Le 25/11/2015 13:10, Dave F. a écrit : > How do you perceive these "dangers" will manifest themselves? > > Dave F. >
Dear OpenStreetMap Community members, Let me first apologize for writing about topics that usually do not need to be considered by those who only care about improving this wonderful common good that is OpenStreetMap. Unfortunately, it has become necessary because there seems to be a potentially serious threat on what OpenStreetMap is and will be. Some might consider this issue to be more specifically appropriate for the OSMF-talk list, as those with a right to vote on the current election must be there. However, it is not of concern only to the registered members of the OSM Foundation, as it might end up impacting the whole of OSM. It also happens that I have stopped renewing my membership to the OSMF after an election where a candidate was excluded from the vote because his views on a controversial subject (related to license change) were strongly different from those of the majority of the previous Board. Note that Mr. Maron was already a member of this outgoing Board, that had a conception of basic democracy different from mine, according to which it should have been up to the voters not to vote for a candidate if they didn't agree with his views. So, anyway, I cannot write to that list. A recent exchange with some mappers not familiar with what goes on in HOT US Inc., as well as some of the emails I read on the osmf-talk web archive, have made me aware that it could be useful to summarize how I view it after being involved in many crisis activations since Haiti 2010 earthquake, before HOT US Inc. or the h...@openstreetmap.org mailing list even existed. This might also be seen as another attempt to answer Frederik's question on osmf-talk : “What should OSMF *not* learn from HOT?” (Even though I see now that Rod has answered that quite well). In short, it seems that HOT US Inc., besides its officially started purpose, and certainly because it views these secondary purposes as necessary to accomplish it, aims to collect money from donors willing to support the « humanitarian » use of OSM, and exercise control over the ways people contribute to these uses. Its reality in practice is thus in direct opposition to the « support – not control - OSM » motto of the OSMF. A lesson I remember from my high school philosophy teacher is that you shouldn't judge a foreign culture based on your values, but on its own. If I try to apply this guide to HOT US Inc., based on what I think I know of some US values, that some might even be tempted to consider universal, or at least broadly admired and shared, here is what I find : - Democracy : Voting members of HOT US are selected through a strict cooptation mechanism, with constraints sufficient to ensure that the initial members keep their dominating influence. This can also be observed in the result of the votes. Yet some leaders of HOT US sometimes present themselves as legitimate representatives of the broader community of OSM/HOT contributors, which is false by construction. - Free speech : As you probably know, this is protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Yet in several current cases, it appears that prominent and legally responsible members of HOT US Inc. consider that some provisions of the « HOT Code of Conduct » should prevail on this US constitutional right. You may also have noticed that I've been submitted to a priori moderation on the h...@openstreetmap.org mailing list, without notification, and without justification by at least an example of an inappropriate email, when I became aware of it and asked for a reason. So the most likely explanation is that Mr. Maron (who had silently setup this moderation) must have been afraid that I could ask questions about his conflicts of interest or the cronyism around him, as I had done on an internal list before. As he is also moderator of several of the most important OSM mailing lists, including this “talk” list, this example of abusing of his moderator role to protect his personal interest could be already in itself worrying to all those in the OSM community who think that the possibility to exchange views freely is necessary in a sound community, as now everyone would have to worry about exposing oneself to such a measure before writing to the lists. - Rejection of public lies : Several communications of HOT US Inc., both internal and external, are in contradiction with facts. They sometimes combine with the next item, ... - Prohibition of theft : … to take undeserved ownership and credit on things done by others (and in particular numerous voluntary mappers around the World – most of them in non-English speaking parts, or, for examples on more specific points, what was done with humanitarian drones, or some satellite imagery to support disaster mapping), and present them as if they were HOT US's, to justify asking for undue recognition or funding (including from the public). - Duty to assist : This value should of course be particularly important for a so-called « humanitarian » organization. Yet I have witnessed several cases where other considerations – such as a narrow view of pleasing potential donors maybe, took precedence over actions that would have been in the general interest of the affected populations, that HOT US Inc claims to help help. The most deeply worrying recent development is the policy to put aside very experienced activation coordinators, who have had a critical role in large scale activations, such as for Haiyan, Ebola or Nepal earthquake, and replace them with a self-nominated coordinator, without any previous experience of real activation coordination, as has been the case recently for the Afghanistan & Pakistan earthquake. We can thus expect that for the next large scale disaster that will hit, the OSM/HOT response will be far from what it could be, and thus less efficient in helping saving lives. All that because some apparently consider that their power to exercise control on activations should come as first priority, above any other consideration. It is also disturbing that some large « humanitarian » partner organizations apparently choose to ignore these issues. Maybe they are not sufficiently aware of the damage they cause to the real efficiency of their contributions. Or maybe it is a symptom that this is not what they really care about, in fact. As others have written before, it has been very disturbing to try to raise these issues with people in charge at HOT US Inc., who could apparently at first be considered honest and of good faith, and be confronted to a kind of deaf arrogance, always very certain of being right. If I take a step back, and if you allow me an broad analogy on a different scale, it reminds me of the march towards the 2003 Iraq invasion, where knowledgeable experts, millions of people demonstrating around the World, and in particular the leaders of my country, were telling the US leaders that they were wrong, and that the « weapons of mass destruction » pretext story was false. Yet they carried on, invaded Iraq, disbanded its army; and in 2014 Daech took Mosul. And a couple of weeks ago slaughtered 130 people in Paris. I don't know exactly where OSM will be in a few years if HOT US Inc., through his number of candidates, and Mapbox too through Mr. Maron, are allowed to extend their influence over the OSMF Board. If you remember the multiple Mapbox pressures on the OSM license, the « share alike » clause, necessary for OSM to resist in front of big businesses, might be gone. Strange things could happen on the copyright front, as was evoked in the osmf-talk thread. Or in the field of OSM based services. I don't know. But based on what we have seen on the « humanitarian » side, even though OSM had, and still has, such a broad and wonderful potential there, many unthinkable and not very nice things could happen. So, if you care about the future of OSM as a common good for the general interest, and if you have the right to do so, please vote wisely. Best wishes, Jean-Guilhem France (where, particularly since the Charlie Hebdo attack, we are somewhat reluctant to submit to pressures to restrict our freedom of expression).
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