Board/Minutes/2019-02-20

Location: Channel "OSMF Board of Directors (Public)" on Mumble.
Date and time: Wednesday, 20th of February at 19:00 London time.
The day and time of the monthly, recurring board meetings will change again after February..

Participants

Board members

Kate Chapman
Tobias Knerr
Mikel Maron
Paul Norman
Frederik Ramm
Joost Schouppe

Biographies

Guests

15 guests

Open to all OSMF members.

Guests are welcome to speak at the end of the meeting on the topics that have been discussed. Please note that text messages sent on Mumble chat may not be seen by people who join using mobile apps.

Not Present

Heather Leson (Apologies)

Administrative

Previous minutes

Board/Minutes/2019-01-17 Accepted

Circular Resolutions

2019/Res01 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2018120510000318

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-01-19 with 4 votes in favour: Kate Chapman, Heather Leson, Mikel Maron, Joost Schouppe 1 abstained: Tobias Knerr 2 not voted: Frederik Ramm, Paul Norman

2019/Res02 Share MWG report with GL prior to release to members

Share the report on GlobalLogic with them before it is released to members.
Accepted 2019-01-25 with 3 votes in favour: Heather Leson, Kate Chapman, Mikel Maron 2 votes against: Paul Norman, Frederik Ramm 2 abstained: Tobias Knerr, Joost Schouppe

2019/Res03 Notify GL that there is a report coming out

If we don't share the report with GlobalLogic, we could notify them that it is coming out. If the previous circular passes, this one is moot.
Accepted 2019-01-25 with 5 votes in favour: Kate Chapman, Heather Leson, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr, Joost Schouppe 1 abstained: Paul Norman 1 not voted: Frederik Ramm

The board has notified GlobalLogic about the report on 2019-01-26.

2019/Res04 Release the GL report from the board rather than the MWG

The MWG suggested the Board release or endorse the GlobalLogic report rather than it coming from just the MWG.
Accepted 2019-01-25 with 4 votes in favour: Mikel Maron, Frederik Ramm, Tobias Knerr, Paul Norman 2 votes against: Heather Leson, Kate Chapman 1 not voted: Joost Schouppe

The report on GlobalLogic has been published by the Membership Working Group on 2019-01-26.

2019/Res05 Extend [Dorothea's] contract for 6 months

Proposal to extend the contract for 6 months, until 31st August, in unchanged form (see attachment to previous contract extension discussion for the full contract). We can still modify it before its expiry time if we decide on something at the F2F
Accepted 2019-01-25 with 7 votes in favour: Joost Schouppe, Kate Chapman, Heather Leson, Paul Norman, Tobias Knerr, Mikel Maron, Frederik Ramm

2019/Res06 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2018120510000327

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-01-28 with 4 votes in favour: Kate Chapman, Heather Leson, Frederik Ramm, Mikel Maron 2 against: Tobias Knerr, Paul Norman 1 abstained: Joost Schouppe

2019/Res07 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019012010000013

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-01-28 with 6 votes in favour: Paul Norman, Heather Leson, Tobias Knerr, Frederik Ramm, Kate Chapman, Mikel Maron 1 against: Joost Schouppe

2019/Res08 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019011410000052

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-01-28 with 2 votes in favour: Heather Leson, Kate Chapman 4 abstained: Joost Schouppe, Tobias Knerr, Paul Norman, Frederik Ramm 1 not voted: Mikel Maron

2019/Res09 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019011410000061

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-01-31 with 6 votes in favour: Mikel Maron, Joost Schouppe, Heather Leson, Paul Norman, Kate Chapman, Tobias Knerr 1 not voted: Frederik Ramm

2019/Res10 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019012310000099

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Rejected 2019-02-01 with 1 votes in favour: Kate Chapman 3 disagreed: Paul Norman, Joost Schouppe, Frederik Ramm 3 abstained: Tobias Knerr, Mikel Maron, Heather Leson

2019/Res11 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019012310000026

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-02-04 with 4 votes in favour: Joost Schouppe, Mikel Maron, Heather Leson, Kate Chapman 1 abstained: Tobias Knerr 2 not voted: Paul Norman, Frederik Ramm

2019/Res12 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019013010000094

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-02-07 with 6 votes in favour: Frederik Ramm, Kate Chapman, Paul Norman, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr, Heather Leson 1 not voted: Joost Schouppe

2019/Res13 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2018120710000118

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.
Accepted 2019-02-19 with 3 votes in favour: Tobias Knerr, Frederik Ramm, Kate Chapman 2 abstained: Mikel Maron, Joost Schouppe 2 not voted: Paul Norman, Heather Leson

Previous action items

The list is sortable and collapsible. New items or updates are in blue.

Name	Date	Action item and status
All	2018-03-15	to send a reminder about etiquette guidelines on osmf-talk, talk & facebook page.
All	2018-02-15	to clean-up the SotM draft policy document.
All	2017-11-16	to send an email to members, months in advance of the 2018 Annual General Meeting, encouraging them to discuss and perhaps propose their own resolutions.
Frederik	2018-12-20	to remind the GDPR tech. implementation call on mailing lists after the 7th of January.
Frederik	2018-09-20	to update Roland Olbricht, maintainer of the Overpass API (downstream data controller).
Frederik/Paul	2016-05-28	to prepare transparency document from transparency session.
Heather	2018-12-20	to draft email to start off discussion on the osmf-talk mailing list about developing guidance for our involvement in politics/activism. # Was Peter's. Assigned to Heather on 2018-12-20.
Heather	2018-06-21	to initiate discussion on the osmf-talk mailing list about refining the Local Chapter criteria. # Suggested period for discussion: two weeks. Was Martijn's. Assigned to Heather on 2018-12-20.
~~Kate~~	~~2019-01-17~~	~~Kate to ask Gunner if a F2F meeting in Canada in March would work for him.~~ # Done.
Kate	2018-12-20	to write to the Data Working Group to see if there's anything further the board can do to support them.
Kate	2018-02-15	to follow up with Grant about the technical workaround of having conference announcement banners on osm.org linked to landing pages on the website.
Kate	2018-01-18	to update the etiquette and add a reporting plan.
Mikel/Paul	2018-03-15	to look at the ten most active mailing lists and see if people listed as admins are active in the moderator role, what is in place, and how they manage the lists. # 2018-05-24 Mikel drafted email and both agreed on some modifications.
Mikel	2016-08-19	to send round bullet points on diversity policy proposal.
Paul	2018-04-19	to document the evaluation process of software and services used by the OSMF. Related to our FOSS policy.
Paul	2017-02-21	to separate the State of the Map (SotM) net profit discussion items and start the follow-up discussions.
Paul	2016-10-28	to create a page on the wiki, listing software products which are used by OSMF and are closed-source and/or are externally hosted. # Was Peter's

GlobalLogic

Background here

There was an offer from GlobalLogic to withdraw the memberships.
Joost has discussed legal issues with Steve Friedl and Guillaume Rischard from the Membership Working Group (MWG) and some board involvement might be necessary.
Frederik can do refunds in Paypal.

Voting

Motion to accept GlobalLogic's offer to withdraw the 100 OSMF memberships that signed up on 2018.11.15
Accepted with 6 votes in favour: Kate Chapman, Frederik Ramm, Joost Schouppe, Mikel Maron, Paul Norman, Tobias Knerr

Decision: Mechanics of removing memberships will be worked out with the MWG. The board can facilitate, if needed.

The Treasurer can do refund on Paypal.

Action item: Kate to follow up and co-ordinate with Heather about what to do.

Crimea decision

Timeline

2014 Statement by the DWG on edit conflicts in Crimea.

2018

Nov 14: DWG reviewed its past statement on Crimea and made the following resolution.
Nov 17: Board of Directors received a request to review the Nov 14 DWG decision.
Nov - Dec: DWG members and Board received messages criticising the Nov 14 DWG decision Some messages are addressed at individuals.
Dec 04+: The board decided that the DWG decision about Crimea is to be reversed and that the previous DWG resolution on Crimea is to remain in force. Board works on a draft statement. Initial draft from Martijn (previous Secretary).
- Paul, Frederik and Peter (DWG members)chose to abstain from that decision. This was not because of Conflict of Interest (CoI), as there's no CoI involved between OSMF duties on a Working Group and OSMF duties on the board, but because it removes one potential criticism from the process.
Dec 10: Secretary's brief statement on osmf-talk
Dec 15: Board elections. Martijn and Peter's terms on the board end. Tobias Knerr and Joost Schouppe are elected.
Dec 21 - Jan 07: Blackout for circulars and important board work.

2019

Jan 15: Background is provided to Tobias and Joost.
Jan 17: New draft statement is shared, based on the one Martijn (previous Secretary) had created.
Jan 17: Feedback on the new draft statement is asked from Frederik and Paul, who did not participate in the drafting of the statement up to that point.
Feb 07: Board response on Disputed Area Policy (Crimea request) (osmf-talk).

OSM-talk threads

Oct 21 DWG policy on Crimea.
Nov 20 OSMF silently sides with Russia?
Nov 22 OSMF makes a political decision where should be a technical solution?
Nov 27 Feature Proposal - RFC - Mapping disputed boundaries.
Dec 10 Board decision on Crimea complaint.
Dec 11 Ground truth for non-physical objects.
Dec 11 Candidate's views? Re: Board decision on Crimea complaint.

Membership discussions or questions

Dec, Jan, Feb Board decision on Crimea complaint
Dec 11 Candidate's views? Re: Board decision on Crimea complaint
Dec 20
- Rationale behind the Crimean board decision and the list of votes. (board meeting)
- Was the reversal of the DWG decision by the board through a circular resolution? (board meeting)
Feb 07 Board response on Disputed Area Policy (Crimea request) (osmf-talk).

Nothing further that needs discussing.
Comment about the lack of complaints.

Brexit

Background

The United Kingdom might exit the European Union without any kind of agreement in March. This would directly affect the way our licence works as we do assume that we have database rights in our data, and not having these recognized in the EU would be problematic. The Licensing Working Group has suggested a couple of potential ways around this, for example establishing a OSMF subsidiary in the EU to publish the data. We need to explore if such solutions could actually work, in particular work in the context of the Contributor Terms.

Related LWG minutes: 2018 Oct

Notes about the current status:

We cannot easily obtain charity status in the UK and many funding sources are only available to charities.
The UK doesn't have a form of incorporation that is well suited to a nonprofit like ours.
We currently have some servers outside of the UK.
Currency aspect - our official accounting is in GBP while most of our income is in EUR.

No-deal Brexit:
- GDPR issues (as personal data about EU citizens being processed in a non-EU state) and
- ODbL issue (when incorporated in a country that doesn't recognize "sui generis" database protection).

Points mentioned during discussion:

Wait to see what happens and then react, as any time invested now might be wasted and we don't have unlimited person-power.
The idea of relocation was on the table even before Brexit, but it is an extreme option.
LWG involvement is probably limited to licence and privacy data protection aspects.
Questions regarding personal data, publishing database rights, as well as some operational difficulties.

Suggestions:

Talk to other organisations that are in a similar position or already incorporated elsewhere.
Get legal counsel, as our position is not unique.
Keep this on the agenda.
Get back to the LWG and ask what they see as next steps.

2019 budget

Frederik has drafted a budget for 2019. The Working Groups were asked on October 2018 to estimate the amounts that they would probably require in 2019. Related: Treasurer's report for the 2018 Annual General meeting. Finances.
Lead: Frederik

If a Working Group has money assigned, they can spend it without having to ask the board for more.
Deviations from the budget are something the board can decide on, if a WG needs to spend money urgently.
Input on approximate spending was provided from LWG and CWG. Assumptions were made about other WGs' spending, based on past years.
Microgrants will be provided from the Pineapple donation, until it runs out. GBP 30,000 allocated for 2019.

Action item: Frederik to create a circular about accepting the proposed budget. Once accepted, the budget will be put up on the OSMF website.

Move etiquette guidelines to OSMF website

Approved version of etiquette guidelines: 2011-07 on OSM wiki. Recent non-minor change. Proposal to move sections 1, 2, 2.1, 2.1.1 (July 2011 version, including minor copy edits) to the OSMF website, and link to there from the OSM wiki page. Discussion about the administrative move and laying out any further steps that the board would like to look into. Past board discussions about etiquette: 2018 Dec (reviewing), Mar (communications), (AOB). osmf-talk threads related to etiquette (not CoC): 2018 Dec, Nov, 2017 Dec
Lead: Mikel

Historic view below provided by Mikel who was a member of the 2011 board, that agreed upon this version of the etiquette guidelines.

2010:

Page created on the OSM wiki.

2011:

Discussion initiated on the talk mailing list about introducing etiquette guidelines and moderation.
Board and management team asked the Strategic Working Group to take what was there as part of etiquette guidelines and add moderation process.
Publication on the wiki.
Board agreed with this version of the etiquette guidelines.
Comment about this being a solid decision that should be considered official OSMF guidance, even if that was not reflected on the minutes.

Discussion (some points have been reordered)

Different views expressed on:

Whether the version endorsed by the board in 2011 is official OSMF policy.
Whether the recent edit on the wiki can be reverted by the board.

Suggestions during discussion:

Make a copy of the version endorsed by the board in 2011 and add it to the OSMF website.
Page stays on the OSM wiki, revert the recent edit, add a note on top with context.
Page stays on the OSM wiki, add a note on top linking to the 2011 version.
If a note is to be added, to mention that it is preferable substantial edits to the page to be initially discussed at different communication channels (e.g. talk mailing list).
Send a friendly message to Martin, who made the change, ask to revert the change and put the idea for discussion in talk mailing list and only make the change if he finds people are in broad agreement.

Other points during discussion:

Some pages have made the move from the OSM wiki to the OSMF website. E.g. the licence and legal FAQ started life on the OSM wiki and after licence change a version was put on the OSMF website. Original still on wiki and can be edited, but has huge notice.
The OSM wiki has versions of documents like the licence FAQ in more languages than the OSMF website.

Agreement on:

The recent edit is not of huge importance.
Leave the etiquette on the OSM wiki and add a note linking to the version endorsed by the board in 2011.

Communication channels
Looking at our communication channels and how members have their voices heard in the Foundation was briefly mentioned as a topic to consider.
- Suggested: creation of a WG, survey.
This was not further discussed - independent topic.

Face to Face process

The board will have a face-to-face meeting in May. Related board discussion: 2019 Jan, 2018 Dec Related membership discussion: 2018 Dec
Lead: Mikel

The face-to-face meeting will take place in Brussels (18-19th of May) and will be facilitated by Allen Gunn (aka gunner).

Decisions:

Board members agree to arrive by Friday afternoon and to leave after 5 pm on Sunday.
People can start booking flights.

Venue requirements:

Whiteboard, flipcharts.
Separate spaces where we can work as two independent groups.
Gunner has list with requirements.

Venue suggestions:

Co-working places that Joost knows.
Airport hotel - dismissed as an option.

Action item: Kate to loop the board with Gunner.

Advisory Board - monthly update

The Advisory Board members are separate from the OSMF board of directors - individuals are either nominated by Corporate Members of the OSMF or invited directly by the OSMF board of directors. The OSMF Board of Directors will publicly minute, in the board meeting minutes, any communication sent to, or received from, the AB members. This monthly section is reserved for this purpose. Overview. AB related updates and board discussions: 2019 Jan 2018 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Dec 2017 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May (F2F), Oct

No updates.

Any other business

openstreetmap.eu domain

If the UK leaves the EU, the domain will be taken away from us a few months later.

The domain was moved to FOSSGIS, which is our German Local Chapter and we have an agreement with it.
OSMF has full control over content.

Guest comments or questions

Will the board create a circular regarding Spanish national mapping agency attribution on the copyright page?

Question by SantiagoCrespo.
Related to: On the copyright page and the national mapping agency of Spain.

Action item: Dorothea to file a circular. (Post meeting addition: this was taken up by Paul)

Comment about the mention of "hard stop" at one hour of the meeting

Background: Around 50 minutes into the meeting, the Chairperson mentioned that she had a hard stop in about 10 minutes.

Comment by Stereo that board members should be willing to spend the time it takes for the board meetings and that he found the term "hard stop" offensive.

> The Chairperson mentioned that she had another meeting and she did not mean that other board members should stop discussing.