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Board/Minutes/2025-12

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Participants

["talk" time*] Director's name

  • [01'] Brazil Singh
  • [16'] Craig Allan (Chairing)
  • [01'] Dani Waltersdorfer (joined 2' after start)
  • [11'] Héctor Ochoa Ortiz (until ~60' after start)
  • [01'] Laura Mugeha
  • [30'] Roland Olbricht

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

Absent

  • Maurizio Napolitano (Apologies)

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

Guests

  • 8 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/Res43 The Board to approve OWG's purchase of a new server in the USA

It is within the Operations Working Group budget. However, as the Ops meetings are not formal, the buying needs our permission as of https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Budgets_and_Procurement_Policy.

Context and invoice can be found at #8271

Approved on 2025-12-05 with 5 votes in favour: Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Maurizio Napolitano, Brazil Singh, Laura Mugeha, Roland Olbricht.
2 did not vote: Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer.

Circular by Héctor Ochoa Ortiz (board, OWG liaison).

Note:
1 GitLab board ticket #827 (not public)

2025/Res44 Approve active contributor membership application #2025112210000168

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

Approved on 2025-12-12 with 4 votes in favour:
- Brazil Singh
- Laura Mugeha
- Héctor Ochoa Ortiz (I believe their contributions are enough, but the URL they provided proves only one of their claims. A list of proofs would be appreciated next time)
- Craig Allan (The user has contributed on trainings and mapping parties. Also the user has contributed more than 42 days in the last year (as of today) so this is an automatic membership. To avoid repeating this request I say Approved as a non-mapping membership).
3 did not vote: Maurizio Napolitano, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Roland Olbricht.

Application initially processed by the Membership Working Group.

Chairperson's report

The Chairperson was ill.

Secretary's report

The Secretary was very busy with end-of-year rush at work.

Treasurer's report

The Treasurer was sick for most of the month and spent the last two days in the hospital for his daughter.

Bank of Ireland accounts

Topic proposed by Roland. Internal board GitLab ticket #942 (accessible to board members)

Issue

We currently don't have access to the main OSMF bank accounts, due to bureaucratic issues with the Bank of Ireland.

Reason provided by the Bank

They claimed that they randomly selected OSMF for a check of the Directors' identities.

Action needed

The board has to renew the signatories that the Bank of Ireland has on record, and to send a document with Directors' wet-ink signatures. This is difficult for OSMF, as the Directors are in different continents.

How OSMF found out

On the 23rd of November 2025, the OSMF Bookkeeper - who makes the OSMF payments - received a message on her online banking app that it is out of sync and that she needed to contact a senior bank advisor.

Restoring access to the bank accounts is the board's top priority.

On bank signatories

Any organisation banking with the Bank of Ireland has to specify the people who are authorised to sign documents and legally represent and bind the organisation in dealings with the bank. The people should be appointed by a resolution passed during a meeting such as this one. A paper copy of the resolution must be provided to the bank, signed with two wet signatures. Additionally, the Bank of Ireland requires that at any time, at least one of the signatories must be a EU individual.

Process

  • The board to vote during this meeting, making Roland Olbricht (Treasurer) the signatory and administrator of the OSMF Bank of Ireland accounts.
  • Roland to prepare a document with the resolution of this meeting and email it to Craig Allan. Craig will print and sign the document in wet ink and post it with a courier to Roland (from South Africa to Germany).
  • Roland to sign the document and send it to the Bank of Ireland, together with form NBCIF, in order to get the necessary access rights and create a user for online banking.
  • Once he regains bank access, Roland to start making bank transfers, as instructed by Michelle Heydon (OSMF Bookkeeper).

Roland will temporarily become the only signatory on the Bank of Ireland accounts, until Michelle - who is also sick - regains access. This will ensure that we can move as quick as possible.

Time estimate

Michelle will likely regain access to the OSMF bank accounts around the time of the January board meeting.

On other OSMF bank accounts

  • Fire-EU: is mostly dormant. Michelle has confirmed that she has access and could make payments.
  • Triodos: has limitations in making transfers outside of the UK.

On pending payments

  • Purchase of (second-hand) USA server for Nominatim: The payment of the server, which is the most urgent if not the most important, could be done with our PayPal account. The email from the server provider included a link for the payment.
  • Salaries and contractor payments: It is unclear if we have enough funds in our other bank accounts. We have asked some Corporate Members to reroute some of the Corporate Membership payments to the Fire-EU account.
  • Engineering Working Group (EWG) 2025 Microgrants: payments may need to be rescheduled for the beginning of January 2026. It is currently the least priority.

Suggestion: Héctor to notify the Operations Working Group (OWG) about the server payment.

On previous credit card issues

The Treasurer had faced prior issues related to payments with a credit card:

  • 2025 face-to-face board meeting: 3 bank cards did not work.
  • SotM Europe 2025: Credit card issue.

Suggestions

  • Figure out who will be the OSMF signatories for the bank, e.g. the Treasurer and Michelle.
  • Appoint a deputy Treasurer and prepare for the Treasurer handover in 1.5 years, after Roland's board term ends.
  • Suggest to competent community members who could become Treasurers to run for the next board election.

Vote to appoint Roland Olbricht as the sole authorized signatory for the Bank of Ireland accounts

Motion: The board resolves to appoint Roland Olbricht as the sole authorized signatory for the Bank of Ireland accounts of the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

Approved on 2025-12-18 with,

  • 5 votes in favour: Brazil Singh, Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Laura Mugeha.
  • 1 abstained: Roland Olbricht.
  • 1 did not vote: Maurizio Napolitano (absent).
Proposed by Roland, seconded by Dani and Craig.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Once the bank access gets restored, the plan is to setup an annual fundraising campaign, based on comments made during the SotM Europe 2025 conference.
  • The Treasurer, in line with previous Treasurers, is hesitant on making the bank transactions himself, as he wants to ensure that they are performed correctly.
  • The NBCIF form is for confirming the Treasurer's existence and has a textbox for people who don't have an Irish social security number, such as EU citizens.

Guest comments

Comment by imagico (guest) that banking redundancies and risk minimizing distribution of reserves had been discussed *and decided* after the previous banking issues years ago.

2026 budget and 2026 OWG budget

Topic proposed by Héctor. Internal board GitLab tickets #923 and #895 (accessible to board members)

The creation of the 2026 budget has been postponed, due to the banking issues.

Most of the Working Groups (WGs) that have significant budgets have responded to the Treasurer, outlining their wishes for the next year's budget. The Treasurer will circulate their emails after the board's holiday black out period and discuss them in January.

On the Engineering Working Group (EWG) Microgrants

  • The 2026 budget proposal will include the EWG Microgrants and is dependant on resolving the banking issues to complete the pending payments.
  • We can cover the costs for work completed by the end of 2025 using the 2025 budget, with any remaining payments to be made after the projects get completed in 2026.
  • The EWG has asked to get a budget for running Microgrants in 2026, subject to the board's approval. The implementation could slide into 2027.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Asking the Working Groups mid-year for their next year budget is too bureaucratic.
  • The aim of the budget is to understand at any time if we can afford expenses, and inform our members and donors about OSMF's financial status.

Guest comments

Comment by Mikel Maron (guest) that he has an EWG-related topic for discussion, which is the remewal of the iD maintainer's contract, and that the entire EWG microgrants' process was based on securing the budget.

2025 fundraising campaign

Topic proposed by Héctor. Internal board GitLab ticket #902 (accessible to board members)

Héctor created a pull request for the addition of a donation button on the osm.org navigation bar.

Suggestions

  • Create a calendar for the 2026 fundraising campaign and contact the related Working Groups in advance.
  • Base our 2026 fundraising campaign on the 2023 one, which was good.

Collaboration with MapAI PhD school

Topic proposed by Héctor. Internal board GitLab ticket #935 (accessible to board members)

Héctor was ill, so he couldn't follow up.

Suggestion: Move the topic to the January board meeting.

stateofthemap.in domain

Topic proposed by Héctor. Internal board GitLab ticket #938 (accessible to board members)

The Indian OSM community had registered and is using the domains openstreetmap.in and stateofthemap.in. There is no OSM Local Chapter in India, representing the OSM mappers there.

Concern: In the future the domain owners might not have relations to OpenStreetMap. Hesitance to have another case like the transfer of the stateofthemap.se domain, which had been a lot of work.

Suggestion: OSMF to get the ownership and point to the website that the Indian OSM community chooses.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Cases like this are a bit different from Local Chapters, where - if things go wrong - the use of the "OSM marks" can be changed.
  • The SotM India 2026 conference will be next month.
  • The Operations Working Group (OWG) should contact the board in case they can't figure out the Indian community contacts.

Motion: The board to register the domains stateofthemap.in and openstreetmap.in and make them available to an entity in India, to use them for OSM related purposes.

The domains are already registered and we are in contact with the domain owners.

Decision

After SotM India 2026, the board to ask the domain owners to transfer the domains to the OSMF.

No resolution needed at this meeting.

Any other business

French cadastre changes and release of code updates for "OSM components" on GitHub

Topic proposed by Héctor. Internal board GitLab ticket #943 (accessible to board members)

The head of digital projects for the French cadastre map, from Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFIP) (Directorate-General of Public Finances, contacted the board. They are using OSM-related components, such as OSM API 0.6, OSM Datamodel, and tools like Overpass, Osmium, Osmosis and Osm2pgsql, for their own project. They plan to create enhancements for some of the components, and to release the code on GitHub in 2026. The target licence is still under evaluation.

Request for

  • The Board's opinion on the relevance of the changes described in the email.
  • Permission to publish the modifications under a name including "OpenStreetMap", or suggestion of an alternative name.

They also asked to have a meeting and give a presentation to the board.

The email was relayed by Héctor (Deputy Secretary) to the Licensing Working Group (LWG), Minh Nguyễn and Sarah Hoffmann (former board member, Nominatim maintainer).

Feedback from the LWG

  • The LWG does not agree with the proposed project name which includes "OpenStreetMap".
  • The creator of the licence proposed (Mozilla Public License 2.0) for the project, is an LWG infrequently participating member (Luis Villa).

Suggestions

  • The meeting/presentation could be done during the January board chat (January 15) or during the public board meeting (Jannuary 29). (post meeting note: the presentation was made during the 2026-01-23 EWG public meeting).
  • Involve Fédération des Pros d'OSM (FPOSM - an organisation created by French people professionally active in OSM) in the discussion.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Dorothea found out that DGFIP had made a 10-40M call for bids for "Provision of assistance services related to geoinformatics, innovative land, PCI-NG and other services related to geomatics and GIS of the DGFIP".

Decision seemed to be

This topic needs to be discussed offline, as it is a complex issue. Héctor to follow up.

Proposal for Board vote: Attendance at State of the Map India 2026

Topic proposed by Brazil. Internal board GitLab ticket #946 (accessible to board members)

Brazil Singh (board) asked for a travel grant to attend the State of the Map India 2026 conference, which will take place on the 24 January 2026, together with FOSS4G Asia 2026. Brazil has two accepted talks related to OSM. He has also talked with the conference organisers, who will provide him with a dedicated session to present the OSMF board's work.

Expected cost

EUR 375 for flight and EUR 75 for accommodation.

Suggestions

  • Partially cover travel expenses for Brazil's participation.
  • Include a line in the 2026 budget for one regional SotM participation per board member.
  • Relabel part of the traditional board travel budget to include participation in regional OSM conferences, to communicate that OSMF would like to become more widely known.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Important for board members to be present in different regional conferences, if the budget allows it.
  • In 2025, board travel expenses were covered for participation at SotM Latam (Héctor Ochoa Ortiz) and SotM Africa (Laura Mugeha).
  • Unclear when we will be able to reimburse Brazil's expenses, due to the banking issues. The Treasurer expects that we will regain access to the OSMF bank accounts on the 9th of January 2026 at the latest.
    • Reimbursement will be after the 24th of January, when the State of the Map India 2026 conference takes place.

Vote to cover Brazil's travel costs to attend SotM India 2026

The board approves the allocation of EUR 420 to reimburse costs for Brazil Singh in attending the SotM India 2026 conference and costs will come out of the 2026 budget.

Approved on 2025-12-18 with,

  • 5 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Laura Mugeha, u>Héctor Ochoa Ortiz, Roland Olbricht.
  • 1 abstained: Brazil Singh
  • 1 did not vote: Maurizio Napolitano(absent).
Proposed by Craig, seconded by Roland.

Guest comments or questions

Supporting hosting for small OSM-facing projects

Topic proposed by Ilya Zverev (former board member, Communication Working Group (CWG) volunteer, Every Door OSM editor developer to the board via email. Internal board GitLab ticket #944 (accessible to board members)

Topic presented by Ilya Zverev.

Background

One of the winning OSMF Engineering Working Group microgrants is for just EUR 150, covering hosting for WaterWayMap, a project developed by Amanda McCann (former board member, CWG volunteer). The amount is very low and the topic of going through the microgrant process just to get EUR 150 for the hosting was discussed on Mastodon.

Main suggestion

Earmark around EUR 3,000 per year to cover low cost hosting for projects related to editing of OSM, subject to Engineering Working Group (EWG)'s or Operations Working Group (OWG)'s approval.

  • Limit the amount covered per project to: EUR 150.
  • The amount to not come out of the EWG budget, as it might strain them.

On the OSMF Microgrants

  • Process: The process is not lightweight. It was needed to submit a proposal, answer questions, voting, and a mandatory presentation.
  • Duration: The process took at least 4-5 months.

Other points mentioned

  • There may not even be 10 small projects currently requiring funding for hosting.
  • Covering hosting for approximately 20 small projects will amount to just EUR 3,000 per year.
  • FOSSGIS (German OSM Local Chapter) does something similar.

Comments by board members

  • The EWG microgrants framework was created for supporting small OSM projects, so it is good that Amanda applied through it.
  • The challenge is to find an OSM Foundation body that will select the projects with little overhead and bureaucracy. Small projects usually struggle to get funded, as it is more work to approve them than to spend the money.

On the FOSSGIS microgrant framework

For every candidate project for funding, feedback is solicited from the FOSSGIS membership via email. The decision is taken by the FOSSGIS board.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • If we would implement the suggestion, we would want to get the framing right, to avoid hundreds of emails as feedback for a proposed project.

Decision

The board to contact the Operations Working Group and Engineering Working Group to see if they want to implement the suggestion of selecting small projects related to editing of OSM and covering their low hosting costs, and if they can propose a lightweight approval process.

Héctor Ochoa Ortiz had to disconnect around 60' after start.

iD maintainer's end of contract

Topic proposed by Mikel Maron (former board member, Personnel Committee volunteer and point of contact for Martin Raifer (iD editor maintainer)).

Topic presented by Mikel Maron.

Martin Raifer's (iD maintainer) contract ends soon and needs to be renewed under the same terms. Mikel talked with Martin about the contract yesterday. The contract's end was planned to be at the end of year, so that the EWG's 2026 budget would have been confirmed by then. However, the OSMF budget is not ready yet.

Suggestion: Continue the existing contract for one month and sign the next contract once the 2026 budget gets finalised.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • No change of the contract terms is needed, as the contract was last changed in June 2025.
  • A three months extension will remove the uncertainty for Martin and is sufficient for the budgeting process.

Discussion by board members

We would like Martin to continue and should offer him sensible contract details.

Suggestion: Renew Martin's contract under the same terms for three months and renegotiate a raise back to 1st of January, once we can make a safe statement about the 2026 budget.

Motion by Craig: Extend Martin Raifer's contract for 3 months, to be renegotiated starting in April.

Reworded motion by Roland below.

Vote to extend Martin Raifer's (iD maintainer) contract for at least three months under all circumstances

The board moves to guarantee Martin's contract for at least three months under all circumstances.

Approved on 2025-12-18 with,

  • 4 votes in favour: Brazil Singh, Craig Allan, Laura Mugeha, Roland Olbricht.
  • 3 did not vote: Maurizio Napolitano(absent), Daniela Waltersdorfer (absent), Héctor Ochoa Ortiz (absent).
Proposed by Roland, seconded by Craig.

Thanks

Craig Allan (Chairperson) thanked the board members and Dorothea for their work in 2025.

Next meetings

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Meeting ended 1 hour and 10 minutes after start.

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