Board/Minutes/2023-09
Date and time: Thursday 28 September 2023 at 15:00 UTC
Minutes approved by the board on 2023-10-26.
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 got locked one week before the meeting.
Location: Video room https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/dor-2cd-qah-rim
using BigBlueButton.
Participants
Board members
["talk" time*] Name (role, notes)
- [05'] Craig Allan
- [26'] Guillaume Rischard (Chairing)
- [08'] Mateusz Konieczny
- [08'] Mikel Maron
- [12'] Roland Olbricht (joined ~ 9' after start)
- [14'] Sarah Hoffmann
*Includes time when the microphone was activated due to noise.
Officers and board
Biographies
Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.
Not Present
- Arnalie Vicario
Guests
- 19 guests, including Kauê de Moraes Vestena and Dolores Reis (presenters)
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
- 2023-08 Approved.
Circular Resolutions
2023/Res24 Approve active contributor membership application #2023081410000461
| The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis. |
|
Rejected on 2023-09-01 with 5 votes in against: Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Guillaume Rischard (Please map a bit more to qualify), Mateusz Konieczny (Thanks for mapping! But for purely mapping contribution 42 days of mapping are required, with an automatic qualification), Sarah Hoffmann (For purely mapping contribution 42 days of mapping are required) |
| Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group. |
2023/Res25 Approve active contributor membership application #2023081510000146
| The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-01 with 5 votes in favour: Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann, Mateusz Konieczny (I think that this contributions are enough to cover at least that 9 missing mapping days (33 mapping days present already in last year). And thanks for your contributions!) |
| Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group. |
2023/Res26 Approve active contributor membership application #2023082510000074
| The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-05 with 4 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario, Mikel Maron, Sarah Hoffmann, Roland Olbricht (Not sure about 2023 activity. Google finds references to [link to staff page of GIS organisation] and SotM 2022 [link to presentation] so I assume that there is still activity.) |
| Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group. |
2023/Res27 Financial Statements Financial Year 2022
| Approval that the attached1 documents represent the financial situation of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
These are for fiscal year 2022 which is 01 Jan to 31 Dec for us. The formal report at the AGM 2023 will contain these documents in the ultimately submitted form, although they are then almost a year old, because UK law requires so. With the approval vote you indicate that the records are complete and correct. These drafts then become final without further changes. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-08 with 5 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario, Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. 1 disagreed: Mateusz Konieczny ("number of employees during the year was 8 (2021 - 7)." in "2022 draft accounts (2).pdf" is, as far as I know, inaccurate. It is in "EMPLOYEES AND DIRECTORS" so maybe it count our single employee, without counting contractors? And counts OSMF board? In such case, are we allowed to state "The average number of employees during the year was 1, average number of directors was 7". Or maybe "number of unpaid directors was 7". ? Or is it phrasing that we cannot change, even if it is misleading?) |
| Circular by Roland Olbricht. |
1 Note: Asked to not publish the attachments, as they contain the word "draft" and might create confusion.
2023/Res28 Appeal to ban by moderation on community.osm.org by NorthCrab
| The board has received an appeal from user NorthCrab to a ban issued by the forum moderation team. See https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/appeal-of-moderation-action-by-apm-wa/102858
The board decides that the actions of moderator apm-wa were correct and the appeal against the ban is denied. Detailed justification, see https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board/-/issues/476#note_1544895566 |
|
Circular passed on 2023-09-13 with 6 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario, Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann, Mateusz Konieczny (With following notes: |
| Circular by Sarah Hoffmann. |
2023/Res29 Approve active contributor membership application #2023090910000085
| The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-17 with 4 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. |
| Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group. |
2023/Res30 Approve active contributor membership application #2023091410000137
| The Board currently decides on active contributor membership applications based on non-mapping contributions on a case-by-case basis. |
|
Rejected on 2023-09-26 with 4 votes against: Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann, Mateusz Konieczny (Thanks for mapping! For purely mapping contribution there is an automatic qualification for 42 days of mapping within last year. This manual applications with a vote are rather for people who contribute in way other than mapping. If there are such significant contributions: I do not see them listed. I would encourage you to map a bit more and apply when 42 days of mapping are reached.) |
| Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group. |
Action item updates
| Public board action items - About | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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) | |||||||
Craig Allan
Executive Director
Related open action items:
#104 Craig Allan to talk with Guillaume Rischard about the Executive Director topic
#9 Executive director - Establish what we'd want an executive director to do/not do
- Work in progress.
- Will have something for the board by Thursday next week.
Guillaume Rischard
Fundraising
- Slowing down.
- It will take us to the end of the year to reach EUR 100,000.
- Fundraising team and the Communication Working Group (CWG) want to come up with ways of reactivating fundraising.
Licence Attribution enforcement
Related open action items:
#13 Trademark enforcement - Consult the Licensing Working Group (LWG) on process and form letter. Assemble team. Contact known offenders
#14 Trademark enforcement - Create issue tracker for trademark issues
Guillaume and Mateusz worked on an issue template to report obvious cases of using OSMF tiles without any attribution to OSM.
- Aim: simplify the process, without having it go through a human loop every time.
- Done in cooperation with Licensing Working Group (LWG) and Operations Working Group (OWG).
- Tile blocking: It's really easy to enforce attribution by blocking the use of our tiles.
- Next step: Turn the template into a GitHub template.
- Guillaume and Mateusz will be the initial maintainers of the new GitHub repository for reporting obvious cases of using OSMF tiles without attribution to OSM.
Vector tiles
Related open action item:
#36 Vector Tiles: To set up Engineering Working Group/Operations Working Group/board meeting, agree on go/no go
- Sarah and Guillaume had a chat with Paul Norman.
- Guillaume not fully happy with Paul's proposal, as it is not mentioning why we would do vector tiles.
- Curious about the software that Jochen Topf released a few days ago, which seems to achieve the same goals.
Personnel action items
- Suggestion of a closed board meeting or a closed section at the end of this meeting.
- Grant Slater (Senior Site Reliability Engineer) and Guillaume Rischard will have a meeting for solving the email delivery/spam issue.
Mateusz Konieczny
Trademark enforcement
Related open action items:
#112 Mateusz Konieczny to provide a draft letter for the selected two sites which lack OSM attribution at the July board meeting
#65 Attribution: To maybe make a blog posting thanking some data users with exemplary attribution
#64 Attribution: To announce that board is planning to take action to enforce attribution
- See the update on the Licence Attribution enforcement above.
- Waiting for some answers from people.
- Happy that our strategic plan turned out really well.
Roland Olbricht joined 9' after start.
Mikel Maron
Scheduled quarterly Q3 post
Related open action item:
#101 Third 2023 quarterly post from the OSMF Board
- Will be a bit late, before the Annual General Meeting, in December.
- It might sum up where we've gotten to over the course of this board.
Tax implications for receiving donations
Related open action item:
#95 Mikel to figure out tax implications for receiving donations, what are the rules and how to handle them
- The broader topic is better planning and optimal tax strategy.
- Will engage the Treasurer and the OSMF accountant.
HOT trademark agreement
Related open action item:
#72 HOT trademark agreement
- No change.
- Pinged Kate Chapman (Humanitarian OSM Team board president).
Roland Olbricht
Better information about expenditure spending
Related open action item:
#11 Budgetary controls - Have invoked the feedback such that any board member could answer at any time how much has been spent on any large item
#12 Budgetary controls - Confirm that no 2023 budget item has been overrun
- Roland sends the expenditures to the OSMF board every month.
- Roland just published the expenditures on community.osm.org
Sarah Hoffmann
Most action items are topics are on today's agenda (OSM Belgium, Strategic plan, OSMF move to the EU).
EWG
- We found a Rails developer who will apply for the proposal that the EWG put forward in January.
Vector Tiles
- Paul Norman has written an updated proposal - this is about what Jochen Topf showed as a proof of concept to put into operation on the OWG service.
- Sarah has provided some comments on the format of the proposal.
- Once the proposal gets updates, it should get back to the board - hopefully in the next couple of weeks.
Treasurer's report
| Previous reports during monthly board meetings and general meetings |
|---|
| See Treasurer's reports on the finances page. |
This month's report is here. First column is actual expenditure, second column is budgeted.
Publication of expenses
Aim: produce something that's easy to understand and to show how our bank accounts today look like. Not a forecast of how our finances will look like at the end of the year.
On commitments and projections
- The commitments that we haven't received yet, aren't reflected in the expenditure.
- The fundraising committee have some projections of where we're at, with all facets of the campaign.
- We can treat projections differently than our actual income and expenditure reporting.
The financial situation of the Foundation has been discussed on the opportunity of making the numbers more public.
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. |
MobilityLabel joined as a Supporter Corporate Member.
- Working on extending the Advisory Board to Bronze and Silver Corporate Members.
Interpretation of the etiquette guidelines
| Background |
|---|
| The board received an email request to clarify if all use of profanity is unacceptable behavior on channels that follow the Etiquette Guidelines or if language such as "wtf", when not directed to a person, would be acceptable. The email was prompted by a discussion between the moderators on community.osm.org concerning statement that "use of profane or obscene language violates the Etiquette Guidelines" and that this acronym always qualifies as such. |
The board got a request from the moderators regarding the use of profane words such as "wtf", if this is a reason for suspension or not.
Suggestion: Answer is "it depends", everything would have to be looked into context and an absolute statement that profane words are not allowed is not a correct interpretation of the Etiquette guidelines.
- Sarah to reply to moderators.
- The board was hands off on the drafting the etiquette guidelines.
On the specific case
- The person who got suspended reacted with "WTF" to someone else's well meaning, good intention comments.
- Issue: It wasn't the profanity in itself, but the rude calling someone's proposal idea stupid.
- There was a general agreement on the moderators that at least stepping in for the moderators was okay.
- Allan Mustard mentioned on the documentation of the ban that use of a profane word is not allowed and context doesn't matter. The moderators on community.osm.org seemed to disagree.
- The person blocked might not care any more.
On "wtf"
- Whether "wtf" qualifies as profanity is probably heavily affected by language differences.
- People who are speaking English as a second language might not even being aware what this acronym means.
On profanity and the etiquette guidelines
- Mikel discussed this issue with Maggie Cawley, who was directly involved in the drafting of the etiquette guidelines.
- Whether to include profanity was discussed while drafting the guidelines and it was deliberate that the guidelines are not taking a stance on the use of profanity.
Issue: If the specific language qualifies as profanity.
Concerns
- Driving community members away.
- Some people are also concerned that they can be banned due to using language which is not bad.
- If the same reasoning would be used in general in the future.
Suggestions
- The board should leave the interpretation to the moderators, using their different cultural background, to determine the intent of the person.
- The moderators can consult/involve the wider community.
Other points mentioned during discussion
- Use of profanity to express agreement with an idea would probably not be perceived to be problematic.
- Etiquette guidelines: The board was very hands off in coming up with the etiquette guidelines, which came from work of the wider community.
- The board might not be best placed to have the cultural sensitivity to answer that question.
- You can have verbal violence with sarcasm, even without using profanity.
By Allan Mustard
- The question at its core is whether profanity and obscenity constitute offensive speech.
- To some members of the community, it is offensive.
- As a result, it drives away some members of the community from participating in the talk lists and forum.
- I believe board members are aware that I personally in private circumstances also use profanity occasionally, but not in public.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wtf
Comment by Pierre Béland (guest) on the text chat "about diversity, a log of dimensions including cultural to take account of. Dominance of english in communications probably drives a lot more people out."
Comment by imagico (guest) on the text chat that English Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTF defines this as "an expression of disbelief" - i.e. a characterization of the own state of mind, not a judgement of another person (e.g. as stupid like someone said).
Comment by ImreSamu (guest) on the text chat that several acronyms are anticipated to become trademark symbols for the younger generation. "Procter & Gamble bids to trademark LOL, WTF and other acronyms (2018)" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/24/procter-gamble-bids-to-trademark-lol-wtf-and-other-acronyms
Vote: Etiquette guidelines and profanity
| Motion: According to the board there is no explicit reference to profanity in the Etiquette Guidelines and the board asks the moderators to always seek for the intent of the people who have written the message, interpreting whether a message is inappropriate or not. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-28 with 6 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Guillaume Rischard, Mateusz Konieczny, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. |
| Motion by Roland Olbricht. |
Approval of up to GBP 4000 for investigating how to transfer Contributor Term agreements on a move to the EU
| Background on OSMF relocation/subsidiary |
|---|
| See Board/Background/OSMF_relocation_or_subsidiary |
| Suggested by Sarah Hoffmann. |
Use 4000 GBP to Agio Legal to see how to transfer Contributor Term agreements on a move to the EU.
Aim: finding out if the contributor terms can be transferred.
- Sarah had a meeting with UK lawyers and a Licensing Working Group (LWG) member, which was a bit chaotic.
- Tom Hummel (LWG) is not convinced that they are the right people.
- We had already three meetings with Agio Legal and they have done some research and haven't charged us anything up to now.
- Would like to see how they work for us on a paid basis.
Other option
- Also looking at a big international law firm, Bird and Bird.
- They will talk to us only after we signed the letter of engagement (& payment), which would be more expensive.
- They weren't recommended, they stepped up themselves.
On expected deliverable
- They will look into the Contributor Terms and the Open Database License (ODbL) and find out what do we have to do in terms of agreement with the contributors, to transfer them to a new company.
- Quote says they will offer "advice", which is vague.
Suggestions
- Delay the motion until we find a firm specialising in intellectual property, trademarks and copyright. Guillaume has a firm in mind in Luxembourg.
- The board has been progressing very slowly for over 5 years.
- Promised to contact the firm for over a year.
- Plans to contact them tomorrow.
- Talk to Luxembourg lawyers in parallel.
- We can have an extraordinary General Meeting in march.
- By Kathleen Lu (LWG), as relayed: ask a few law firms and see what is out there.
Other points mentioned during discussion
- The Agio Legal quote is for research and 1 hour call - not for a solution.
- GBP 4000 is a relatively small amount.
- If we approve the budget, we might have a plan to present to people for the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in December.
- We will not have something tangible for the AGM.
- We can actually have an extraordinary general meeting at any time looking at this issue, e.g. in March.
- A large part is to understand British law and union-wide uniform law. The contributor terms are also independent of the target country.
- We can't afford to require consent from every contributor anymore.
- Brexit: It's more difficult to move the contributor terms after Brexit.
Approve budget of GBP 4000 for Agio to investigate how to transfer Contributor Term agreements on a move to the EU. Guillaume is tasked to find an additional law firm and establish contact, independent of this budget
| Motion: Approve budget of GBP 4000 for AGIO Legal to investigate how to transfer Contributor Term agreements on a move to the EU. In addition, Guillaume is tasked to find an additional law firm and establish contact, independent of this budget. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-28 with 5 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Mateusz Konieczny, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. |
| Motion by Sarah Hoffmann. |
Proposed draft policy on project-wide suspensions and bans
| Background |
|---|
Allan Mustard (board-appointed moderation team) proposed to the board a draft policy on project-wide suspensions and bans. Comments were solicited from the:
Several suggested changes were incorporated to the text. The process was documented in an attachment provided to the board, which includes both the final draft of the proposal and an appendix of selected relevant comments. Please note that a circular might be created before the board meeting, for voting on the adoption of the draft policy. |
Thanks expressed to Allan Mustard, for drafting the policy.
- Person trolling over multiple channels resulted in keeping even the board busy.
- The policy would be for rare events.
- The policy is for efficiency, as people with trolling behaviour will not be able to switch from one forum to the next.
Concerns
- The community should be able to comment on the proposed policy.
- The community can comment on all policies at any time.
- Define moderators and channels.
Suggestions
- Get this to community discussion. Roland volunteered to start discussion on community.osm.org
- Moderation groups opt-in to the policy, giving them right to propose and the obligation to ban these people when they are globally banned.
- Approve the policy and get it to the agenda next month.
Other points mentioned during discussion
- The moderators could already put the policy in place.
- Moderators don't need the board, just talk to each other.
- Even if we adopt the policy now, it's easy for the board to make changes to the policy.
- It is unlikely that another incident will happen within one year and even if it does it is predicted that the decision will most-likely be unanimous by the moderators.
- The board gets the report of the moderator sessions every month.
- If we see a tendency that starts to be a rift in a group who wants to enforce policies, we can remove the policy.
Roland Olbricht (board) highlighted on the text chat:
"Essential part: "If two or more groups of moderators, in accordance with their own procedural rules, vote in favor of such a ban (suspension), and if the Data Working Group (DWG) also votes in favor of such a ban (suspension), in accordance with the DWG’s procedural rules, the resolution shall be adopted and go into effect."
"If a discrete group of moderators should moderate more than one channel, all that group’s channels together shall be considered for purposes of this policy to constitute a single channel."
Comment by Allan Mustard (guest) on the text chat that the definition for OSMF-controlled is "A medium or project sponsored by and subject to rules imposed by a working group or other agent of the OpenStreetMap project and supported by the OSMF Board of Directors" and that this policy covers all media controlled by the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
Vote: Put the proposed project-wide policy on suspensions and bans into action
| Motion: Put the proposed project-wide policy on suspensions and bans into action. Second, to revisit the topic next month. And third, as an action item for me (Roland Olbricht) to start a discussion on community.osm.org about this or to watch out for discussions taking place there and inform the board about the feedback, having an informed discussion next month. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-28 with 4 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Guillaume Rischard, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht.. |
| Motion by Roland Olbricht. |
Implementation details left to Roland Olbricht.
Approval of strategic plan
| Background |
|---|
| See Board/Background/Strategic_Plan. |
| Topic suggested by Mikel Maron. |
Thanks expressed to Mikel Maron and Sarah Hoffmann for their work.
Vote: Adopt the strategic plan
| Motion: Adopt the strategic plan https://hackmd.io/I2AlXzqSTpuAcq69FcygPQ?view. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-28 with 6 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Guillaume Rischard, Mateusz Konieczny, Mikel Maron, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. |
| Motion by Roland Olbricht. |
Mikel Maron disconnected at 74 minutes after start.
Post-meeting note: Strategic Plan.
Termination of Local Chapter agreement with Open Knowledge Belgium
| Background |
|---|
| The board on 2018-05-24 approved Open Knowledge Belgium as the OSMF Local Chapter (LC) for Belgium, with the operating title "OpenStreetMap Belgium". The Local Chapter application and supporting documents are here.
OSM Belgium is currently transitioning its institutional home from Open Knowledge Belgium to OSGeo Belgium. The board received on 2023-09-27 an official request for the termination of the Local Chapter agreement, co-signed by Pieter Colpaert (Open Knowledge Belgium Board) and Joost Schouppe. |
| Topic suggested by Sarah Hoffmann. |
The Open Knowledge Foundation Belgium sent to the board s a termination request of the local chapter agreement.
- OSM Belgium have been with Open Knowledge Belgium for a long time and they are now creating their own non-profit organisation.
- Our local chapter agreement is with Open Knowledge Belgium.
- The local chapter agreement with Open Knowledge Belgium will be terminated, and the new organisation of OSM Belgium can apply for a Local Chapter agreement.
Vote: Accept the termination of the Local Chapter agreement, requested by the Open Knowledge Foundation Belgium, effective immediately
| Motion: Accept the termination of the Local Chapter agreement, requested by the Open Knowledge Foundation Belgium, effective immediately. |
|
Approved on 2023-09-28 with 5 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Guillaume Rischard, Mateusz Konieczny,, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann. |
| Motion by Sarah Hoffmann. |
Monthly presentation - OSM community in Brazil
Presentations by Kauê de Moraes Vestena and Dolores Reis.
Presentation by Kauê de Moraes Vestena (file size: 3.31 MB, *.pdf)
State of the Map Brasil 2023 will be a trilingual conference with no entrance fees.
Comment that it's nice to have a hybrid conference.
Question by Roland Olbricht on engaging participants during coffee break
It's challenging to involve the remote participants into coffee breaks. Do you have some success there or is it still something difficult?
> We are always on social media and Whats up groups. > Generally it's quite a challenge to attract people.
Question by Guillaume Rischard regarding applying to be a Local Chapter
Can we get you to join as a local chapter?
> We are interested on joining as a local chapter.
> OpenStreetMap Brazil is a strong group and growing, but it's not an official organisation yet.
> Kauê to send a message to OSMF to receive guidance on how to proceed regarding the creation of an official organisation and the Local Chapter process.
Any other business
Informal meetings of Guillaume Rischard with Meta and HOT
- Guillaume disclosed that he had informal meetings with people from Meta (Corporate Member) and Humanitarian OSM Team in New York City.
- It was mostly chatting over food or coffee.
- No decisions.
On suggestion by Dorothea for OSMF to have a booth at State of the Map EU 2023
> In principle it's desirable, but don't know what's the exact effort required.
> Like the idea, but the costs were a bit high.
Decision to do a circular.
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.
|
No comments or questions during this section.
Next meetings
To be set by the Secretary.
Open board meetings take place online monthly: currently on the last Thursday of the 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. The dates of public board meetings are also added to https://osmcal.org/