Board/Minutes/2022-11

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Last meeting of this board before the 16th Annual General Meeting

Date and time: Friday 25 November 2022, 1400 UTC - Countdown

The topics of the agenda get locked one week before the meeting.

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

Acronyms

Participants

Board members

  • Eugene Alvin Villar
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Mikel Maron
  • Amanda McCann
  • Roland Olbricht (disconnected ~35' after start)
  • Tobias Knerr

Officers and board
Biographies

Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.

Not Present

  • Jean-Marc Liotier (Apologies)

Guests

  • 9 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. To assess them, click on the 3 dots on the top right of the black video-window.

Administrative

Previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

2022/Res29 Pay Harry Wood for migration to Discourse

The board approves Harry Wood's work proposal on the forum-Discourse migration for up to £1400. The work is planned to start on 2022-10-31, and happen over two weeks. Harry will report to Grant Slater.

Unanimously approved on 2022-11-04 with 7 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht, Mikel Maron, Guillaume Rischard, Amanda McCann, Tobias Knerr, Eugene Alvin Villar, Jean-Marc Liotier.

Circular by Roland Olbricht.

Notes:

2022/Res30 Approve active contributor membership application #2022110710000068

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

Approved on 2022-11-14 with 5 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht, Eugene Alvin Villar, Amanda McCann, Tobias Knerr, Mikel Maron.
2 did not vote: Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2022/Res31 Approve active contributor membership application #2022110610000088

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

Approved on 2022-11-16 with 5 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr, Eugene Alvin Villar, Amanda McCann.
2 did not vote: Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2022/Res32 Approve active contributor membership application #2022111010000105

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

Rejected on 2022-11-21 with 5 votes against: Tobias Knerr, Roland Olbricht, Mikel Maron (No explanation of activities in the past year. Can resubmit with more recent non-mapping activities.), Amanda McCann (Insufficient evidence of recent activity), Eugene Alvin Villar (No mapping in over 3 years. No non-mapping contributions or activities provided in the application).
2 did not vote: Guillaume Rischard, Jean-Marc Liotier.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

Action item updates

See osm:Foundation/Board action items.

Reportage

New rendering server with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Ohio

  • New rendering server with AWS in Ohio, sponsored by AWS.
  • ARM server, super-fast.

Visit to Amsterdam data center

Guillaume will fly to Europe and he will go to the Amsterdam data center.

Fundraising

Mikel:

  • will write up learnings from the fundraising workshop that he and some other board members attended.
  • might consult current OSMF Corporate Members about changing the corporate membership program and raising the tiers.
  • is thinking about an individual fundraising campaign in 2023.

Vector tiles

Paul Norman and Guillaume talked. Paul would like to work on vector tiles and they started working on draft proposal, that can then be discussed for fundraising.

Software dispute resolution panel consultation

Software dispute resolution panel consultation done.

Moderators team for talk@ and osmf-talk@ mailing lists

The moderators now have a dedicated mailing list where they can be reached.

Treasurer's report

Paperwork required by some Corporate Members/organisations

  • Undergoing: Post-processing of State of the Map (SotM) invoices.
  • There are two Corporate Members who have confirmed that they have all the necessary documents but not paid yet.
  • Some of the organisations which sign-up for Corporate Memberships/State of the Map (SotM) sponsorships require a lot of paperwork.

Suggestions on future update of the Corporate Membership program

  • Take into account the amount of paperwork necessary by some organisations when the membership tiers are changed.
  • Provide a discount to Corporate Members if they pay fast.

Company which wants to become a Corporate Member wants a service contract signed

  • Company with office in Cyprus wants a standard service contract signed by OSMF (no sign-up at a Supplier portal necessary).
  • Document was sent to the Secretary to be reviewed and signed.

Decision: Roland Olbricht (Treasurer) asked for the task to be transferred to him, as Amanda will leave the board after the 2022 General Meeting.

VAT email by accountant

  • VAT is a lot of work.
  • Difficult to comment on things ongoing with foreign administration.

Suggestion for next State of the Map conference: once the location is known reach out to the local community and find a local accountant to sort the VAT issues.

Membership prerequisites - Implementing the survey results

Plan to propose the adoption of a 21 day requirement.

Survey results published

Suggestion

  • Take a decision on the minimum number of mapping days required for someone to be eligible for OSMF membership based on the survey results and make sure that the decision is implemented. Median at 21 mapping days.

On the poll and changing the required minimum number of mapping days

  • The intention was to not look at the results numerically and to not make policy based on a poll.
  • The poll tells us that we're broadly on the mark.
  • The poll result is not binding.
  • The board should not take action just to make it appear as it is doing something.
  • The initial plan was to have a General Meeting in April for decision, so going for the median value is honouring the spirit of the original decision, to consult the members on what they prefer regarding the membership prerequisites.

On existing 16 mapping days threshold requirement

  • There was not a particular reason that number was chosen.
  • Minimal amount of number of mapping days, enough to be familiar with OSM and not hard to get over.
  • Not a lot of people questioning the threshold number.

On takeover protection

  • Lack of action on the bigger topic of takeover protection is not a factor here.
  • The takeover protection has more to do with OSMF registration, incorporation and structuring.

Suggestions

  • Focus on implementation.
  • Structure OSMF in such a way that it is an unattractive takeover target.
  • Make sure that the Membership Working Group (MWG) is a place where volunteers want to contribute.

On Membership Working Group

  • During State of the Map in Florence, a community member offered to join the next MWG meeting, but there are currently no meetings.
  • Amanda McCann joined the MWG a year ago (while on the board) to try to help.
  • Low activity currently. Basic stuff gets done, unplanned work is left on the side.

For the next board to fix.

Vote

Motion:
to amend the decision of the June board meeting by changing the requirement of over 15 days to at least 21 days.

Approved on 2022-11-25 with 5 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Guillaume Rischard, Roland Olbricht, Tobias Knerr.
2 did not vote: Mikel Maron, Jean-Marc Liotier (not present)

The June decision after this amendment:
The board to accept new Normal and Associate membership applications only from persons who have mapped at least 21 days, and have registered at least three months ago, or if approved by the Board for exceptional circumstances.

Action item: Tobias to edit the text on the OSMF website.

Next step: Membership Working Group (MWG) needs to change the join.osmfoundation.org website.

Decisions pending implementation by the Membership Working Group

Compatibility of data imports with future licenses

Suggested by Tobias Knerr.

When you contribute to OSM, you have previously accepted the contributor terms that grant us the right to publish the resulting database not only under the Open Database License (ODbL) but also under any future licence.

Issues:

  • People use sources for example for imports which might be problematic in a future relicensing.
  • It is too had to get the necessary permissions.

Suggestions

  • Pay a lawyer to create a legal template document to make it easier to grant us the rights us we want.
    • We already have something like that for data sources that are under CCby and where we want people to waive, certain aspect of attributions that we cannot provide.
    • Budget for this, as the Licensing Working Group (LWG) has vaguely expressed that they probably do not want to spend volunteer time on this issue.
  • Make sure people won't forget the topic.

Motivation for the suggestions

  • Honour the spirit of the contributor terms. During the previous licence change, a part of the community was not convinced that ODbL would be the ideal licence for OSM.
  • The contributor terms were created with the goal of allowing a licence change without losing data again, as had happened during the previous time we had a licence change.
  • If we continue to import ODbL-only data, a re-licensing will tear a hole into the database.
  • The board should uphold that spirit of the consensus in the community at the time of the licence change.

On future licence change

  • ODbL is compatible with itself, but it might not be compatible with a future licence.
  • If we decide to re-licence, we will hopefully find a licence that is forward compatible.
  • The chance of re-licensing is close to zero.
  • Issue: If we decide to contact people at the time of a future re-licensing, it is often hard to contact people you were in contact many years ago about an import to get a new permission. Finding a new contact in a organisation is more difficult.

On imports of ODbL datasets so far

  • We have been accepting ODbL data for around 10 years, without any waiver.
  • There is a table of all imports that have followed the import guidelines, which also lists which licenses the data was provided under and it lists a relatively small minority.

Points mentioned during discussion

  • If we decide to budget, do we give this to LWG or would it be a board task?
  • If the LWG and the community are not concerned, there's no reason for the board to spend time or money.
  • There are issues with the ODbL, but things are working.
  • Creation of legal documents might be beneficial for the project - another tool that can be used.
  • The person who uploads the imported data has to take the responsibility of following the contributor terms.
  • The motion is for the creation of a legal template document that makes data available for import and not whether to ban or not ODbL-only licences.
    • It is both. The document will allow OSMF to use imports in a future licence, that would in effect ban data which is only under ODbL.

Vote on commissioning the creation of a legal template document that makes data available for import

Motion:
To commission the creation of a legal template document that makes data available for import to OSM and grants the OSMF comparable rights to those granted by an individual contributor who has signed the Contributor Terms.

Approved on 2022-11-25 with 3 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Tobias Knerr.
2 against: Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron.
2 did not vote: Roland Olbricht (not connected at that moment), Jean-Marc Liotier (not present)

Vote on requiring documentation of compatibility or incompatibility with the Contributor Terms' relicensing clause as part of the import process

Motion:
To require documentation of compatibility or incompatibility with the Contributor Terms' relicensing clause as part of the import process.

Approved on 2022-11-25 with 3 votes in favour: Amanda McCann, Eugene Alvin Villar, Tobias Knerr.
2 against: Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron.
2 did not vote: Roland Olbricht (not connected at that moment), Jean-Marc Liotier (not present)

If/when change the licence again, look at the catalogue of imports and contact their sources if necessary.

On past imports listed on the imports catalogue

  • Previous imports will have no data at the table once the column is added.
  • It would be nice for people to add that information. Then, if we ever need that information, we can easily find out which imports might be problematic by looking at the table.

If the answer is "no" it does not mean that the import cannot proceed.

Advisory Board - monthly update

No update.

Monthly presentation - Tobias Zwick on StreetComplete

10-minute talk by Tobias Zwick (Westnordost) on StreetComplete and the work that he has done or plans to do.

Links supplied:

Comments by board members

  • Great app, doing much more edits now.
  • Great to have strong concern for data quality.

On being available only on Android

  • Shame that there no iPhone version.
    • The logic, storage is not dependent on Android - only the UI is Android specific.
    • Would take two people around 6 months to get to a minimum viable product for iPhones.
    • There are not many iOS developers in the open source world.

Question on discussion setting up a body to have tagging standard process

Question by Eugene Villar (board) on recent discussion whether the OSM Foundation should set up a body to have tagging standard process.

> Probably wouldn't make sense. The reason we have discussions and wiki proposals is to have many eyes on the tagging scheme, from many different perspectives (countries, regions, legislations, languages, etc.). With a small body that decides everything, a lot of that gets lost.
> There will be less arguments, but it is good to have discussions based on pros/cons (e.g. parking proposal: 1, 2) with people who care about the tagging.

Question on how the OSMF can help

Question by Eugene Villar (board) on whether as a software developer creating an editor for OSM, can OSMF do something to make his work easier.

> Generally, funding is always helpful.
> If an iOS port is something you would like and know iOS devs, to get in touch with them.
> Dealing with all the tags - but that's a community process that editor developers need to accept.

Any other business

Moderation team

Email alias for moderation team has been created.

Thanks to departing board members

Thanks expressed to Amanda, Eugene, Jean-Marc and Tobias, whose terms on the board are ending.

Guest comments or questions

Next meeting

Open board meetings take place online once a month.

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.

Annual General Meeting on Saturday 10 December 2022

The 16th Annual General Meeting of the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) will be held online in the IRC chat room #osmf-gm on the IRC network irc.oftc.net, on Saturday 10 December 2022, 16:00 UTC (countdown), unless rescheduled.


Acronyms

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