Board/Minutes/2021-10

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Participants

Board members

  • Allan Mustard (Chairing)
  • Eugene Alvin Villar
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Jean-Marc Liotier
  • Mikel Maron
  • Amanda McCann
  • Tobias Knerr

Officers and board
Biographies

Not Present

Guests

Open to all OSMF members.

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Administrative

Previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

2021/Res36 Translation budget for LCCWG moderation subcommittee

The Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) moderation subcommittee is provided with a budget of up to €1000 for translation services.

Approved on 2021-10-06 with 3 votes in favour: Allan Mustard, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr.
1 against: Guillaume Rischard (Premature. We have no budget request yet, no quote, no figure, nothing that's been sent to the treasurer. Agree on principle otherwise.)
1 abstained: Amanda McCann (While I would like more details on what's involved, such as who will be paid, who will decide what gets paid, what services will be used, and what languages are to be used,etc etc. So I am unsure, and will defer to the rest of the board (ie abstain))
2 not voted: Eugene Alvin Villar, Jean-Marc Liotier.

Circular by Tobias Knerr.

Related to the discussion following the LCCWG presentation during the September 2021 public board meeting.

2021/Res37 Sign non-disclosure agreement with Takeover Protection Special Committee

Sign the standard OSMF non-disclosure agreement with the current two members of the Takeover Protection Special Committee (2021/Res23) and share all current legal advice the Board has received on this topic with that Special Committee.

Approved on 2021-10-24 with 4 votes in favour: Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr, Allan Mustard, Amanda McCann.
3 not voted: Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier, Eugene Alvin Villar.

Circular by Amanda McCann.

2021/Res38 Data Working Group to implement proposed updates to Ban Policy

By the board's request, the Data Working Group (DWG) has proposed changes to the Ban Policy, especially to reflect the practice of imposing blocks until a particular action has been taken. The board asks DWG to edit the policy document accordingly.

Approved on 2021-10-28 with 5 votes in favour: Tobias Knerr, Jean-Marc Liotier, Eugene Alvin Villar, Mikel Maron, Allan Mustard.
1 abstained: Amanda McCann (I have no strong opinions on this. The actual changes will be visible on the Ban Policy and have been discussed internally on the board/DWG.)
1 not voted: Guillaume Rischard.

Circular by Tobias Knerr.

Action item updates

See Board/Action_Items.

Treasurer's report

  • Donations: We received 1.8 Bitcoins (~ 77,000 GBP), already converted to Euros) (OSMF Bitcoin address).
  • Corporate members:
    • Facebook: Corporate membership invoice submitted. Treasurer has access to their "supplier" portal and waiting for them to provide access to Dorothea.
    • Microsoft: Reactivation of our "supplier" account on their portal is pending.

Tax: We have to pay a significant amount of tax. Could we spend a significant amount by end of this year? (Question by Tobias Knerr)

> Difficult.
> We have received income (donations) for the fundraising for the developer and Senior Site Reliability Engineer (SSRE) positions. We planned to have them contracted (iD) and hired (SSRE) earlier. We might not have to pay tax for the donations - Treasurer to check with accountant.

Suggestion

> We could do that, especially if they need USD.

Other points mentioned

  • Significant expenditure so far: on the new Dublin Data Center.
  • We saved money by not traveling (board annual face-to-face meetings were replaced by online meetings in 2020 and 2021).
  • OSMF relocation: Part of motivation of relocating is obtaining a charity-status.
  • Budget and fundraising committee have to collaborate to reduce our tax liability.

Scheduling a general meeting for Spring (northern hemisphere) / Autumn (southern hemisphere) 2022

Related action item from the October mid-month board chat: Tobias to have a motion ready to be voted by the board during the October board meeting. The motion will mention that the next board must write the text for a special resolution1 regarding membership requirements, to be voted by the membership at a General Meeting that will take place during next Spring (Northern hemisphere) / Autumn (Southern hemisphere).

1"Special resolution" has the meaning given in section 283 of the Companies Act 2006. A special resolution, when approved, changes the Articles of Association (AoA) of the Foundation.

  • The board was tasked by the membership in 2020-12 to work on a set of proposals to ensure that all successful applicants for membership or associate membership in OSMF have made a reasonable amount of contributions to OpenStreetMap.
  • These proposals had to be submitted as possible resolutions at a general meeting in 2021 but the board did not act as quickly as they hoped and the proposals are not ready.
  • In order to get the proposals to the membership earlier than the 2022 Annual General Meeting (AGM), the suggestion was for the new board (formed after the 15th Annual General Meeting in December) to work on the proposals and have a general meeting in April 2022.

Concerns

  • It will take a lot of time and consensus on Membership Working Group, who already have limited available time to work on this. The board probably has to do all the work on writing the proposal.
  • The resolution might not be ready by April.

Suggestions

  • Set an informal deadline in April, without the need to schedule a general meeting.
  • Keep the date. The next board can postpone the general meeting, if done in a timely manner.

Other points mentioned

Vote to have a General Meeting on 30 April 2022 with a resolution related to membership requirements

Unanimously approved on 2021-10-29 with 7 votes in favour: Allan Mustard, Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr.

Questions related to Operations Working Group 2022 plan

Treasurer

  • Budgets should synchronise, ideally with a start time not during election time.

Suggested budget period: June to June.

Other points mentioned

Action items

  • Guillaume to respond to the Operations Working Group
  • Mikel to reach out to major donors and find out their preferred cycles to request donations and communicate with Guillaume.

Microgrants - next round

Can we afford a second round?

Treasurer

  • A second round wouldn't be a priority. We are low in Euros.
  • Preference to focus on budget process and fundraising right now.

Suggestions

  • Have a budgeting process with projections and include microgrants in it.
  • We could do microgrants throughout the year instead of doing rounds. (by Treasurer)

Other points mentioned

  • The first microgrants round was funded by a portion of the Pineapple donation.
  • There was some good feedback by the community, even from people who don't like microgrants.

Action items

  • The board to ask the Microgrants committee to work on formulating a refined proposal for the next round based on community feedback. In the meantime the board will work on budgeting and fundraising.
  • Guillaume to suggest to the Microgrants committee to have microgrants throughout the year instead of doing rounds.

Questions and comments by guests on the chat

How do you want to define the next committee? The members were nominated by the board. Do you want personal changes? (by Hanna Krüger, Microgrants committee, guest)

> Happy with current committee composition. (Allan and Guillaume)
> If someone doesn't want to continue, the board would look at replacing them.

Couldn't we ask for sponsors for microgrants? (by Janet Chapman, guest)

+1 on microgrants continuation, and OSMF financing these grants intentionally will help improve contributions to for many communities/groups. (by David Luswata, guest)

Analysis of options for OSMF relocation

Related action item: Jean-Marc to provide during the October board meeting a list of which countries have responded to us with information which is worth examining and what are our realistic options and to start looking at whether the new board will want to move in 2022 out of the UK.

Jean-Marc to:

  • send to the board a draft document outlining the options within the next week.
  • email Guillaume.

State of the Map safety policy wording

Points mentioned during discussion

  • The introduction of a policy was suggested by Amanda and it has been quite stressful.
  • The version suggested is watered down and more ambiguous, compared to what Amanda had in mind.
  • This policy introduces an additional constraint to the State of the Map (SotM) quick licence (current constraint: Organisers do not represent the Foundation).

On speakers giving discriminating talks during SotM conferences

  • The topics of the conference and the speakers should be relevant and upheld to the standard of the safety policy.
  • Giving discriminating talks would probably constitute a licence violation and the State of the Map organising committee (SotM WG) and Licensing Working Group (LWG) would take it into consideration when they would evaluate their next application to host a SotM conference.

On conference organisers doing everything within their ability to ensure safety

  • We cannot burden the organisers to form their own police force to walk people around and ensure their safety.
  • In big cities like Washington D.C., Istanbul, Moscow, there are areas that are safe to walk around and areas which are dangerous.

Change in suggested text of safety policy: within their ability. Changed to: "reasonably possible"

Concern

Questions by guests

International SotM in US

Does this mean that there couldn't be a global SotM in the US due to systemic racism? (Question by Janet Chapman, guest)

> There is a lot of nuance in the question.
> The details are left to be assessed by the State of the Map organising committee (SotM WG), in discussion with the people who sent the proposal.
> There could be a conference there. There is no place in the world that doesn't have really difficult societal issues and where people don't face discrimination. Some places that have legal structures and societal expectations are in better shape than others.

Countries with Visa requirements

Should there be any consideration of places that greatly discriminate on visas? So many people from many places can't come? (Question by Janet Chapman, guest)

> It is a consideration but it is separate from the topic here.

Regional SotM in Saudi Arabia

If OSMF receives a grant from Saudi Arabia, would this grant be rejected because it is a country that would be disqualified? how far do we go? we need to understand the consequences of such a rule. (Question by Willy Franck, guest)

> We are discussing two situations: international SotM and regional SotM applications.
> For international SotM, hosting it in Saudi Arabia would probably be unlikely.
> A regional SotM Saudi Arabia could take place.

The problem is legitimate, it must protect all minorities and guarantee the safety of all. I understand the need to mention it formally so that the local organizing committees take it into account as a criterion. But do we need to include it in the OSM license or in the SotM regulations? (Question by Willy Franck, guest)

SotM in France and burqa

It is illegal to wear burqa in France. No global SotM there? The OSMF diversity statement is to protect the religion (Question by Imre, guest)

> This would need to be assessed by the SotM working group, as part of the application process for hosting an international SotM.

Vote on a State of the Map safety policy

Vote to approve the following State of the Map safety policy.

Approved on 2021-10-29 with 5 votes in favour: Allan Mustard, Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr.
Abstained: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar.

The initial wording is on https://hackmd.io/LeDghe__SouDvQ-ofeOx3A#Mikel%E2%80%99s-proposal and was updated in two places during the meeting. Changes:

  • within their ability. Changed to: "reasonably possible"
  • Details of the trademark application update is the mandate of the Licensing Working Group. Changed to: "Details of the trademark are the mandate of the Licensing Working Group".

The State of the Map organising committee and Licensing Working Group to implement the details.

Future of the FOSS Policy Special Committee

Suggestions by the FOSS Committee:

  • Perform another inventory of the OSMF's software landscape in 2022 and compare the outcome with the previous inventory.
  • Document the lessons learned and recommendations for future inventory rounds. Publish and present to the board.
  • Help with the email migration away from the Google suite.

Action item: Tobias to create a circular.

Advisory Board - monthly update

  • There was an email from the board to local chapter representatives on the Advisory Board about potential board candidates. It resulted in a discussion mainly with OSM-UK (Local Chapter) about whether OSMF could support or compensate the local chapters for local chapter administrative tasks. Five suggestions were made by OSM-UK: shared networking, paying, run systems like membership database, contractor for local chapter projects, more microgrant rounds.
  • Meeting of the OSMF board and Advisory Board in November (open to observers). It will include presentations by ESRI and Microsoft (Gold OSMF Corporate Members). Secretary to send invitation.

Monthly presentation - Uganda community

Presenter: Geoffrey Kateregga.

Discussion after the presentation.

On work with refugees from South Sudan

Is it a conscious effort to have regional influence? (Question by Guillaume Rischard, board)

> In 2017-2018 we did a project mapping the refugee settlements with Humanitarian OSM Team and refugees from South Sudan. The project included mapping with the refugees and we did a lot of training.
> After the project ended we encouraged the refugees to form an OSM community for South Sudan, even if they were placed in Uganda. > It is also part of our work to network and grow OSM communities in Africa. We have a strong and supporting network - e.g. the OSM community in Libya is encouraging other groups to start communities.

On board's decision regarding microgrants

What did you think of the current board's decision to run the microgrants again when the board has the financial infrastructure in place? (Question by Guillaume Rischard, board)

> It would be nice if there were microgrants every year, so that there would be no uncertainty if there would be microgrants next year.
> Janet Chapman on the chat mentioned that there would be organisations that would fund OSMF for microgrants, if OSMF asked.

On Geoffrey becoming again a board candidate

You run for the board two three years ago. Any thought on that? The crowd that is running for the board is still not diverse enough. (Question by Guillaume Rischard, board)

> In OSM Africa we encourage people to step up and run for the OSMF board. We would like to see someone from Africa on the board.
> We encourage community members to become OSMF members via the Active contributor membership program. This will increase the number of OSMF members from Africa, which will increase the chances of someone from Africa to be voted on the board.
> Willy Franck run for the OSMF board last year. Hopefully there will be someone again next year.

On board diversity

Comments by Mikel

  • Board diversity is not only related to the countries of the board members but also to the understanding of how the Foundation works and having experience in it.
  • There are various ways to get involved with the Foundation, e.g. the volunteer Working Groups (WGs) are a good entry point to get involved in the governance of the project.

Comments by Geoffrey

  • It is interesting to look on what is stopping people participating in the Working Groups. People usually cite:
    • Absence of internet or data limits.
    • Language: all meetings are in English.
  • Happy to see many people from OSM Africa attending today's meeting.

On State of the Map safety policy

What are your views on the approved State of the Map safety policy? (Question by Guillaume Rischard, board)

> I was following the mailing list discussion.
> Unsure whether all the views expressed in the mailing lists were put into consideration.
> There is no place which is 100% safe for everyone. One needs to consider all kinds of factors.
> Many countries have laws against homosexuality. We don't have control over the laws of the countries.
> We had this issue with organising the FOSS4G conference in Dar es Salaam. We considered the political atmosphere and how to make the attendees safe. But the decision can't be left entirely on the local organising committee.

Question to the board on assigning a board seat per continent

What does the board think of having of having a board with one person from each continent? (Question by Geoffrey)

> It has to be an elected board and a board consisting of volunteers.
> This board had diversified the number of Local Chapters (LCs), which are on the Advisory Board (AB). Initially the Advisory Board had representatives coming only from Europe. We now have one local chapter in every continent, so each continent has at least one voice on the Advisory Board.
> This board has also activated the AB and we use it to discuss ideas issues and discuss strategically. Things are better than they were.
> You can do quotas in a democratic fair way. Probably won't happen in OSMF soon.

Any other business

Engineering Working Group's request for budget

The proposed budget was submitted to the board after the agenda for this meeting got locked. It was suggested by board members that the topic could be raised for discussion during the "any other business" section of the board meeting.

The Treasurer is in favour of the Engineering Working Group (EWG) having a fixed budget.

Suggestion: have a discussion with the Treasurer first.

Points mentioned during discussion

  • The Engineering Working Group (EWG) asks for 50000 but they don't have anyone yet to fulfill the work.
  • The plan is to do it in a similar way to Microgrants and put out requests for proposals on particular topics suggested by the EWG but also on unrelated ones.
  • There is going to be an EWG meeting on Monday.

Guest comments or questions

No questions or comments during this section.

Next meeting

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Meeting ended 110 minutes after start.

Acronyms

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