Board/Minutes/2023-04
Meeting date and start time: Thursday 27 April 2023 at 13:00 UTC.
Minutes approved by the board on 2023-05-25.
Please note that the individual points mentioned below usually reflect the opinion of one or more board members and not necessarily of the whole board. Official board decisions are taken during the meetings or by voting using circulars, and votes are listed in the minutes.
The topics of the agenda get locked one week before the meeting, except the "any other business" section.
Video room: https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/dor-2cd-qah-rim
using BigBlueButton.
Participants
Board members
["talk" time*] Name (role, notes)
- [07:31] Arnalie Vicario
- [04:51] Craig Allan
- [04:47] Mateusz Konieczny
- [22:30] Mikel Maron
- [03:35] Roland Olbricht
- [14:37] Sarah Hoffmann (Chairing)
*Includes time when the microphone was activated due to noise.
Officers and board
Biographies
Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.
Not Present
- Guillaume Rischard
Guests
- 12 guests, including Ahmed Abdullahi (Presenter: OSM Somalia community)
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
- 2023-03-30 Approved
Circular Resolutions
2023/Res09 Approve active contributor membership application #2023041410000182
| The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis. |
|
Approved on 2023-04-22 with 4 votes in favour:
1 abstained:
2 did not vote:
|
| Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group. |
Action item updates
| Public board action items - About | ||||||||
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| Filter by assignee | Arnalie | Craig | Guillaume | Mateusz | Mikel | Roland | Sarah | Not assigned |
| Filter by milestone | ||||||||
| 2023 Q1 | ||||||||
| 2023 Q2 | ||||||||
| 2023 Q3 | ||||||||
| 2023 Q4 | ||||||||
| Completion time not specified | ||||||||
| Filter by label | Example: any label # labels here (non-clickable) | |||||||
Arnalie Vicario
This quarter will focus on Local Chapter related action items.
- Will do some brainstorming with LCCWG.
Potential local chapters
- Looking for organisations which we can recruit as Local Chapters.
- To meet with Anuradha Rajanayake in May regarding expression of interest for a local chapter in Sri Lanka (GitLab #84).
Revitalising the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group
The action item "Revitalising the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group" will probably be completed in Q3.
Craig Allan
Executive Director
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/9
Looking at the introduction of an "Executive Director" / "Chief Operating Officer" for OSMF. Delaying it until the strategic planning team gets to the relevant section in the strategic plan, to run both actions together. Will work on it probably in one month.
Guillaume Rischard
Not present.
Mateusz Konieczny
Missing attribution
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/62
- Looking at the cases of missing attribution mentioned on the OSM wiki.
- In some cases, installation of apps or creation of accounts is needed to check things, which adds time to the processing of the list of cases.
- Hopes to complete soon.
Mikel Maron
HOT trademark agreement
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/72
- Nothing done yet.
- HOT is busy looking to recruit an executive director.
- Mikel to reach out to Kate Chapman regarding the trademark agreement.
First quarterly post from OSMF Board Chair
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/40
Will work with Guillaume, who currently has some other priorities.
Suggestion
- The quarterly post to be written collaboratively by board members and not just the Chairperson and provide a narrative of where things are, what is moving and where things are going. (Post-meeting addition: Blog post - The OSMF Board reflects on the first third of the 2023)
Draft an intermediate trademark agreement for FPOSM
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/30
Will work on it tomorrow.
Contacting Allen Gunn (Gunner) for a second board screen-to-screen meeting in 2023
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/31
Will talk with Gunner next week.
Overture and Bing
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/20
- Mikel had a lot of discussions and the board was looped in.
- Action item might be marked as complete as it is an ongoing endeavor and part of the board's strategic work to have an open door and effective relationship with other entities in the ecosystem.
Roland Olbricht
Budgetary controls - Finalise spreadsheet
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/10
Suggestion to close the action item, as the monthly report that the Treasurer is sending to the rest of the board members is good enough.
Meeting with EWG, OWG and website maintainers
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/17
Looking for a new date.
Large project ideas: present candidates to the board
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/58
Roland to resend the email to the board and set a deadline.
Sarah Hoffmann
EU registration - Review previous plans and decide on one or two target countries
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/5
- Looked at documents and talked with Simon Poole (previous LWG Chairperson).
- We have to transfer assets and contributor agreements (which are contracts). This complicates things.
- The countries that came down from past research from Joost Schouppe and Guillaume Rischard were:
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Belgium
Suggestion
- Sarah to write a position paper with what we want to achieve, look for people who can help us and sent them the position paper.
- Suggestion to close https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/5
On potential cost
- The EU registration has not been taken into account in the budget for 2023.
To have meeting with EWG to discuss possible communication venues
https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board-action-items/-/issues/44
- Discussed with Roland Olbricht and Tobias Knerr during FOSSGIS.
On new action-item board GitLab repository
- Useful format for action items.
- Suggestion to discuss during the board mid-month chat:
- the new process and
- where the board's discussion on action items will happen.
Treasurer's report
| Previous reports during monthly board meetings and general meetings |
|---|
Please note that additional financial-related topics have been discussed during previous board meetings and General Meetings (e.g. 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015). |
| Presented by Roland Olbricht (Treasurer). |
We are within expectations of the budget.
Secretary's report
| Background |
|---|
| During the 2023-02 board meeting it was decided to have a "Secretary's report" section during the monthly board meetings, in place of the "Advisory Board monthly updates", which were provided by the Secretary.
Previous reports: On past Advisory Board monthly updates Overview of board communications with representatives on the Advisory Board. 2023 Jan. |
| Presented by Mikel Maron (Secretary). |
Overture
Discussions with Overture about the licensing of the downloads they released.
MapBuilder
Discussions of board, LWG, DWG, and MapBuilder team about technical and legal issues.
Maxar
They want to move from the current way that the access to their imagery is controlled (through an identifier which is included in various editors), to a different authorisation scheme.
Advisory Board
Meeting in two weeks. Main topic: get feedback on the strategic plan.
Requests for Corporate Memberships
Two new requests for Corporate Memberships.
Discuss licensing situation of Overture data
| Background |
|---|
Overture released the first dataset on 2023-04-12 at https://overturemaps.org/download/ and it was stated that "“it is open data and available under the CDLA Permissive V2.0 and ODbL licenses”. The OSMF board contacted the Overture Steering Committee regarding the wording.
Previous OSMF board discussions about Overture
|
| Topic resulting from merge. Initial topics suggested by Mateusz Konieczny. Sarah Hoffmann presenting. |
Overture released OSM data under two licences, ODbL and CDLA. OSMF complained, as what they're doing is not correct, all data is ODbL. They have an addendum that some data not from OSM - which is not the case at the moment - might be under CDLA.
Points mentioned during discussion
- There was a board member's conversation with Marc Prioleau (Overture) on 2023-04-26: Our door is open to be helpful on all manner of communications. Will work with Marc to create an agenda for a meeting with the Overture Steering Committee. (Post meeting addition: Scheduled for 2023-05-23)
- A board member mentioned that they do not believe that the issue with the licences was a mistake, as Overture i) is not a hobby project - which typically has a better approach to licensing. and ii) the legal department of Meta/Facebook is larger than OSMF.
- Despite the level of resources in big companies, the effectiveness of how the resources are deployed does not necessarily scale.
- In this case it is not just one company, but four big companies trying to work out how to work together.
- It is healthy to have skepticism and carefully assess the risks.
- It might not matter for what we do next if it was intentional.
Future meeting with Overture Steering committee
Meeting of the board and the Overture Steering committee probably on the 23rd of May. The time is prohibitive for Arnalie.
Topics on agenda for future meeting(s):
- Communication.
- Technical work.
- Roadmap for the data they are working on.
On licensing of sidecar files
Overture is not making clear which sidecar files are licenced under CDLA.
- It's a political thing. People who use the data will have to check the licence.
- Suggestion to not pursue further. They're confusing their users, and it's their issue.
Discuss actions from 17th April Fundraising meeting
| Some of the previous fundraising discussions |
|---|
| There are currently regular fundraising meetings.
Some of the previous fundraising discussions:
|
| Topic suggested by Mateusz Konieczny. |
Actions from the 17th April Fundraising meeting were:
- Changes to the Corporate Membership page.
- Creating a fundraising ethical statement.
Changes to Corporate Membership page
- Suggested text under discussion has been circulated within the board.
- This discussion is separate from the discussion about potential changes to the corporate membership tiers.
- Greater alignment with the upcoming fundraising campaign.
Vote to adopt and post the changes to the corporate membership page on the Foundation's website
| Adopt and post the changes to the corporate membership page on the Foundation's website. |
|
Approved on 2023-04-27 with 5 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario, Craig Allan, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. |
Fundraising ethical guidelines
The board is drafting guidelines regarding the fundraising process and ethical positions.
- Roland has made some changes to the draft text, making clear that while the board will listen to the donors, the core responsibility is to the OSM community.
- Draft documents on how to do fundraising.
Proposed plan
- The board to make comments on the draft internal board document.
- Mikel to clean and reword the text to be more cohesive.
- The board to create a circular and vote.
- The board to publish a blog post or Courtney Williamson (Fundraiser) to publish a diary entry. This text will be the first thing to communicate about the fundraising campaign.
- Follow up with more communications on fundraising.
Suggestions
- Create the circular soon.
- Add that we're doing fundraising because we have projects we need to finance to support the community and not because we want to get lots of money.
Action item: Mikel to edit the Fundraising ethical guidelines document, circulate it within the board for further comments and start a circular.
On whistleblower policy
Mentioned in the Fundraising ethical guidelines document.
- Seems a more general point.
- Maybe too much to include in the document.
Suggestion
- Think if we need a whistleblower policy in general.
- Re-frame the point in the Fundraising ethical guidelines document. If people see a problem with what is happening, have clear guidance on a channel to be heard. Include “being able to raise issues with the board”.
Comment via text by ImreSamu (guest) that his comments on fundraising are at https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/consultation-on-fundraising-strategy/96988/34
Quarterly self assessment
| Background |
|---|
| Go through open March 2023 screen-to-screen action items with a deadline in Q1 (GitLab link) and decide what to do with them. |
| Topic suggested by Sarah Hoffmann. |
The board
- notified Overture about attribution, thus completing one of the attribution-related action items.
- needs to move with the action items, as some were scheduled for the end of March and are overdue.
Suggestions regarding the quarterly self assessment
- Board members could write two to three points with their reflections after the end of each quarter of the year and share them with the community.
- The assessment can be initially just verbally.
- The quarterly report (which was to be written by the Chairperson) could also include points from other board members, assessing where things are.
Suggestion regarding the action items
- If the workload for some action items is too much, or the available time of a board member becomes more limited, the board should have a regular practice to hand tasks to other people.
Other points mentioned during discussion
- It is important to celebrate successes and also to acknowledge our failures.
- A formal approach of checking the board's actions can only be good for the organisation.
- Tied to strategic plan, where 70 tasks need to be done by many different people.
Action item: Board members to write couple of sentences about their assessments for 2023 Q1.
Registering with the Digital Public Goods Alliance
| Report and past discussion |
|---|
| Report by Craig Allan.
The OSM was approached by Bo Percival, who is now working for the Digital Public Goods Alliance. He recommended that the OSMF should join the registry of public goods maintained by that organisation. Public Goods First some economic vocabulary. The term Goods typically includes services. OSM is a service which is an information "good". It is a "good" because it is clearly something of value which people can use. Information goods like OSM are considered non-rivalrous when their consumption by one person does not limit the availability or quality for others. In simple terms, nobody fights over access. In addition, some information goods, such as open-source software and OSM are non-excludable, meaning that access cannot be restricted. Simply, nobody blocks access. When an information good is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable, it becomes a public good. Public goods are available to the public in essentially unlimited quantities and without restriction. And OSM is a public good. But, in a nod to our OPS team, we note that if delivery systems are overwhelmed, then this fails and goods can become rivalrous and are no longer truly public goods. So we need to keep delivery systems working well. Background In 2019 the United Nations convened a panel - the “High Level Panel on Digital Co-operation”. Their final report on “The Age of Digital Interdependence” had 5 main recommendations:
It is the last item on digital co-operation that concerns OSM. “Digital public good are essential in unlocking the full potential of digital technologies and data to attain the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular for middle and low income countries” The Digital Public Goods Alliance is new organisation established to meet the UN goals and a key mover in advancing the development of digital public goods. They have established a register of open systems, applications and data that is open and accessible to all for the furtherment of global development. OSM is of course a major force in global development as it underlies a large number of humanitarian efforts, academic research of many kinds, application development especially in navigation. However, at this time OSM is not part of the UN register of digital public goods. Registration Disadvantages The process for registering is fairly simple. There is no coercive element to registration. I find no apparent downside or set of obligations arising from registration. Registration Advantages By registering we rise to the attention of a set of global decision makers at national state level and to the attention of major institutions that are of state level scale. We establish ourselves as an important resource in global development. It gives us a seat at the table managing global development. That prominent situation presents us with an opportunity for fundraising on massive scale, especially to boost data development and reinforce our delivery systems. Board Resolution As a first step in exploring this path I propose that the OSMF Board passes a resolution, as follows: The OSMF, on behalf of OSM contributors and users everywhere, recognises its key role as a major provider of global digital public goods, especially in the development, academic spaces and navigation spaces, and resolves that the OSMF should register as a digital public goods provider with the Digital Public Goods Alliance. --- Previous board discussion: |
| Topic suggested by Craig Allan. |
Vote to register as a digital public goods provider with the Digital Public Goods Alliance
| ''The OSMF, on behalf of OSM contributors and users everywhere, recognises its key role as a major provider of global digital public goods, especially in the development, academic spaces and navigation spaces, and resolves that the OSMF should register as a digital public goods provider with the Digital Public Goods Alliance. |
|
Approved on 2023-04-27 with 6 votes in favour: Craig Allan Arnalie Vicario, Mateusz Konieczny, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. |
No discussion.
Strategic Planning Update
| Background |
|---|
Related OSMF webpages, created by Sarah Hoffmann, Craig Allan and Allan Mustard, who have taken the initiative to work on the strategic plan (strategic plan outline here):
Related board discussions:
|
| Topic suggested by Craig Allan. |
- Plan to talk to the community and invite people to look at the strategic plan on several channels, including the Advisory Board mailing list.
- Currently translating the notice in many languages.
- Notices to be sent in the next days.
Arnalie offered to help disseminating the information.
Monthly presentation - OSM Somalia community by Ahmed Abdullahi
10 minute presentation about the OSM community in Somalia. Invited: Abdullahi Kelly and Ahmed Abdullahi. Presenter: Ahmed Abdullahi.
Presentation: Mapping in fragile context (file size: 5.1 MB, file type: .pptx)
Questions and answers
Anything done after data collection
Question by Sarah Hoffmann (Board).
> Focused group discussion with the community members and elders.
> Data verification.
Any new mappers gained
Question by Sarah Hoffmann (Board).
> Yes, there is mapping activity now. > Currently encouraging youth chapters in different Universities to be involved with mapping exercises in Somalia and plan to continue. > At some point the management, government and other partners will realise the importance of open mapping in Somalia.
> Encourage colleagues and other international partners to support OSM Somalia in terms of capacity building, advocating and fundraising activities to ensure to gain more youth involvement (both female and male) in the most vulnerable areas.
How OSM Somalia safeguards against data abusers
Question by Pierre Potgieter (guest):
How one can safeguard against data abusers? Now with the situation with the Ukraine and the map edits being paused/stopped to avoid being misused/targeting by Russian forces. Obviously OSM maps are very useful, but is it not a risk that it could be abused in a conflict situation like Somalia?
> Comment by a board member that it is a difficult question and probably there is no easy answer to it.
Any other business
No other business.
Guest comments or questions
| Open to all OSMF members (join the OpenStreetMap Foundation). You are welcome to ask questions or to comment (via voice or on the chat) at the end of the meeting.
|
Roadmap where OSMF and Overture align in the future?
Question by Pierre Potgieter (guest):
Trying to understand what Overture would mean for the OSMF. Understand that the licensing issues are just the beginning of it. Do you think there would be a roadmap where the two organisations align in the near future..?
Self-introduction by Pierre Potgieter (guest): geospatial reporter. Not affiliated with OSM but has a great interest in the project.
Previous discussions about Overture here.
> If this is a question of a journalistic context, maybe reach the board over email and set-up a time to discuss. Board meetings are public to OSMF members and that's the intention of having an open forum here.
> Happy to provide our position and explain.
Clarification that the question was to understand the background, as someone who has contributed to OSM and from a public point of view.
On availability of content used for moderation decisions to the people being suspended on OSMF channels, prior to an appeal
Question by Emerson Rocha (guest):
The Moderation Committee, chosen by OSMF board last year, recently enforced a temporary ban on OSMF channels, including osmf-talk (a mail list exclusive for OSMF members) to an OSMF member. When asked about a given copy of all textual evidence for the ban, including hidden context from the public, the Moderation Committee refused and redirected to "You have the right to appeal that decision to the OpenStreetMap Foundation Board of Directors." Can the OSMF board, before starting any kind of appeal process, decide to first give an OSMF member access to the full content of what is used against the person for being censored on OSMF sponsored channels?
Related to the decision for suspension of user fititnt from participation in the community forum and mailing lists for a period of 28 days by the moderation team (for talk, osmf-talk mailing lists and two categories on community.osm.org), a decision based partially on thread post #11 by fititnt, which is currently hidden on community.osm.org and which was received by community members who are subscribed to community.osm.org via email. The decision for the 28-day suspension was taken on the 4th of February 2023.
> Suggestion to go through the official channel and an appeal can be sent via email.
> Different opinions on whether this issue has been discussed by the board before.
> The ban under discussion expired weeks ago.
> In general we are not going to publish private messages in such context.
Next meetings
- 11 May 2023 1300 UTC (Mid-month board chat)
- 25 May 2023 1300 UTC (Public board meeting)
Open board meetings take place online once a month. The recurring day and time for board meetings in 2023 have not been set yet.
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.