Board/Minutes/2021-01

Date and time: Friday, 29 January 2021 14:00 UTC - Countdown

Location: Video room https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/ror-nt7-6tu
using BigBlueButton.

Acronyms

Participants

Board members

• Allan Mustard (Chairing)
• Eugene Alvin Villar
• Guillaume Rischard
• Mikel Maron
• Tobias Knerr
• Rory McCann

Not Present

• Jean-Marc Liotier

Officers and board
Biographies

Guests

• 29 guests.
  

Open to all OSMF members.

You are welcome to ask questions or to comment (via voice or on the chat) at the end of the meeting.

• Please mute your microphone when you join, and to preserve bandwidth, refrain from turning on your webcam.
• If you are in a low-bandwidth environment, you may benefit from using BigBlueButton's low-bandwidth settings.

Administrative

Previous minutes

• 2020-12-18 Accepted
• 2020-12-10 Accepted

Circular Resolutions

Board_Rules_of_Order#7._Circular_Resolutions

2021/Res01 Membership Working Group CiviCRM work budget ($5000-7000)

The Membership Working Group (MWG) has asked a contractor to do CiviCRM work, which includes coding and sign-up process workflow adaptations for automatic verification of usernames, validation of edits for active contribution memberships, and simplified sign-up to osmf-talk. Details below. The contractor is quoting us between $5000 and $7000, and says that work can be done before the end of April. Deadline set on the 12th because of the circular blackout. "It is actually good that we are starting the project now, and not before, because the latest release of CiviCRM includes some OAuth support <https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-core/blob/master/release-notes/5.32.0.md#civimail> for the first time. This will help with some of the features you requested. I will also probably need to contribute some code to CiviCRM to make the OAuth support more robust, but at least I will have something to build on, and other CiviCRM users will benefit from the work. We can divide your request into four categories, for the sake of initial planning: 1) Verify an applicant's OSM username. 2) Look up an applicant's contributions and activate their membership if they meet the criterion. 3) Revise the application flow to incorporate (1) and (2). 4) Other tasks (mailing list sign up etc). All of these involve custom development, and estimates for custom development are always a very rough guess, at best. I propose you budget 50 hours of my time to cover items 1-3. We can revisit item 4 later. Depending on the annual budget of OSMF, my hourly rate will be between $100 and $140, so 50 hours would cost between $5000 and $7000. If everything goes smoothly, I may finish much more quickly, so your cost could be much lower. The end of April works for me as a completion date. Again, if we run into minimal problems, the project could be done sooner."

Accepted on 2021-01-12 with 6 votes in favour: Tobias Knerr, Eugene Alvin Villar, Mikel Maron, Rory McCann, Allan Mustard, Guillaume Rischard. 1 not voted: Jean-Marc Liotier.

Circular by Guillaume Rischard.

2021/Res02 Pay Aspiration Tech (Gunner) $2,000 to facilitate Feb 2021 Screen to Screen meeting

This is the same amount as before. [I do not have the 2021 budget in front of me, so I don't know if it was already budgetted, but this way it's 100% clear].

Accepted on 2021-01-14 with 6 votes in favour: Tobias Knerr, Jean-Marc Liotier (If that includes preparation work, then OK), Allan Mustard, Eugene Alvin Villar, Mikel Maron, Rory McCann. 1 not voted: Guillaume Rischard.

Circular by Rory McCann.

2021/Res03 Approve active contributor membership application 2020082610000238

The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis.

Did not pass on 2021-01-18 with 5 votes against: Jean-Marc Liotier (Very active this month but very sparse before), Rory McCann (not enough evidence of sustained activity), Eugene Alvin Villar (I would encourage the mapper to continue mapping for several more days so as to meet the minimum 42 days), Mikel Maron (we should encourage them to map just a few more days to qualify), Allan Mustard 2 not voted: Guillaume Rischard, Tobias Knerr.

2021/Res04 Approve active contributor membership application 2020121110000034

The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis.

Accepted on 2021-01-18 with 4 votes in favour: Rory McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Mikel Maron, Allan Mustard 1 against: Jean-Marc Liotier (Insufficient activity). 2 not voted: Guillaume Rischard, Tobias Knerr.

2021/Res05 Approve active contributor membership application 2021010310000041

The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis.

Accepted on 2021-01-18 with 4 votes in favour: Jean-Marc Liotier (I'm a little biased as I have been in touch with [the applicant]* - he is a good guy), Eugene Alvin Villar, Mikel Maron, Allan Mustard 1 abstained: Rory McCann (I had voted no, since the claims weren't backed up. But if it's a renewal, they were clearly acceptable before. So I'm undecided.) 2 not voted: Guillaume Rischard, Tobias Knerr.

* removal of name

Previous action items

See Board/Action_Items.

Reportage

Updates on ongoing topics, not covered by the action items.

Forming fundraising committee

• Mikel has talked to Allen Gunn. Also talking to Janet Haven (Data & Society) and to people from HOT.
• Expects that to be a topic during the screen-to-screen board meeting.

If anyone wants to recommend people to speak to, please email mikel@osmfoundation.org

HOT trademark

Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) has "OpenStreetMap" in its name, which is trademarked by OSMF. The boards of HOT and the OSMF are drafting an agreement related to the use of the OSMF marks.

• Ongoing discussion based on document similar to the agreement between OSMF and Local Chapters.
• The board has emailed the Licensing Working Group (LWG), that provided feedback. The board needs to contact a lawyer.

Treasurer's report

• Funds for two positions (Site Reliability Engineer and iD developer) are being received.
• Pending funds: From some Local Chapters and Facebook (need to add a bank account).
• The treasurer has to contact the two volunteer auditors and wishes to establish ongoing audits.

Attribution guidelines update

The Licensing Working Group (LWG) had created a draft attribution guideline , which was subsequently modified by the board. After meetings of the board with Corporate Member representatives on attribution (Jun and Oct 2020) and with LWG members (Oct 2020), the board version was modified. December meeting decisions to: Publish the current document after giving the Licensing Working Group (LWG) a heads up tonight. Ask LWG to summarise the points they still consider open from the comments on that document and ask Dermot McNally (LWG member), who has no conflict of interest, to present that report at the next LWG meeting. (# Dermot has been asked and agreed to do it). Rory to work with external counsel to try to find the solutions to these issues that are most favourable to us. Attribution related meetings, excluding recurring board and LWG meetings 2020-12-04 Board and LWG meeting (Dermot McNally) on draft attribution guidelines - The meeting was set-up in short time. The LWG was invited but only Dermot McNally could participate in such short notice. 2020-10-15 Board and LWG meeting on draft attribution guidelines 2020-10-09 Board and AB Corporate Members representatives meeting 2020-10-02 Session Make progress on attribution guidelines and enforcement, during board screen-to-screen October meeting 2020-06-22 Board and AB Corporate Members representatives meeting Attribution related board minutes 2020: Jan Attribution and lack thereof, Apr Update on LWG's rewrite of attribution policy, May Status of Attribution policy, Status of Facebook attribution issue on mobile, Jun Status, Meeting with Corporate Members of the Advisory Board on attribution, Oct screen-to-screen discussion, update, Nov update 1, update 2, Dec update (informal board chat), update (public board meeting). 2019 Oct Attribution by Facebook. Attribution guidance related LWG minutes 2020: Jan (“Twitter attribution thread”), Feb, Mar, Apr, Jul, Aug, Oct, Nov 2019: Jan, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec 2018: Dec OSMF members related discussions: Attribution guideline status update: 2019 Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec Attribution: board letter to Facebook: 2019 Oct, Nov

Requested by Allan

The treasurer would like to share the current draft of attribution guidelines (with comments) in read-only mode, but not the original online document - help is welcome. (Post-meeting addition: a community member offered help during the meeting).

Current status

• A Licensing Working Group (LWG) member without a conflict of interest is making a list with open questions that will be sent to the external counsel.
• The board wanted feedback on the current document from independent counsel, to make sure it is within legal bounds.
• Allan has identified outside counsel, who specialices in intellectual property law and understands the IT industry and who might offer a discount.

Future

• Putting the LWG in contact with the external counsel.

OSM Poland Local Chapter application

Stowarzyszenie OpenStreetMap Polska has applied to be the Local Chapter for Poland.

Decision to move application to consultation in February. No objections.

OSMF Japan Local Chapter application

一般社団法人オープンストリートマップ・ファウンデーション・ ジャパン (OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan) had applied to be the Local Chapter for Japan. Due to a trademark issue the application did not proceed for a long time, but it is currently again active.

Decision to move application to consultation in February. No objections.

Freemap Slovakia Local Chapter application

Freemap Slovakia has applied to be the Local Chapter for Slovakia.

Consultations during December 2020: Local and membership consultations.

• Some people had concerns over membership processes.
• Secretary believes the application can proceed to vote.

Other points mentioned during discussion

• Suggestion to have signing ceremony during next public board meeting.
• Has feedback during consultation discussed with Freemap Slovakia?
  • They have replied on the mailing list.

Vote

Freemap Slovakia Local Chapter application accepted. No objections.

Investigate paid votes

During the 14th Annual General Meeting the OSMF membership instructed the Board "to investigate how susceptible OSMF members are to being forced, or coerced, to voting a certain way, and investigate how easy it is to purchase votes in the OSMF. Since the Board agrees that the OSMF should be a democratic society, controlled by its members voting in free and fair votes, the board shall investigate if a change should be made to the Articles of Association (AoA) to safeguard and protect that goal, and consider whether an AoA amendment should be proposed to the OSMF members within the next 12 months".

• Might be discussed during upcoming screen-to-screen board meeting.
• Related question during ongoing community survey.

Inventory of free and non-free tools by the FOSS policy special committee

The FOSS Policy Committee had been tasked to conduct an inventory of free and non-free tools and report to the board of directors. The committee will present their report.

• Report of free and non-free tools in the OSM Foundation created by the FOSS Policy Committee, presented by Felix Delattre.
• Raw data.

Comments after the presentation

• Suggestion by Eugene to ignore cases of non-FOSS tools which are used unavoidably, e.g. by the Communication Working Group (CWG).

Reply by Felix:

• It's not bad to have low numbers for CWG, as they represent the reality.
• CWG is using these non-FOSS tools first. Once it uses FOSS tools first, there can be a separate category.

Other points mentioned during discussion

• Ease of use of tools has to be considered. Assess whether Mastodon is as reliable as posting directly.
• CWG recently moved to Gitlab.
  • Moving to Gitlab is not the solution. Self-hosted Git would be preferable, for protection of data and inclusiveness, as some external services exclude people from certain countries.
• Suggestion by Rory to set-up a cross-poster between Mastodon and the official OSM Twitter account. The State of the Map organising committee has already done so (but cross-posts from Twitter to Mastodon). (Post-meeting addition: Related discussion on the osmf-talk mailing list)

Board priorities

• Email is one of the first things that the board wants the Site Reliability Engineer to do when he gets hired. Google drops emails.
• Obligation to provide services to the community and provide some degree of reliability.

Suggestion

• Self-hosting vs service: assess addition of task for Site Reliability Engineer / Engineering Working Group (EWG).
  • JOSM hosts its own Trac and has become a bottleneck.

Pending

• Board decision on future of subcommittee.

Question by Adam Hoyle (UK) [Guest] on the chat on whether OSMF be able to provide a self hosted Gitlab that Local Chapters can use.

> Too early to answer but probably in the future.

Post-meeting additions:

• Community discussion on the report (comments on the diary entry by Felix)
• Membership discussion on the osmf-talk mailing list: January thread and February thread (only [OSMF members can post on the list - subscribe. Messages are available to all here).

Report from LCCWG on “Call to Take Action and Confront Systemic Offensive Behaviour in the OSM Community"

On 9th of December 2020 a group of community members sent to the osmf-talk* mailing list a statement Calling People to Take Action and Confront Systemic Offensive Behavior in the OSM Community (.pdf on the wiki, Gdoc here) asking amongst others: people to support the statement, help co-write and translate it and OSMF to implement the suggested changes. The content of the statement was locked on December 16th and it includes the names of 310 community members and 47 organisations in support. The board has asked the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) to work with other parts of the community and come back in January with a suggested course of action. The LCCWG subcommittee which was formed for this task will present its report. Related discussions: Messages on the osmf-talk mailing list. December 10th board meeting: Question by Rebecca Firth (guest), as a representative of the group that has drafted the call to action. December 18th board meeting: comment by Nicolas and comment by Pierre Béland (guests). * osmf-talk is the mailing list for OSMF members (Join). All past messages are available here.

Report by Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) subcommittee, presented by Maggie Cawley.

• Subgroup, including 6 Local Chapters and Communities Working Group members and other people.
• 4 meetings.
• Geographic representation of participants: 10 Europe, 5 UK, 3 US, 2 Germany, 2 Switzerland, 1 Spain, 1 Mexico, 1 India, 1 Brazil.
• Telegram group.
• The team does not consider to be the moderation team but is committed to setting it up.
• Team members agree that this work is very important on the future of OSM communities.
• Envisioned involving communities in this work. Once the structures are in place, it's up to the communities to opt-in.

On code of conduct

• The discussion on whether we need a code of conduct will continue to persist, but it's not what the subcommittee was set up to facilitate.

On joining the subcommittee
Question by Rory McCann (board)
Are you calling for members and what is the process?

> Yes, just email the group if you agree with the scope of work.

Question by Mateusz Konieczny (guest)
"Please reachout to local@openstreetmap.org if you are interested in joining the subcommittee to support this work." - are you also interested in people with low level of activity (translating things into Polish in my case, maybe forwarding feedback from local community from people unable/unwilling/uncomfortable to speak English)?

> Absolutely.

On involving the local communities
Question by Guillaume Rischard (board)
The OSMF has in the past stayed well away from telling Local Chapters and local communities what to do and how to run things. How do you see that going?

> We don't intend this to be for anyone outside of osmf-talk or talk mailing list channels. > Once these structures are in place, it's up to the governance.

On involving the Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee (DISCo)
Question by Guillaume Rischard (board)

> Would hesitate to make that recommendation right now. The remit of DISCo is important but it's difficult to beat diversity with just a committee. The approach for improving diversity has to be multi-faceted.

Please also see the related questions at the guest section.

Software dispute resolution panel

Board's proposal for a software dispute resolution panel. 7 persons have been nominated by the Working Groups: Licensing Working Group: Minh Nguyen, Wille Marcel, and Michal Migurski. Data Working Group: David Morais Ferreira and Frederik Ramm. Membership Working Group: Ilya Zverev. Operations Working Group: Richard Fairhurst. 2020 board discussions Jul Digest provided by Allan Mustard Aug Comments on talk@ mailing list (thread) Board meeting topic The board emailed the Working Groups (WGs) to see whether any would be willing to take up that task. Sep The Data Working Group volunteered. Oct Creating software dispute resolution panel: who and how (screen-to-screen board meeting) Nov Next steps (board meeting topic) The board emails the Working Groups asking if they are interested to nominate people. Dec Update and next steps (board meeting topic)

Requested by Allan.

Suggestion for closed session later on to discuss the selection. Reason supplied: personnel matter.
No objection.

Closed session notes

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 of board communications with representatives on the Advisory Board. (single page displaying all the monthly updates that are linked below) 2020 Jan, Feb, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec 2019 Jan, Mar, Jun, Jul, Aug, Oct 2018 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Dec 2017 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May (F2F), Oct

Rory

Action item: Secretary to schedule Advisory Board (AB) meeting in February to see if they have any advice for the board.

Monthly Local Chapter presentation - OSM UK

About this section: New idea: Invite a LC to speak at each OSMF Board meeting.

Arranged by Rory.

OpenStreetMap UK is an OSMF Local Chapter since 2017.
Presentation* by Jez Nicholson.

* .pdf, 12 pages, file size: 560 KB

Comment from Allan that the board is interested in some of the ideas presented, such as joint fundraising.

Guest comments or questions

Comments on report of LCCWG subcommittee

Comment by Nicolas Chavent (guest).

Missing from the LCCWG report are positions of people who did not sign the call to action or were critical of it.

Other points mentioned by Nicolas

• Happy to see the produced work. Mixed feelings with the process the report came to be.
• We all strive for diversity and inclusiveness.
• No consensus in community on the way to resolve cultural clashes in OSM, manage discussions and approach communications. Heated conversations.
• Missed opportunity on the way we're going to shape communication and the board and OSMF are responding to the concerns (e.g. board decision during election time).

Comment by Rory that some of the diversity issues are going to be discussed during the board screen-to-screen meeting.

Comment by Declan B (guest).

"Regarding the LCCWG proposal. Why is the LCCWG not considering extending these moderation and etiquette guidelines to other (or all) highly-active communication channels outside of the mailing lists? OSM US on Slack and OSM World on Discord as examples. I feel it's imperative for members in those communities to align with moderation guidelines of the mailing lists."

> The mailing lists belong to the Foundation and fall under the remit of the board.
> It's up to the local communities and some groups already have their own Codes of Conduct (e.g. OSM US Slack).

Closed session

Software dispute resolution panel

Board's proposal for a software dispute resolution panel. 7 persons have been nominated by the Working Groups: Licensing Working Group: Minh Nguyen, Wille Marcel, and Michal Migurski. Data Working Group: David Morais Ferreira and Frederik Ramm. Membership Working Group: Ilya Zverev. Operations Working Group: Richard Fairhurst.

Requested by Allan.

Reason supplied for closed session: personnel matter.

Post-meeting additions:

The OSMF Board of Directors voted on Friday, January 29th, to appoint the following five nominees to the Software Dispute Resolution Panel:

• David Morais Ferreira (nominated by the Data Working Group (DWG))
• Minh Nguyen (nominated by the Licensing Working Group (LWG))
• Wille Marcel (nominated by the Licensing Working Group (LWG))
• Ilya Zverev (nominated by the Membership Working Group (MWG))
• Richard Fairhurst (nominated by the Operations Working Group (OWG)

Announcement: Board decision on initial composition of the Software Dispute Resolution Panel and osmf-talk thread.

Next open meeting

Friday 26th February 2021, at 14:00 UTC.

Open board meetings take place online once a month.
New recurring date and time: last Friday of the month, at 14:00 UTC.

See the Monthly Board meetings page to find out where board meetings are announced and for a subscription link to have future board meetings automatically added to your calendar.

Acronyms