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Board/Minutes/2025-10

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Date and time: Thursday 30 October at 13:00 UTC
Minutes approved during the 2025-11-27 board meeting.

Location: Video room https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/dor-2cd-qah-rim
using BigBlueButton.

Important:

1. The new recurring meeting time is at 13:00 UTC.
2. DST change in Europe but not in the US: Please note that at the time of the meeting, Daylight Saving Time will have ended in Europe (on 26 October), but not yet in the US (where it ends on 2 November).


Acronyms

Participants

["talk" time*] Director's name

  • [>1'] Brazil Singh
  • [18'] Craig Allan (Chairing)
  • [07'] Dani Waltersdorfer (joined 13' after start)
  • [14'] Héctor Ochoa Ortiz
  • [>1'] Maurizio Napolitano
  • [>1'] Laura Mugeha
  • [39'] Roland Olbricht (joined 9' after start)

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

Officers and Board Historic
Board member biographies Historic
Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.

Guests

  • 9 guests

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.

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Administrative

Approval of previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

2025/Res24 Approval to purchase items for OSMF Booth at SotM 2025

Hi everyone,

As part of our participation at the State of the Map, the foundation has a booth at the conference; for the community to pass by, ask questions, share feedback etc. We are requesting approval to spend upto €300 on some items - most likely stickers. The longer discussion is on Gitlab here: https://gitlab.com/osmfoundation/board/-/issues/885

Approved on 2025-09-27 with 5 votes in favour: Brazil Singh, Laura Mugeha, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Maurizio Napolitano.
2 did not vote: Craig Allan, Roland Olbricht.

Circular by Laura Mugeha.

Note: The board GitLab repository is not accessible by members.

2025/Res25 Approve active contributor membership application #2025091510000042

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

Did not pass on 2025-10-03 with:
3 votes against: Craig Allan (Many mapping contributions over a short period are valued but short of 42 days activity. There are no links to active contributor activities. We need more data on non mapping activities to grant active contributor membership.), Laura Mugeha (They only have 15 days of mapping over the last 365 Days, therefore not meeting the requirements for the Active Contributor program. Maybe they can reapply and share additional non-mapping contributions, in case this was their intention.), Roland Olbricht (Encourage them to list and explain non-mapping activities that might justify an Active Contributor status. Mapping activities alone are too little.)
2 votes in favour: Brazil Singh, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz (A small number of changesets, and very concentrated in time, but a large amount of map changes. In 2024, they fulfilled the number of mapping days per year, even though they didn't in 2025.).
2 did not vote: Daniela Waltersdorfer, Maurizio Napolitano.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2025/Res26 Approve active contributor membership application #2025092510000103

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

Approved on 2025-10-09 with 6 votes in favour: Brazil Singh, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Laura Mugeha, Maurizio Napolitano, Roland Olbricht.
1 did not vote: Craig Allan.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2025/Res27 Move OSMF of out UK: Initial lawyer consultation

The board approves GBP 2000 fees for Bird & Bird lawyers for the call how to move out of the UK, in particular without prohibitive taxes.

Did not pass on 2025-10-10 with,
3 votes against:
- Craig Allan (B&B is an excellent firm, but we cannot afford multiple consultations with a world class firm. Our legal problems are simple not complex, we already have a tax mimimisation strategy and I believe we could get comparable legal service from a less high profile service provider.)
 - Daniela Waltersdorfer (I wanted to move forward ASAP as we all did when we had our group chat. However, I was a bit caught off guard when after my e-mail I learned the fee. I know I said we should move forward, but after more cautious thinking and some research it seems that 2k lbs is too high of a cost for an organization like ours.)
- Brazil Singh (While Bird & Bird has strong expertise, their fee of £2,000 + VAT for just the first call is high for OSMF. Since there will likely be further calls and additional fees beyond this initial stage, the total costs could escalate quickly. I believe we should seek quotes from other UK firms that may provide the same guidance at a more sustainable cost.)
2 abstained: Laura Mugeha, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz
1 vote in favour: Roland Olbricht
1 did not vote: Maurizio Napolitano

Circular by Roland Olbricht.

2025/Res28 Board approves funds up to 350 Euros for SotM Africa 2025 for Laura Mugeha

Hello Board,

Laura will attend SOTM Africa in Tanzania. She will cover the majority of the costs but the vote agrees on covering funds for her travel costs (lodging, food) up to 350Euros.

Did not pass on 2025-10-23 with,
3 votes in favour: Daniela Waltersdorfer, Maurizio Napolitano, Brazil Singh.
1 abstained: Craig Allan.
3 did not vote: Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Laura Mugeha, Roland Olbricht.

Circular by Dani Waltersdorfer.

Note: The circular had the title "example title" and was under a vote proposal with the title "Board approves funds up to 350 Euros for SOTM Europe for Roland", while the content was for Laura. Craig abstained with the following message "Roland indicated that he would be happy to cover his own costs."

Related to
- circular 2025/Res22 "Board approves funds up to 350 Euros for SotM Africa 2025 for Laura Mugeha" (did not pass),
- and subsequent vote during the August 2025 meeting Vote to cover funds for Laura's travel costs for SotM Africa 2025 (approved).

2025/Res29 Approve active contributor membership application #2025072310000361

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

Approved on 2025-10-29 with 4 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht Laura Mugeha, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Maurizio Napolitano (Every person who works hard to create a community and achieves results should be rewarded).
1 abstained: Brazil Singh
2 did not vote: Daniela Waltersdorfer, Craig Allan.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

2025/Res30 Approve active contributor membership application #2025082110000265

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

Approved on 2025-10-29 with 5 votes in favour: Roland Olbricht, Laura Mugeha, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Daniela Waltersdorfer (The applicant]'s contributions are unique and essential for OSM. [Their] passion for the project is admirable and important), Maurizio Napolitano ([The applicant] has been a longtime contributor to the OpenStreetMap ecosystem. Even though [they are] not mapping, [their] contribution is still to the OSM infrastructure, which therefore enables mapping. I'm in favor of renewal. If we don't agree, I'll still propose renewal, but I'll ask that [they] also contribute to mapping for renewal the following year).
1 against: Brazil Singh (Reason of disagree: Last map edit: [Month redacted] [Date redacted], 2022).
 1 did not vote: Craig Allan.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

Chairperson's report

There was no report due to personal reasons.

Secretary's report

Good Morning, Afternoon, or Evening (depending on your timezone!) Thank you for joining us today. I want to start by mentioning that some of us had the pleasure of attending this year’s SOTM in Manila. Craig, Hector, Laura, Brazil, and I were able to meet there in person, and take advantage of the opportunity to get to know and interact with the OSM community and our sponsors. We took turns doing our volunteer Board member duties and attendings sessions. Thank you to all the volunteers, and a special shout-out to Arnalie and Faye for hosting a tremendous event!

We have received some feedback from community members and I want you to know we are not ignoring you or them. We are taking action internally and will notify you when appropriate.

The Board has a big task this year to focus on fundraising. Something, that unfortunately, has lacked a bit in the recent years. One of the main action items to is to have more open and direct communications and partnerships between the Foundation and our Corporate Members. As the Secretary, I have been sending emails to our Corporate Members so that we can have 1:1 meetings between their key representatives and us so that we can both have an understanding of our priorities and what it means to be a Corporate Member of the Foundation. Another exciting update is that we have received 30k from the FLOSS Fund—Thank you! If you’d like to learn more about our communications with our Corporate Members, please reach out and let us know. If you have ideas for further fundraising opportunities, I’d like to kindly ask you to share it with us.

Treasurer's report

  • Roland got the budget creation reproducible/automated.
  • Our reserves would be at a deficit of GBP 25-100K in comparison to last year.
  • Should focus on fundraising during this last quarter of the year.

Héctor was thanked for his work on the FLOSS fund application and follow-up.

See the funrraising discussion below.

Fundraising

FLOSS fund $30K funding for OSM

The FLOSS fund has been set-up by the Indian company Zerodha, which distributes 1 million per year to open source projects all over the world. Each selected project could get 10K-100K. Application was easy: we had to create a machine readable file in *.json format, that mentioned all of our fundraising options. We have included our various donations options and different Corporate Memberships. We received a $30K donation.

The Operations Working Group (OWG) members, the openstreetmap.org website maintainers and Grant Slater ((OSMF Senior Site Reliability Engineer) were thanked for checking the file and proposing changes.
Mateusz Konieczny (former board member) was thanked for notifying the board about the FLOSS fund.

Suggestions

  • Attendees were asked to notify the board about any other funding opportunities that might be applicable for the OSM Foundation.
  • Ask Zerodha to change their donation to a Platinum Corporate Membership (€30,000 per year), in case they want to provide support to following years.
    • We should clarify to the FLOSS fund that becoming an OSMF Corporate Member is an expected offer of support to the project.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • The application file was being reviewed before submission for 1-2 months.

Dani joined ~ 13' after start.

Zerodha was thanked for this donation to OpenStreetMap.

Communications with our Corporate Members

Communicating with OSMF Corporate Members is a crucial action item from the 2025 board face-to-face meeting. Dani has been emailing Advisory Board representatives, proposing one-on-one meetings.

Aims

  • Increase transparency between OSMF and Corporate Members.
  • Discuss what it means to be a Corporate Member and to sponsor the OpenStreetMap project.

The board has received some feedback and is setting up meetings.

Dani was thanked for reaching out to the Corporate Members.
Corporate Members were thanked for their support, for understanding that we need to cover expenses for running the servers.

Questions on Fundraising

Mikel Maron (guest, Advisory Board coordinator, former board member) asked what is our fundraising strategy, what are we trying to raise, what is it for, and what are the basket of fundraising approaches OSMF wants to pursue.

With funds, these two years we have

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • If we had more funds, we could do more to actively pushed the OpenStreetMap project forward.
  • The Sovereign Tech Agency (which funds the OSMF Core Software Development Facilitator position for two years) does not want to see their money to be spent on frontend.
  • We aim to recover from last year, which we had 90K in deficit.

Open Source Funding by MapTiler

The board was notified by a community member that MapTiler is distributing $100,000 to benefit open source developers.

Link shared: https://www.maptiler.com/open-source/

Suggestions

  • Contact MapTiler and apply for funding or ask them to become a Corporate Member, as they have been a part of the OpenStreetMap ecosystem for many years.
  • The board to review Héctor's draft message to MapTiler.

Investigate moving OSMF out of the UK, and into the EU

Background
Many years ago we decided to move OSMF to the EU, where data protection is stronger. The board is working on this. Guidance from the initial law firm which OSMF contracted was deemed unacceptable by the Licensing Working Group (LWG). More recently, there was a failed meeting with attorneys Bird&Bird - a firm proposed by the LWG - as Board members believe that the Bird&Bird fees are expensive (See Circular 2025/Res27 "Move OSMF of out UK: Initial lawyer consultation"). The board is currently looking into the next steps.

We need

  • Attorneys in UK to tell us how to close the Foundation.
  • Attorneys in Belgium to tell us how to create the new entity.

On cost

  • Expected total legal cost: ~20K, even with a cheaper law firm.
    • A cheaper law firm might mean a total failure, as it was our experience with the first firm.

Suggestions

  • Roland to seek advice from the Eclipse Foundation, which moved from the US to Brussels last year, for establishing an entity with the right Articles of Association in Belgium and then transfer the assets one-by-one.
  • Craig or Roland to talk to the LWG, as the initial recommendation for the Bird&Bird law firm was from them. Dani has contacted the LWG regarding the recent board's vote.
  • Craig (Chairperson), Dani (Secretary) and potentially Héctor (Deputy Secretary) to discuss how to find a new law firm.

On the draft Articles of Association for a new entity in Belgium

Action items

  • Craig to talk to the LWG, regarding moving OSMF out of the UK, and into the EU, as the initial recommendation for the Bird&Bird law firm was from them.
  • Roland to seek advice from the Eclipse Foundation, that moved from the US to Brussels last year, for establishing an entity with the right Articles of Association in Brussels and then transfer the assets one-by-one.
  • The board to announce that the period for comments on the draft Articles of Association for a new entity in Belgium is open.

GoFundMe was using the OpenStreetMap marks to fundraise without permission

The board received a communication from OpenStreetMap US Inc. (OSMF Local Chapter in the US.). GoFundMe had created a page soliciting donations in the name of OSM US Inc., as well as pages for multiple 501C-3 organisations, without their consent. The attempt to raise funds using the OSM marks without our approval, infringes our rights.

The URL was https://www.gofundme.com/charity/openstreetmap-united-states which currently (2025-10-23) leads to "Page not found".

Suggestion: Find out who put the page on the GoFundMe website.

Decision: Discuss the issue later.

Any other business

#906 Any objection to Fastly including OpenStreetMap in their Customer Hero campaign?

Fastly, a company providing a Content Management System, has been providing in-kind donations and services to OSM. They want to mention OpenStreetMap in their Customer Hero campaign.

There was a single positive comment by the Chairperson during this meeting and no-one objected.

Suggestion: Discuss the topic outside of this meeting, in case board members want to raise any issues.

Post-meeting note: See the article https://www.fastly.com/customers/openstreetmap

#907 Signing open letter to Google regarding keeping Android open

Google is intending to have a mandatory developer registration for third party app distribution, which threatens open-source apps - particularly those being published outside of the Google PlayStore (e.g. published by F-droid). Several apps that use or are editors of OSM data, are distributed through F-droid.

Suggestion: Sign an open letter to Google regarding keeping Android open.

Action item: Héctor to create a circular on signing open letter to Google regarding keeping Android open. Post-meeting note: See circular 2025/Res31 "The board to approve signing the Open Letter to Google Regarding Mandatory Developer Registration for Third-Party App Distribution ("Keep Android Open") (Approved)

#908 Public letter for Open Source Maintenance funding through an EU Sovereign Tech Fund

There is an public letter calling for Open Source Maintenance funding through an EU Sovereign Tech Fund: https://eu-stf.openforumeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/EU-Sovereign-Tech-Fund-Public-Support-Letter_final.pdf

  • Need to carefully read the letter before signing.
  • A circular is preferred for decision making on this topic, over a vote during the board meeting, as it gives the board members ample time to carefully read the letter.

Action item: Héctor to create a circular on signing the public letter for Open Source Maintenance funding through an EU Sovereign Tech Fund. Post-meeting note: See circular 2025/Res35 "The board to approve signing the EU Sovereign Tech Fund Public Support Letter" (Approved)

Request for guest feedback on the Operations Working Group online presentation by Grant Slater

Dani Waltersdorfer (Secretary) asked whether any of the guests attended the recent Operations Working Group (OWG) online presentation by Grant Slater (OSMF Senior Site Reliability Engineer), and if they have feedback or found it helpful.

Background by board members

  • The board members are worried about the number of people working for the OWG, so the aim is to make the OWG friendlier to join, as more support is needed.
  • The board members would like to permanently hire an additional person (currently Grant is the only hired person), but at the moment volunteers are needed.
  • The presentation was provided to encourage people to join the OWG.

Suggestions

  • Have such presentations annually.
  • Suggest to the rest of the OSMF Working Groups to do such presentations, to increase the Working Groups' visibility.
  • by SeverinGeo (guest): record the presentation and perhaps publish a blog post with an embedded video.

Post-meeting note: the presentation was published by Grant. Source.

Guest comments or questions

No questions or comments during this section.

Next meetings

Mid-month board chat: 13 November 2025 at 13:00 UTC

Not open to observers. About mid-month board chats.

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

Open board meeting: 27 November 2025 at 13:00 UTC

2025 dates of open board meetings: on this Framagenda calendar (green dots).

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Meeting adjourned 49 minutes after start.

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