Board/Minutes/2021-06-01

Board and Licensing Working Group discussion on draft attribution guidelines

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

Please note that this video chat is not open to observers.

Date and time: Tuesday 1st of June 2021, 17:00 UTC
Acronyms

Participants

Board members

• Allan Mustard (Chairing)
• Eugene Alvin Villar
• Guillaume Rischard (joined ~ 30' after start)
• Jean-Marc Liotier
• Mikel Maron
• Rory McCann
• Tobias Knerr

Officers and board, Biographies

Licensing Working Group members

• Kathleen Lu
• Dermot McNally
• Jim Vidano
• Michael Cheng (left ~ 30' after start)
• Tom Hummel

Licensing Working Group

Guests

Not open to observers.

Draft attribution guidelines

Agenda points for discussion, as supplied by the Licensing Working Group (LWG) Please note that the agenda points below refer to the current version of the draft attribution guidelines, which is neither of the 2 versions currently found on the OSM wiki (1, 2). The Attribution Guidelines as previously drafted were internally inconsistent, especially because much of it was written before the Board expressed its views as reflected in your response to the gap list. Before the Board expressed it's consensus we, LWG did not make special attempts to harmonize the document as a whole because there appeared to be disagreement among individual board members as to the direction of the document, and we expected that further discussion on the Board and guidance from outside counsel would provide clarity and avoid wasted effort. Thus, the particular phrasing in the draft now requires harmonization based on the Board's answers re the gap list. We've made a round to edits to try to address this, particularly: Framing introduction to be about what OSMF views is a safe harbor, rather than legal analysis "Safe harbor principles" is inconsistent "must" language. "Must" language indicates specific requirements, not principles. So much has been deleted from the "other info" section that the heading no longer matches in the content of the section. This section lays out the problem (together, attribution to multiple sources and non-attribution info can take up far more space than is available in a UI), but provides no solution or guidance, aside from a minor issue driven by trademark concerns. This section's heading should thus state that it concerns trademark instead of being misleading on the scope covered in it. Separately, LWG has identified an overarching issue to discuss. Per Kyle's* email, what leverage does OSMF actually have, and how does that impact OSMF's overall strategy for communications about adherence, enforcement, and who should be taking action (OSMF vs individual contributors)? * (lawyer contacted to provide legal advice on Open Database License)

Background

• 2018-11 The Licensing Working Group (LWG) starts working on a draft attribution guideline.
• 2019 LWG members solicited feedback from attendants of the State of the Map US conference and at the international State of the Map conference in Heidelberg.
• 2019-08 and 09. The August 2019 version became available to the community (osmf-talk message) and is added to the OSM wiki.
• 2020-02 The February 2020 LWG version became available to the community on the OSM wiki.
• 2020-06 The OSMF board
  • modified the draft and presented the updated version during the 2020-06 board meeting.
  • had a meeting with Corporate Member representatives on the Advisory Board on attribution.
• 2020-10 The board had meetings with Corporate Member representatives on the Advisory Board and with the LWG. The board version was subsequently modified.
• 2020-12 Board meeting decisions to:
  • Publish the current board draft after giving the Licensing Working Group (LWG) a heads up.
  • Ask LWG to summarise the points they still consider open from the comments on the board document and ask Dermot McNally (LWG member), who has no conflict of interest, to present that report at the next LWG meeting.
  • Rory McCann (Board) to work with external counsel to try to find the solutions to these issues that are most favourable to us.
• 2021-01 The LWG was working on the requested document ("gap list") summarising the points they still considered open on the board version of the attribution guidelines.
• 2021-02 The LWG sent the "gap list" document to the board.
• 2021-03 The board contacted Kyle Mitchell (Intellectual Property lawyer suggested by Allen Gunn, who has been the external facilitator of some of the past board face-to-face meetings) for external legal advice on the draft attribution guidelines. The initial email was approved by Dermot McNally (Licensing Working Group) and included the board draft of the attribution guidelines and a list of questions by the board and the LWG.
• 2021-04 Kyle Mitchell responded.
• 2021-05 The board forwards Kyle Mitchell's response to the LWG and answers regarding the "gap list" points. A meeting between board and LWG is currently being set-up.

LWG: Attribution guidance related minutes

• 2021: Jan Attribution guidelines, Feb Attribution guidelines gap list and board status update on outside counsel
• 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

Board attribution guideline related minutes

• 2021: Jan Attribution guidelines update, Feb 12 (mid month board chat), Apr 09 Kyle Mitchell's response regarding attribution guidelines and ODbL, Apr 16 Attribution guidelines (dedicated chat), [[Board/Minutes/2021-05#Draft_attribution_guidelines|May]
• 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.

Board attribution guideline related circular

• 2020-03-26 Circular 2021/Res11: Authorise Allan to send attribution guideline letter to Intellectual Property lawyer.

Other attribution guideline related minutes

• 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 Advisory Board Corporate Member representatives meeting

OSMF members' related discussions on the osmf-talk* mailing list:

• Attribution guideline status update: 2019 Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
• Attribution: board letter to Facebook: 2019 Oct, Nov

* osmf-talk is the mailing list for OpenStreetMap Foundation members (Join the Foundation). All past messages are available here.

Draft notes pending.

Decisions and next steps:

• by 5 June: Dermot McNally (Licensing Working Group - LWG) to make a clean copy of the draft attribution guidelines document and produce version 0.9, incorporating the changes discussed during this meeting.
• Dermot to circulate version 0.9 to LWG and board.
• by 11 June 14:00 UTC: Comments by LWG and board members to be shared with the board.
• 11 June: Board members to review version 0.9 and the comments during their mid-month chat.
• 25 June: If no obstacles, new version to be voted during the June public board meeting (Countdown).

Discussion ended ~ 42' after start.

Acronyms