Board/Minutes/2024-02

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Date and time: Thursday 29 February, 13:30 UTC.
 Minutes approved by the board on 2024-03-28.

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.

Acronyms

Participants

["talk" time*] Name

  • [15'] Arnalie Vicario
  • [18'] Craig Allan (Chairing from 75 minutes after start until the end)
  • [03'] Dani Waltersdorfer
  • [19'] Guillaume Rischard (Chairing until 75 minutes after start)
  • [02'] Mateusz Konieczny
  • [24'] Roland Olbricht
  • [06'] Sarah Hoffmann

*Includes time when the microphone was activated due to noise.

Officers and board
Biographies
Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.

Guests

  • 15 guests, including Martijn van Exel (presenter)

Open to all OSM Foundation members. (Become a member of the Foundation, even for free if you are an active OSM contributor)

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.

Preliminaries

  • Welcome by Chair
  • Determination of quorum: There is quorum (see #Participants).

Administrative

Approval of previous minutes

Discussion about the 2023-12-11 board meeting

Enquiry by a board member on why the 2023-12-11 meeting, which was about the Vector Tiles contract and a board member's reprimand, is missing from the list above, while it was listed until yesterday.

Circular Resolutions

2024/Res06 Fast track approval of one Engineering Working Group contract

The Engineering Working Group (EWG) has successfully contracted in late 2023 Gregory Igelmund to implement the mute users feature. Now there is a chance to use the momentum and approve a follow-up. Gregory, Andy Allan, and the EWG have sorted out how they would like to have the notes refactored and Gregory is waiting for green lights to start.

This requires the board to authorize for the EWG spending up to 5000 EUR on Gregory's contract. This will be counted towards the EWG's budget for contractors and openstreetmap-website development in particular. The linked document contains Gregory's estimate of 3 to 6 workdays.

Approved on 2024-02-10 with 6 votes in favour:
- Guillaume Rischard
- Roland Olbricht
- Arnalie Vicario
- Sarah Hoffmann
- Craig Allan (Yes, agreed. But we do need to add some boilerplate. While we don't yet have a standard contract, I'd suggest including some text in the letter of appointment. This is not the place for that. I'll send the proposal on email.)
- Mateusz Konieczny (OSM Website development being slower than desirable is one of our issues and in this case spending is entirely justified. To avoid extra delays and discouraging what is already happening I support approving this contract.).
1 did not vote: Daniela Waltersdorfer.

Circular by Roland Olbricht.

2024/Res07 Update of Dorothea's contract

The OSMF board approves to renew Dorothea's* contract, which is up for yearly review on March 17th 2024. As per contract, the renewed contract includes an inflation compensation of 3.5%.

Approved on 2024-02-20 with 5 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht, Arnalie Vicario, Mateusz Konieczny , Sarah Hoffmann, Craig Allan (Agreed. Inflation has peaked and is coming down. This increase reflects the unusual post-covid spike and will be lower next year.).
2 did not vote: Daniela Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard.

Circular by Sarah Hoffmann.

* Dorothea Kazazi, OSMF Administrative Assistant.

2024/Res08 Budget to continue investigation into EU move closing

The board resolves to continue investigating requirements for moving the OSMF into the EU and approves a preliminary budget of 2000 GBP for the next step.

Approved on 2024-02-20 with 5 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht, Arnalie Vicario, Mateusz Konieczny , Sarah Hoffmann, Craig Allan (Supported. Thank you for your work Sarah.).
2 did not vote: Daniela Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard.

Circular by Sarah Hoffmann.

Action item updates

Public board action items - About
Filter by assignee Arnalie Craig Dani Guillaume Mateusz Roland Sarah Not assigned
Filter by label Example: any label # labels here (non-clickable)

Arnalie Vicario

Some of the items will be discussed later during this meeting.

2024 Local Chapters Congress

  • The Local Chapters Congress will take place on March 2 - everyone is welcome.
  • Board members are encouraged to participate, to show their support.
  • The OSMF affiliation model (currently related to organisations recognised by OSMF as Local Chapters) will be discussed during the congress.

Wikimedia East and southeast Asia and the Pacific conference 2024

Sent two proposals for participation to the Wikimedia East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific conference 2024. Proposals will be supported by OSM contributors and Wikimedians Eugene and Dennis.

Craig Allan

Busy with the budget and other board tasks, which will be mentioned in the Secretary's report.

Dani Waltersdorfer

Will have action items for the next board meeting.

Guillaume Rischard

  • There will be a meeting next week with a governmental official of Luxembourg for discussing moving OSMF to the EU.
  • Vector Tiles blog-post.
  • Work on the 2024 OSMF budget.

Mateusz Konieczny

  • Time spent on OSMF's budget and other trademark-related activities.
  • Will work on finding a member for the Dispute Resolution panel.

Roland Olbricht

No action item updates due to illness.

Worked on the 2024 OSMF budget and Treasurer items.

Sarah Hoffmann

OSMF move to the EU

  • No charity status in the UK: Discussion with Licensing Working Group (LWG) and UK law firm about OSMF not being a charity in the UK. Coming now to the conclusion that this is mostly because we have an objective to provide data, which is not related to humanitarian purposes or public benefit.
  • The Luxembourg or Belgium issue has to be resolved promptly.
  • Currently awaiting a response from the law firm regarding our comment that OSMF's objectives do not include a social purpose.

Secretary's report

Report by Craig Allan:

We are using GitLab issues to track our work and it has been much more successful than the previous method of long trailing email chains. I will report today on our activities drawing from the latest issues (#number) on the Board GitLab.

Community Involvement

#580 #440 Arnalie is busy working on a number of community related initiatives to review and improve the way in which the foundation enrolls associate members. She has made changes to the way the application procedures are described on the Wiki to add some much needed clarity to the process and hopefully to attract more people from developing countries to apply. She is also looking to possibly change the 42 days of activity requirement, but at this stage we haven't seen proposals.

Wikimedia Conference

#563 We are also looking to possibly send Arnalie to represent the foundation at the Wikimedia East and southeast Asia and the Pacific conference in May 2024. Arnalie is based in Manila so the conference is nearby. The conference is an opportunity to build relationships with the Wikimedia movement for co-operation around our quite similar missions.

SotM Latam using LimeSurvey

#586 The organisers of the State of the Map Latin America have requested to use the foundations copy of the survey software LimeSurvey. We routinely allow local chapters to use the survey software subject to some conditions. The matter is before the Board today.

Community ban policy

#585 We are engaged in discussions about imposing a long term ban on someone who has been repeatedly and deliberately disruptive in various communities. The most serious of the community moderation issues do come to the Board for decisions. Fortunately these cases are rare. It is important that we do act against disruptive elements with a carefully graded response depending on the severity and persistence of the disruptive behaviour.

New budget process

#582 As you will hear in this meeting we have been working on updating our budget development process with the assistance of an accountant Harrison Devine who is also now an OSM USA Board member. There have been extra Board meetings to approve the process and the results as we go along. We now have in place a new industry standard budget format, a procedure, a set of rules to control spending and procurement and rules for writing contracts with suppliers. It has been a major project of the Board over the last three months. We do expect some teething troubles and adjustments but in all we are proud of the new system.

Translations of OSM content

#530 We have a project to translate the Mission Statement of the Foundation into many languages. We are very aware that OSM is a global movement and that we have mappers who speak hundreds of different languages. The previous version of the Mission was machine translated into 9 languages, corresponding to the countries and cultures where OSM is most popular and also including the major colonial languages which have been widely adopted in the developing world. The current version has been updated in English and the other languages must now be translated. Machine translation is fairly good these days but it can occasionally produce some very strange translations. Please bring any problems to our attention.

It is our Birthday!

#584 The OSM movement celebrates a big birthday this year. Twenty years of OSM. We are planning for communications and fundraising events to celebrate and we encourage all Local Chapters and the other big OSM using organisations like HOT and YouthMappers to also mark the anniversary.

Software Dispute Resolution panel

#531 We have a software dispute resolution panel, which is a variation on a moderation team for the community forums. Its purpose is to resolve disputes that arise about our own software. There have been very few problematic disputes in the last few years, so we are doing something right. Despite the low workload the panel needs to be refreshed with some new members. As there are few problems these days we have not been active enough in reappointing panel members. Our apologies for that - we're working on it!

Spending Policy and Controls

#570 We have developed a spending policy to control spending by the Board and its structures. The proposal is to split spending into three categories with slightly different rules. The trigger values for the rules are purchases under 500 euros, 501 to 10 000 euros and anything over 10 000 Euros. The policy is up before the board for approval today so I'll say no more on that.

Improve liaison with Working Groups

#568 Also before the board is a proposal to place one Board member into each Working Group to act as the board liaison. The board member can participate in the activities of the group but is not allowed to be the Chairperson of the group. By doing this we hope to improve two way communication between Working Groups and the board, which has been lacking for long time.

Moving the date of Elections

#569 We are looking at moving the date of Board elections so that we are not running an election and preparing a budget at the same time. Budgets require the full attention of the Board members and the distraction of an election is not productive. The proposal by the Treasurer is before the Board today.

Sponsorships for State of the Map Europe 2024

#560 State of the Map Europe 2024 has approached us with a view to helping find sponsors for their conference. We have agreed to include SotM EU as an option for sponsors when we approach them, but have not at this time provided further support. The discussions are on-going.

Face to Face meeting 2024

#559 We are still working on setting up a face to face meeting of the seven board members. Working virtually has serious limits when there is a need to develop working relationships and we believe that mutual trust and understanding can be improved by meeting face to face for a working session. We are looking to meet in May but the venue is as yet undecided. Keeping the costs low has been a major factor in choosing a venue.

Appointing an Executive Director

#9 The question of appointing an Executive Director is still on our minds. There are a number of reports on this ready to be discussed but bandwidth and the budget have been blocking proper discussions on this.

Relocating to the EU

#271 The Board is still working on relocating the organisation to Europe. The current candidates are Belgium and Luxembourg. This item has probably the longest series of issue tracker documents. At the moment the decision regarding which country we will move to is top of the list of priorities as not having a decision on this blocks further developments.

Comments welcome

If anyone has any opinions about the format or content of these reports please send your comments to Craig Allan at secretary at osmfoundation dot org.

Treasurer's report

  • Working on the budget.

Corporate Members

  • Two Corporate Members require extra paperwork and they are technically late on payments.
  • We might need to reach to our contacts to fix this.

State of the Map Europe 2023 loan and sponsorships

  • OSMF has given out an emergency loan to SotM Europe 2023 and processed some sponsorships for the organisers.
  • Waiting for OSGEO Belgium to send us an invoice, in order to send them the money that we owe them (EUR 10,000 - 15,000) and close the fiscal year 2023. We have informed them.

2024 budget approval

Proposed 2024 OSM Foundation budget
Message by OSMF Chairperson

  • The budget is of good quality and carefully ambitious.
  • Currently our reserves extend beyond one year's worth.
  • Our aim is to maintain reserves equivalent to one year's expenses in our accounts, considering our current expenditure rate, to mitigate major disasters.
  • Minimal feedback on mailing lists and forum.
  • Increased investment is planned for both engineering and communication efforts.
  • With additional income influx we will allocate resources for Microgrants, local community initiatives, and Microgrants by the Engineering Working Group (EWG).

Thanks were expressed to Harrison Devine, Working Groups (WGs) members providing estimations of expenses and feedback, Roland Olbricht, the rest of board members and other people involved in preparing the budget.

Vote on proposed 2024 OSMF budget (Approved)

Motion to approve the budget, as it stands.
Unanimously approved on 2024-02-29 with 7 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario, Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard, Mateusz Konieczny, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann.
Proposed by: Craig Allan, Seconded by: Roland Olbricht.

Layered spending policy

Aim of the proposed framework: instill trust in the foundation members, especially the Working Groups, by allowing them autonomy, while providing guidance without excessive oversight.

Thanks were expressed to Craig, who created the draft document, and Allan.

Different frameworks based on expenditure size

  • Small amounts: Individuals spend and get reimbursed if the spending aligns with a designated line item from the budget.
  • Medium-sized items: Working groups or the board, where applicable, are required to make a formal resolution, to ensure a deliberate decision regarding the expenditure on the specified line item.
  • Large expenses: Require a conscious decision from the working groups and a formal resolution from the board.

On recurring expenses

  • Not subject to formal resolutions. Examples provided: fluctuations in Dutch electricity prices for our data centre there or variable salaries due to inflation or performance.
  • To be managed with flexibility to avoid excessive bureaucracy.

Draft policy overview

  • The policy is expected to be a living document, subject to adjustments.
  • Motion proposed to approve the draft document into official policy, emphasizing the importance of practicality in execution.

Other points mentioned

  • The Dutch electricity prices have almost doubled, affecting our expenses for the data center in Amsterdam. This was discussed but leaving is not really an option.

Motion to approve the draft document into a proper policy.

Proposed amendment

Amendment proposed by Guillaume to add a paragraph that the Treasurer is in charge of setting up procedures according to the policy (implementation), so that we don't have to go to a board meeting every time there's a form to change.

  • Several points in the policy mention that the Treasurer is responsible.
  • Objection, as this should be discussed by the board.

Suggestion: Approve the policy now, as it can be amended in the future. The board can discuss the amendment outside of the meeting.

On timeline

The policy will be put into effect immediately, in conjunction with budget.

On budget line items and publishing the detailed budget

Clarification requested on which line items of the published budget the policy refers to, as the published budget is not as detailed as the budget that the board has access to.

> We would reconfirm to the Working Groups which line items are available to them and expect them to make decisions based on these line items.

On publishing the detailed budget

  • There is a detailed budget which was not published, as it contains enough information to infer people's salaries.
  • While it would good to publish the more detailed budget, this would add another iteration of the budget and prolong the time needed to adopt it.
  • Suggestion for approval of the budget during this meeting, which allows the option to publish the detailed budget at a later time.
    • mostly affecting EWG and CWG. The minutes of these working groups reveal which items they requested.

Other point mentioned during discussion

  • The budget is supposed to be a living document.

Vote on layered spending policy (Approved)

Motion to approve the layered spending policy draft document into a proper policy.

Approved on 2024-02-29 with 6 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard, Mateusz Konieczny, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann.
1 abstained: Arnalie Vicario (haven't read the whole doc and would like to read it first; I do agree about the concept)

Proposed by: Roland Olbricht, Seconded by: Craig Allan.

Move the 2024 Board election date

Proposal to move the 2024 board election date, to get the budgeting process in order. With the current set up we would only see the 2023 financial accounts in December of 2024, which is very late.

  • The board estimated the time needed to make future budgets and the proposal is to move the next general assembly date, which will include the board election, to October 19th 2024.
  • Feedback by OSMF's accountant: We could present the financial accounts in June.
  • Community consultation: no strong preferences expressed.

Suggestions

  • Present the accounts in June 2024 (AGM), have the 2024 board election in October and future Annual General Meetings (AGMs) and board elections in June.
  • Move to October right now and if it proves not very useful, we can gradually move it to June later on.

Choosing June

  • Having the AGM in June we run to the question, what's the right length of the year.
  • People who would like to be candidates in the board election must already be OSMF members.

Choosing October

  • Sub-optimal for presenting the accounts - it's very late in the year.
    • It's earlier than December.
  • October is mostly uncontroversial.
  • Compromise between having a good chance to be ready in time to present the budget and moving the election too much.
  • Nothing prevents us from having the budget published earlier than October.

On officially presenting the financial accounts during an AGM

  • Done mostly for legal reasons.
  • Presenting the accounts at the AGM consists of the Treasurer putting a link to an OSMF webpage into the chat room for the general assembly.

On timelines to be taken into account

  • OSMers that want to be board candidates, have to be OSMF members for at least 180 days before the election date.
  • Time needed for members to start their own motion, to be voted during the AGM. This is an option that is rarely used.

On preparation of financial accounts

  • Accountant is preparing the draft financial accounts of the past financial year in our online book-keeping system, Xero.
  • Process and timing:
    • Draft accounts are typically submitted around mid year to the auditing body of the respective government.
    • Consulting the accountant when the draft financial accounts of the past financial year are so stable that we could publish them to the members. While we could present them to the members in January, based on our numbers in Xero, this is somewhat risky as some numbers get adjusted during January and February. This would not be an official publication.
    • Technically, until June we could present a draft to the members which will be expected to be identically to the final, when the accounts have been approved by the overseeing body.
  • The financial accounts are official once they get returned from the British government.
  • The Belgian government may have a totally different stance on when they expect and return our financial accounts.

Related to OSMF's move to the EU

  • With the move to the EU we might have to present the accounts earlier to the government office.
  • Belgium requires that we would have to present our accounts to the corporate clerk of the court within six months of the closure of our financial year. Also it is required that we present our budget to our members as well.
  • Move to the EU unlikely to take place this year.

Question by imagico (guest) via text on whether moving the election change the seats regularly up for election.

> No. Same 4 seats.

Vote to have the general assembly on the 19th of October 2024 (Approved)

Motion to have a general assembly this year for the Foundation on the 19th of October 2024.

Unanimously approved on 2024-02-29 with 7 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario , Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Guillaume Rischard, Mateusz Konieczny, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann.

Proposed by: Roland Olbricht, Seconded by: Craig Allan.

Appointing of board liaison for Working Groups

Proposed motion by Sarah Hoffmann:
"The board appoints a board liaison for each OSMF working group. The liaison is not a full working group member but the point of contact for board and Working Groups and responsible for communication between groups."
Seconded by: Craig Allan, Arnalie Vicario.

The liaison

  • will not be a full working group member.
  • will be a contact for the board and working groups and responsible for communication between the groups. E.g. the liaison will be responsible to handle external requests that the board receives, which should be handled by a working group. They will also report to the board what's happening in the working groups.

Rationale

  • Communication issues between board and working groups in the past year, which were mostly due to lack of hands.
  • Sharing the workload will help.
  • Frustrating for Working Groups, if communications have to happen with someone not involved in WG work.
  • Most time the Working Groups don't want to talk with the board. When there is a need, Working Groups email the whole board.
  • When working groups write to the board, the response is usually delayed.

On difference of a board liaison from a board member participating in a working group

  • A liaison will not actively involved in a Working Group's work and their role is related only to communications between the board and the working group.
  • A liaison would not have to join a Working Group.
  • Board members who are active members in Working Groups should stay active but being a liaison is a different role.

Concern: Working Groups might see this as control by the board.

Suggestions

  • Offer to Working Groups to select board members as liaisons.
    • This might lead in a similar situation with the current one, where the work is not spread out between board members.
  • Board members to start attending and organising meetings for some of the groups.
    • Board members are busy with board work. Better to just watch Working Group (WG) meetings.
  • Formalisation: e.g. the liaison can ask other board members to attend meetings, if they are unavailable.
  • Formal communication between the board and the Working Groups should be under the Secretary.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • It is important to build trust between the board and the working groups.
  • There are currently board members in all working groups.
  • If WGs don't want to talk to the board, that's a problem.
  • Being active in a Working Group does not mean only joining meetings but following up Working Group activity asynchronously too, e.g. by checking the GitLab repositories of working groups.
  • Having a point of contact at the Working Group meetings is important and makes the community feel seen and heard.

Vote to replace "the board appoints" with "the board offers" (Did not pass)

Proposed amendment to change the main motion to: "The board offers a board liaison for each OSMF Working Group. The liaison is not a full Working Group member but the point of contact for board and Working Groups and responsible for communication between groups."

Did not pass on 2024-02-29 with 4 votes in against: Arnalie Vicario , Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Sarah Hoffmann.
2 in favour: Guillaume Rischard, Roland Olbricht.
1 did not vote: Mateusz Konieczny.

Proposed by: Guillaume Rischard.

Vote to appoint a board liaison for each OSMF Working Group (Approved)

The board appoints a board liaison for each OSMF Working Group. The liaison is not a full Working Group member but the point of contact for board and Working Groups and responsible for communication between groups.

Approved on 2024-02-29 with 5 votes in favour: Arnalie Vicario , Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Mateusz Konieczny, Sarah Hoffmann.
1 against: Guillaume Rischard.
1 abstained: Roland Olbricht.

Proposed by: Sarah Hoffmann.

Guillaume disconnected 75' after start.

Diversify the OSMF Working Group membership

  • Diversifying the OSMF working group membership is an action item from the 2023 screen-to-screen board meeting.
  • Arnalie decided to initially focus on diversifying the OSMF membership, especially in areas where there are none or few OSMF members.
  • The MWG volunteers provided membership statistics in January 2024, processed by Dorothea.

Current work on membership campaign, with volunteers. There are two volunteer teams and two meetings have taken place so far. Currently preparing materials and testimonials for the membership campaign.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Arnalie now has a working relationship now with Michael Spreng and Steve Friedl, volunteers in the Membership Working Group (MWG).
  • OSMF membership is crucial, as it gives people a voice on the OpenStreetMap project and on how to run the OSMF.

Consolidate requirements for active contributor memberships

Work done so far:
Updated the wording of the application page for getting an OSMF membership based on non-mapping contributions in the past year. Added request for clarification on what OSM contributions people have made in the past year, to ease the evaluation of the applications by the board, and

Questions added:

  • Describe your activities for the OpenStreetMap project in the past year. If you extend your active contributor membership, it is especially important to tell us what you have done since your last application. We are mainly interested in activities other than mapping. (required)
  • Provide references to your OSM contributions. These can be in the form of links to online documentation of your contributions and/or a letter of support describing your contributions written by another active OSM contributor or organization. (required).
  • Which membership type are you applying for? (required) Note: To know more about Normal and Associate membership type, please read: Membership-Categories.

Currently working on:
Revising the text on the active contributor membership page link shared during meeting.

Thanks expressed to volunteers, MWG, CWG and LCCWG. Some of the volunteers were also present during the meeting.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • No board member requested a vote on updating the wording.
  • Previously, associate membership was granted by default to community members who got an active contributor membership.
  • In 2020 the OSMF members approved to amend the OSMF fee schedule to allow Active Contributor awardees to receive (regular/normal) OSMF membership, rather than just associate membership (rationale).

OSMF Board representation in Wikimedia East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific (ESEAP) conference

Suggestion: Have a vote during the March board meeting, regarding Arnalie's in-person participation.

Potential to collaborate with Mozilla

Suggested by Arnalie Vicario.

Topic to be discussed during March mid-month board chat.

Planning a potential face-to-face board meeting

A face-to-face board meeting will probably take place on April 27th and 28th or in May. The meeting will be facilitated by Allen Gunn (Gunner). Dani and Craig are currently working on city selection, assessing the total cost (travel, accommodation, Visas).

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • The board has been talking about a face-to-face board meeting since early January.
  • There is value of having a board meeting in person, or at least with board members at very close time zones.

Presentation: MapRoulette by Martijn van Exel

Martijn van Exel MapRoulette presentation for 2024-02-29 board meeting.pdf

10 minute presentation on MapRoulette by Martijn van Exel.

5 minutes questions and comments.

Question by Ilya Zverev (guest) on how can the OSMF Board help

  • MapRoulette is a well engineered and established system: Martijn has been working on it over a decade
  • MapRoulette has become critical infrastructure: about 40,000 change-sets a month attributed to MapRoulette.
  • Aspiration: make it an endorsed and maybe integrated part of the OpenStreetMap infrastructure - which is related to the Operations Working Group and the board.

Comments by board members:

  • Encouragement to start now and send a plan about MapRoulette integration to the board.
  • While OSMF moves slowly, the board is prepared to listen and it has a good track record on finishing things.

Comment by Ilya Zverev (guest)

MapRoulette is amazing and is an important tool inside some very big companies.

Comment by Eugene (guest)

MapRoulette is currently a Charter Project of OSM US: https://openstreetmap.us/our-work/charter-projects/

Question by Supaplex (guest) on whether the board can help with the stability of the MapRoulette website

One recent issue is the stability of the MapRoulette website. Can the board help?.

Any other business

Request for access to OSMF LimeSurvey instance for SotM Latam 2024

  • No objection expressed in providing the SotM Latam 2024 organisers with access to the OSMF LimeSurvey instance.

Guest comments or questions

Question by imagico (guest) about the 2023-12-11 emergency board meeting and 'mid-month board chats'

Question by imagico (guest) on whether the board - for clarification to the members - can confirm that,

  • the 2023-12-11 emergency meeting has been a board meeting according to the Articles of Association (AoA) and rules of order
  • the so-called 'mid-month board chats' of the board are not meetings according to the AoA and rules of order

> We cannot check at this moment whether everything is fulfilled. The emergency meeting has hit the quorum and, in that sense, the prerequisites from inviting have been fulfilled.
> The mid month board-chats are also usually hitting the quorum - no one considers them to be formal meetings according to the articles of association.

imagico was asked whether the answer was sufficient or whether he would like more details. The reply was that he would like an authoritative reply ultimately but ok.

The board to sent an authoritative reply via email, after looking at the 2023-12-11 meeting minutes to check whether all the requirements were met.

Next meetings

All Board meetings for 2024 have been planned. 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.

Open board meeting on Thursday 28 March 2024

Open board meetings take place online monthly: currently on the last Thursday of every month.

Dates: See this Framagenda calendar (green dots), and the monthly board meetings page. The dates of public board meetings are also added to https://osmcal.org/.

Mid-month board chat on Thursday 14 March 2024

Mid-month board chats are not open to observers.

Dates: See this Framagenda calendar (yellow dots), and the monthly board meetings page.

Meeting adjourned 1 hour and 46 minutes after start.

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