of the `strong' organisation. But I agree, be careful what to wish for. Though with many things in NL we have seen, even if there is money, nobody claims it... > If, on the other hand, there is nobody who wants to do the hard work of > finding sponsors, then why should OSMF - they're only people like you and me. > Ask them to do things that nobody in the project wants to do himself and you > are inevitably asking to set up an organisation that uses money to pay people > to do the jobs that nobody in the project wants to do. I disagree; it was already claimed that the OSMF members became more equal than other active contributors because they `voted'. So like you and me, maybe in our minds, in their minds it probably like Animal Farm. > Certainly a valid way of advancing the project, but in my eyes it carries the > danger of, little by little, taking the whole project out of the hands of > hobbyists. Before too long, we'll be a membership organisation where central > command runs the GPS vans and individual participation is reduced to paying a > membership fee and receiving a bi-monthly full-colour membership magazine. Will we call the magazine `Steve'? Stefan _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
