Board/Minutes/2021-08

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Participants

Board members

  • Allan Mustard (Chairing)
  • Amanda McCann (until ~45' after start)
  • Eugene Alvin Villar
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Jean-Marc Liotier
  • Mikel Maron (until ~60' after start)
  • Tobias Knerr

Officers and board
Biographies

Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi

Not Present

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.

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Administrative

Previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

2021/Res25 OSMF takes over funding for the en.osm.town Mastodon instance/server

The OSMF will pay for future costs of running the en.osm.town* from now on, which is budgeted to cost €162 per year, (€42.65 per year for osm.town domain name from Gandi.net, and €10 per month for Mastodon hosting from Masto.host). But that may change if the price of .town domain names changes, or the price of the Masto.host plan changes.

The OSMF will also reimburse Amanda for paying for running it for the last 2 years (which is €415.48)

The existing successful administration & moderation of the instance will continue as is.

Not accepted on 2021-08-07 with 3 abstained:
* Amanda McCann (Since I would financially benefit if this passed, I have a conflict of interest, and must abstain. I think this would be a good move for OSM to support open tools like this.)
* Tobias Knerr (I agree with covering the costs from now on, but I do have some reservations about the proposed retroactive reimbursement).
* Jean-Marc Liotier (I would rather defer to the CWG (Communications Working Group). If they believe that a Mastodon instance is important to the OSMF's communication strategy, then I'll follow along. Then there is the role the OSMF could have in promoting decentralized channels - a discussion similar to Matrix/IRC/lists vs. Facebook/Whatsapp groups... So, while I like to push for tools coherent with the ethos of free software, I think that the main issue here is the OSMF's communication strategy and therefore the remit of the CWG).
3 not voted: Allan Mustard, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard.
1 against: Mikel Maron (This service has not yet demonstrated value. Reimbursing past funds paid out freely is highly unusual. Also Amanda must abstain from this vote. I also think it’s not appropriate for someone to put forward a vote on something in their own material interest).

Circular by Amanda McCann.

* The en.osm.town mastodon server was set up, is run and moderated by Amanda McCann.

2021/Res26 People can sign up for associate membership of the OSMF using a pseudonym

This poll is to allow people to sign up to associate membership (e.g. via the OSMF's Active Contributor Membership) using just a pseudonym.

Not accepted on 2021-08-07 with 6 votes against: Allan Mustard, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Tobias Knerr, Jean-Marc Liotier (While I understand the need for people to live under the name of their choice, I fear that the OSMF would, even more than usual, be accused of becoming a secret society. I think the OSMF must operate transparently, so I believe we better leave the question of identity to each person's legal system), Mikel Maron (I’m not sure why we’re having a vote. We’ve hardly discussed this. Nevertheless I don’t think it’s a good idea for people to sign up with no idea who they actually are).
1 abstained: Amanda McCann (I suggested this because someone asked me about it, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not).

Circular by Amanda McCann.

2021/Res27 Approve active contributor membership application 2021073010000211

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

Accepted on 2021-08-07 with 5 votes in favour: Mikel Maron, Eugene Alvin Villar, Tobias Knerr, Guillaume Rischard, Amanda McCann (I would prefer if they had provided links to the claims made).
2 not voted: Allan Mustard, Jean-Marc Liotier.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2021/Res28 Approve active contributor membership application 2021073010000186

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

Accepted on 2021-08-09 with 3 votes in favour: Allan Mustard, Mikel Maron, Eugene Alvin Villar (As this is a renewal, I will approve the application even if there is little mapping activity. This is mitigated by other OSM-related activities).
2 abstained: Tobias Knerr (Little evidence that the additional activities make up for the drop in mapping activity, but I would be willing to renew for 1 year and see if activity picks back up by then (perhaps after the worst impact of the pandemic is over)), Amanda McCann (Very little (no?) evidence of activity in OSM in the last year. Mapillary link is a dead link/blank page).
2 not voted: Jean-Marc Liotier, Guillaume Rischard.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2021/Res29 OSMF takes over funding for the en.osm.town Mastodon instance/server

The OSMF will pay for future costs of running the en.osm.town* mastodon server/instance from now on, which is budgeted to cost €162 per year, (€42.65 per year for osm.town domain name from Gandi.net, and €10 per month for Mastodon hosting from Masto.host). But that may change if the price of .town domain names changes, or the price of the Masto.host plan changes.

The Communication Working Group, and the FOSS Policy Special Committee both recommend the OSMF fund this.

The OSMF will not pay any old costs for running this server. The existing successful administration & moderation of the instance will continue as is.

Accepted on 2021-08-16 with 3 votes in favour:
* Tobias Knerr (This can be a small building block in our commitment to open communication channels as it allows cross-posting our microblogging content to an open platform.)
* Eugene Alvin Villar (This idea was one of the recommendations of the FOSS Policy Special Committee, approved by current users in a poll, and further endorsed by the Communication Working Group (CWG) when asked for their opinion. The expected costs is pretty affordable. I don't find the reasons to reject this very compelling.)
* Jean-Marc Liotier (The Communication Working Group wants it, I like the idea of a presence on independent media.)
 2 abstained:
* Amanda McCann (Since it's possible I have a conflict of interest on this topic, I shall err on the side of caution, and I abstain. I recommend a Yes vote.)
* Mikel Maron (I would agree to this, if 1) this was set up to trial for 1 year rather than open ended 2) there was a clear way to measure whether the support is successful.)
2 not voted: Allan Mustard, Guillaume Rischard.

Circular by Amanda McCann.

* The en.osm.town mastodon server was set up and is run and moderated in the last two years by Amanda McCann.

Previous related circular (not approved): Res 2021/25 "OSMF takes over funding for the en.osm.town Mastodon instance/server".

2021/Res30 Approve active contributor membership application 2021080710000174

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

Not passed on 2021-08-18 (not enough participants) with 2 votes against:
* Eugene Alvin Villar (Mapper is very new and has not sufficiently established sizable contributions on or off the map. I would suggest they try getting the automatic membership after mapping for 42 days.)
* Amanda McCann (They have not “demonstrate[d] that they have consistently made sizeable contributions to OpenStreetMap”. They appear to be new to OSM, I suggest they try again at a later date.)
1 vote in favour: Mikel Maron
4 not voted: Allan Mustard, Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier, Tobias Knerr.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

Note: The circular has not passed and might be raised as an agenda item at the board meeting for discussion and vote ($7.5 of Board rules of Order - link to Board rules of order at time of result).

Action item updates

See Board/Action_Items.

Reportage

HOT trademark grant

The Licensing Working Group (LWG) are not sure what the board wants to achieve for OSMF with the agreement.

Suggestion: Set up a meeting of the board with the LWG.

Action item: The Secretary to set up a meeting of the board with the LWG.

Hiring a Senior Site Reliability Engineer (SSRE)

  • Guillaume has looked at the job description together with the person selected for the SSRE position.
  • Job description to be sent to TimelessTime.
  • The person has to give one month's notice to their current employer.

Hiring an iD developer

Bacground here

  • Initial thought was to create a contract by adapting Quincy Morgan's contract, but it seemed too American.
  • Will create it by adapting Dorothea's contract.

On Guillaume's action item list

Board members asked to look at Guillaume's action items and take-up any they can.

Guillaume is happy to hand these tasks:

  • to ask our pro-bono lawyer for recommendations of people specialising in mergers and acquisitions.
  • (with Amanda) to work on writing the goals of a "supporting" membership to send to OSMF pro-bono lawyer for feedback.

Mikel offered to be the sole owner of these action items:

  • [OSMF fundraising] to work on plan on how the money will be collected (was: Set on 2020-10, previous owners: Guillaume with Mikel).
  • [Finance] to move forward on proposal / scope out fundraising structure (was: Set on 2020-03, previous owners: Guillaume with Allan).

Treasurer's report

New bank accounts on Bank of Ireland

  • Moving everything to the new bank.
  • We have to change our banking details on the portals of our biggest Corporate Members.
    • Microsoft - have to recreate the profile.
    • Facebook - Haven't been able to add new account to portal.
    • Google (for Summer of Code) - small amount of money. Website slow and unresponsive.

Offer by Marc Prioleau (Facebook, guest) on the chat to help with the bank account update on Facebook's portal.

Administrative assistant's pending payments

  • The accountant is waiting for Euros to come from Corporate Memberships.
  • If the corporate memberships are late we will convert currencies.

Dublin data center update by the Operations Working Group

  • Last year's decision to move from Bytemark and UCL sites to commercial data center
  • Decision partly due to non-commercial relationship which made some things difficult.

Selected

  • Dublin for better support and access, saving operations' time.
  • Equinix, which we use in the Amsterdam data center
    • we have experience with remote hands.
    • reasonable price.

Data center

  • Covid continued to be an issue longer than anyone had anticipated.
  • Site-visit plan for mid-September.
  • There is alternative plan if Covid restrictions become worst.

Hardware

  • Not directly a Dublin expenditure.
  • Pre-emptive hardware replacement due to components' age.
  • There are microchip and component shortages.
  • Received 1/3 of orders. Delivery time takes up to 12 weeks since order, should arrive in September.
  • New render server in Sweden (UMEA).

Expenditures

Overall: delay but on track.

Thanks expressed by the board to the OWG and sysadmins for their work.

OSMF policy for “State of the Map” trademark grants for places which are LGBTQ-unsafe

Suggestions by Amanda:

  • Global State of the Map conference should not happen in place that is unsafe.
  • Regional SotMs should not happen in any place where it's not ok to be queer.
  • Proposed rule: Avoid places for OSM conferences where homosexuality is criminalised.

Amanda has emailed the State of the Map Organising Committee and they have replied.

Suggestions during the meeting

Resourcing options for openstreetmap-website maintenance and development

  • Topic emerged out of board discussions related to the Engineering Working Group (EWG).
  • Volunteers (Andy Allan, Tom Hughes and others) working on the website are stretched.
  • There's not a lot of success in implementation of new features.
  • The www.osm.org website works well, but there are opportunities for better experience and to grow the community.

Suggested options by Mikel:

  • Keep the status quo - website functions well and does its job.
    • Cons: looks hard to do major changes. Confusion on the purpose of the site. Low bus factor.
  • Try to organise a volunteer group (working group/forum) to bring focus and maintenance - common operating mode within OSMF.
    • Cons: someone needs to organise this.Not clear how the group would operate and what its mandate would be.
  • Hire a maintainer for
    • core feature development
    • support volunteers who do the code maintenance and clean up.
    • help the community reach concensus on the direction of the www.osm.org website should be.
    • Cons: difficult to recruit someone with sufficient experience in code base, RAILS and thorough consideration of dynamics in OSM, additional cost burden, unclear how acceptable it would be.
    • Comment that going for this option depends on whether we find a suitable candidate, otherwise we should look at the other options again.

Question: Tom has wisely stayed away from making big decisions on the website. Have you talked to him..? (by Guillaume Rischard)

> Reached out to Andy. It is wise to do so.

Question: Option for Engineering Working Group (EWG) to manage this, as www.osm.org is listed by them as part of core software that they plan to be involved with..? (by Eugene Alvin Villar)

> EWG felt that taking an active approach on the website was initially beyond their scope.
> They can be a support forum for development.

Feedback from Paul Norman (EWG)

  • Funding for working on www.osm.org is within the EWG plans but needs proposals.
  • No plans for funding full-time development.
  • Wouldn't want to devote all the capacity for managing just into one project.
  • Upcoming EWG meeting.

Suggestion by Allan:

  • Board members to think about having a group of volunteers that identify things that need to be done and fund projects (like the 2020 funding of Nominatim, Potlatch, osm2pgsql).

Action item: Mikel to reach out to Andy Allan and Tom Hughes and get their perspective.

Current status of hiring of Senior Site Reliability Engineer

Points were mentioned during the action item updates.

  • Looked at job description with the selected person. Will send the job description to TimelessTime (who will draft the contract).
  • The selected person has to give one-month notice to their current employer.
  • Projected timeline if all goes well to start work: 1-2 months.

Amanda had to disconnect ~45' after start.

Translations of binding legal texts

Recently a person in Germany contacted the LWG saying that the OSM contributor terms were not offered in German and they could not agree to them. (Please note that there is an unofficial German translation, which the LWG has forwarded to the person).

Should OSMF have official translations of legal documents that are legally binding..?

Feedback by Paul Norman (past LWG member, guest)

  • Translations predate his time at the LWG.
  • It was undesirable for OSMF to have any not official translations but was necessary for those 2 countries, for legal reasons.
  • French and Italian were special cases for some reason or another, but no clue on the reason.

Other points mentioned

  • US: When US government concludes an agreement with a foreign country. the primary text is in English and courtesy translation is available. In the case of grants/donations/etc the documents say that in the event of dispute over the language, the English language original prevails over any translation.
  • On cost: If we want translations to be legally binding, this will get very expensive very fast.

Suggestion
We might want to wait for creating translations, until there is legal demand.

Action item: Guillaume to reach out to Simon Poole (past LWG chairperson) to ask about the French and Italian translations of the contributor terms.

Advisory Board - monthly update

A meeting of the OSMF Board with Advisory Board representatives took place on August 10: draft minutes. Representatives from 7 Local Chapters and 2 Gold Corporate Members were present.

  • There was no agenda in advance of the meeting.
  • Direct outreach to Advisory Board representatives before next Advisory Board meeting might help.

Mikel had to disconnect ~ 60' after start.

Monthly presentation: Open Mapping Hub - Asia Pacific

Presentation by Nama Budhathoki. (*.pdf, file size: 2.48 MB, 9 pages)

Any other business

Updating the ban policy

Suggested by Tobias Knerr.

  • The Data Working Group has conditional bans for accounts with offensive text on OSM profiles.
  • These cases are not covered by the ban policy.
  • The board would like to see the policy updated to reflect the current practice.

Action item: Tobias to ask the Data Working Group to update the ban policy.

Guest comments or questions

No comments or questions during the meeting.

There were two comments just after the meeting was adjourned by Maggie Cawley (Moderation Subcommittee):

Next meeting

Decision: Dorothea to remind the Secretary to set the dates for the September mid-month chat and public meeting.

Open board meetings take place online once a month, usually on the 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

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