CWG meeting 2012-04-16

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

Attending

  • Harry Wood
  • Jonathan Bennett
  • Henk Hoff
  • Richard Weait
  • Dermot McNally


IRC log:

21:00 rweait1: Hi harry-wood. How's the travels?
21:00 harry-wood: hello
21:00 harry-wood: good yeah
21:00 : toffehoff [~toffehoff@82.74.71.93] entered the room.
21:01 harry-wood: Bit rainy today in Brazil, so we're back in the hotel room taking it easy
21:01 rweait1: Is this a work-trip, or vacation or something else?
21:01 harry-wood: vacation
21:01 toffehoff: Not missing out on much so I hear.
21:01 harry-wood: and visiting the girlfriend's family
21:02 rweait1: nice. Enjoy.
21:02 toffehoff: Hi everbody, and harry, say hello to the misses....
21:02 : JonathanB [~chatzilla@127.82.113.87.dyn.plus.net] entered the room.
21:02 toffehoff: .... from me.
21:03 JonathanB: Evening
21:03 harry-wood: the misses says "oi" back to you henk
21:03 toffehoff: Evening to you as well.
21:03 toffehoff: :-)
21:04 harry-wood: (portuguese for hello)
21:04 rweait1: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes#Communication_Working_Group
21:04 rweait1: did we give up on approving previous minutes?
21:04 toffehoff: Learning something every day.
21:04 harry-wood: yeah we didn't approve any in a while
21:05 rweait1: most recent, here. http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/CWG_meeting_2012-03-26
21:05 rweait1: were there CWG meetings on the 2nd and 9th?
21:06 harry-wood: suspect not
21:07 JonathanB: 2 & 9 April? I was absent..
21:07 toffehoff: I think I was absent as well on both days.
21:08 toffehoff: I'm on a call, might be distracted a bit.
21:09 harry-wood: So lots of communication topics to chat about
21:10 harry-wood: license change feels a bit less traumatic at the moment, but there's a new round of emails bouncing around at the moment (mainly management list?)
21:10 harry-wood: Mikel is asking for updates
21:10 rweait1: ping mackerski. You available?
21:11 toffehoff: The last update on osmf.org was more than a week ago. at MT it was suggested an update would be good.
21:11 harry-wood: yes
21:11 mackerski: rweait1: Haven't been following, but here
21:11 mackerski: And on the phone
21:11 harry-wood: And I would agree with that an update would be good
21:12 harry-wood: but on the other hand if there's isn't much to say, then that makes a tricky blog post to write :-)
21:12 harry-wood: We could wait to see how that discussion pans out
21:13 harry-wood: (Mikel is also suggesting we try to throw money at the problem somehow and generally looking for alternative ways of speeding things up)
21:14 JonathanB: I assume that's not something they want everyone throwing their oar in on?
21:14 rweait1: RichardF and mackerski have been closer to the rebuild topic. Any updates to be had?
21:14 mackerski: I'm out of touch due to travel and having started a new job today
21:14 rweait1: congrats on that.
21:14 mackerski: Thanks
21:15 rweait1: I guess CWG should stand by then. no point in fabricating an update without facts from the stakeholders.
21:15 mackerski: I want to bounce off zere now that both those issues are sorted
21:15 mackerski: I'll try to do so before LWG tomorrow
21:16 harry-wood: "both those issues are sorted"? that's the failing tests?
21:16 mackerski: rweait1: We can work out there what to communicate
21:16 mackerski: No, my travel and job
21:16 harry-wood: oh :-)
21:16 mackerski: is being selfish
21:16 harry-wood: heheh
21:17 rweait1: Looks like we are uptodate on SotM communication. toffehoff, anything else we should be posting for SotM?
21:17 toffehoff: just a moment...
21:18 JonathanB: ..have just G+'d SotM registrations
21:18 rweait1: :-)
21:18 harry-wood: http://www.stateofthemap.org/ is looking red now
21:19 harry-wood: Did registrations open today?
21:19 toffehoff: Sunday
21:19 toffehoff: yesterday..
21:20 rweait1: toffehoff, if you can get daniel and floris to ping communication@ when they add something we can bounce it around even faster.
21:20 toffehoff: will do
21:20 harry-wood: Ah right yeah: http://blog.osmfoundation.org/2012/04/16/registration-is-open-for-state-of-the-map-2012/
21:20 rweait1: Do you want a post about sponsorship? Who is handling sponsors this year?
21:21 toffehoff: Deb
21:21 harry-wood: "registration open" needs a blog post on stateofthemap.org too really. Or a big flashing "Regstration now open"
21:21 harry-wood: but I guess we'll leave that for the SOTM team to worry about
21:21 rweait1: awesome. Have her ming us if she needs anything.
21:22 rweait1: or ping us.
21:22 harry-wood: :-)
21:22 toffehoff: Ok on that. Will ping Deb that CWG is also available.
21:22 rweait1: anything outstanding from previous meetings for communication to address?
21:23 harry-wood: It's kinda weird that we didn't have a meeting recently
21:23 harry-wood: since license change is a big communication challenge
21:24 rweait1: Is that something we can address harry-wood?
21:24 toffehoff: is putting phone down. Now full attention to this meeting.
21:24 rweait1: why were there no meetings on 2nd and 9th? Just bad timing?
21:25 JonathanB: I was staying in a holiday cottage 5 miles from the nearest reliable internet access...
21:25 toffehoff: Last week was Easter-Monday (a holiday in NL).
21:25 rweait1: jonathanB: my invitation to the cottage must have been lost in the mail. :-)
21:26 JonathanB: rweait1: The village pub was also shut :(
21:26 harry-wood: *challenge* is the right word for it. It's been frustrating for me that after working hard for months to try to plan blog posts carefully, the most important thing we have to communicate. A license change which has been in the planning for years… we're frantically scraping together information to fire out last minute messages.
21:26 harry-wood: I mean it feels like we're in danger of undoing our previous hard work
21:26 harry-wood: but...
21:26 harry-wood: not solution to this really
21:26 harry-wood: things have been changing in a very dynamic last minute manner
21:29 toffehoff: I think I also mentioned the last update of the license change in a mail recently. The same thread that Mikel was talking about throwing some money at it....
21:29 toffehoff: Ah, here it is:
21:29 toffehoff: Hilights of situation discussed during MT:
21:29 toffehoff: - the rebuild script still does not pass every test.
21:29 toffehoff: - still urgent need for help with coding the rebuild script
21:30 harry-wood: Yes. that's only thing we *could* blog about at the moment. Maybe we should.
21:31 JonathanB: Has Matt said anything about a wider call for help?
21:31 rweait1: Perhaps for dev@, but not so much for blog, I think.
21:31 harry-wood: It would be nice to somehow have a feel for when bots are likely to start running with current trajectory
21:32 toffehoff: Yes, but under the condition that he/she knows the basics of the OSM-workings (technically).
21:32 rweait1: so that audience would be dev@
21:32 toffehoff: yes.
21:33 toffehoff: Andy Allen has teamed up with Matt.
21:33 harry-wood: yeah that sounds like recent news
21:33 harry-wood: discussed in the management meeting?
21:33 toffehoff: yes
21:33 harry-wood: good news!
21:34 toffehoff: I was also happy with that.
21:35 harry-wood: Matt managed to get himself into an tricky position. The bottleneck for lots of technical work. I think various other people had opted not be help as much as they might for various reasons of principle.
21:35 harry-wood: Hopefully everyone's chilling out a little more after the April 1st date has well and truly passed
21:36 harry-wood: From CWG point of view though, the pain was that Matt has also been a bottleneck for information about progress and some important technical details
21:37 harry-wood: if more people are helping Matt, then hopefully we can get more information without seeming to be hecktoring them too much
21:37 toffehoff: Right, we might want to divert the questions on progress to Andy (cc Matt)
21:38 harry-wood: So the situation's getting easier, but still a bit tricky.
21:39 rweait1: I don't think that we would be helping things by sending more questions to the people actually doing the rebuild work.
21:39 rweait1: Certainly not questions from outside.
21:40 rweait1: RichardF and mackerski have been the moste recent points of contact with reduilder, do either of them want to continue?
21:40 toffehoff: rweait1: absolutely. I was referring to our questions....
21:40 harry-wood: Not hecktoring too much is important. That's the tight-rope that we need to walk.
21:41 rweait1: indeed.
21:42 toffehoff: That might bring us to what we want to communicate about the progress.
21:42 mackerski: rweait1: I'm happy to resume posting updates...
21:42 mackerski: But there's no reason for others not to do so also
21:42 rweait1: mackerski, awesome.
21:43 toffehoff: +1
21:43 mackerski: Indeed, more voices can sometimes reassure people more
21:43 rweait1: more the "getting details" is helpful
21:43 mackerski: Still on the phone, but didn't want to leave you hanging
21:43 rweait1: feel free to draw on all of us to spread them around.
21:44 rweait1: Are we happy to have mackerski get the details and update us. so we can spread the message?
21:44 toffehoff: Sure. It's good to have one point-of-contact to get the details on progress in.
21:45 harry-wood: Yes. It sounded like LWG was going to discuss things too (tomorrow?)
21:45 rweait1: harry-wood, LWG is unlikely to have any additional details unless Matt / Andy join in.
21:45 mackerski: I'll try to reach Matt beforehand
21:46 mackerski: Grant will know stuff also
21:46 rweait1: from my perspective, this is a tech-task now. Any "policy-ish" questions would come to LWG (and have in past), but I'm not aware of any that are waiting at the moment.
21:47 toffehoff: Looks like it. Although there are now popping up some CC-BY-SA decliners questions....
21:48 toffehoff: But I'm leaving that to LWG (or the rebuild group) to handle....
21:48 rweait1: Does CWG want to address the rumours about donations?
21:48 harry-wood: Ah yeah
21:49 harry-wood: that was another topic
21:49 harry-wood: Frederick was suggesting a clarification on the OSMF mailing list
21:49 harry-wood: (I mean he was suggesting that the clarification should be posted to the blog)
21:50 toffehoff: Not sure we should do that....
21:50 toffehoff: It's like Wag the Dog (I think)
21:50 toffehoff: "There's absolutely nothing at hand in Albania".
21:50 rweait1: Ah, the Albanian Sponsorship.
21:50 harry-wood: Steve replied on there which as usual incites massive debate
21:51 harry-wood: but I agree with him and with you, that it would be weird to post to the blog about this
21:51 rweait1: So we don't want to have to respond to every random rumour.
21:51 rweait1: The recent, actual, donation led to some discussion as well.
21:52 rweait1: Perhaps a wiki page with a list of donations by date?
21:52 rweait1: just for the major ones, I guess.
21:52 harry-wood: actual donation from esri you mean?
21:52 rweait1: :-)
21:52 toffehoff: ... but then .... what is a major donation?
21:52 harry-wood: or was there and *actual* donation from Microsoft?
21:52 harry-wood: (genuine question)
21:53 rweait1: I guess the decision about major is up to hose maintaing the wiki page?
21:53 rweait1: harry-wood, no megabucks as far as I know. :-0
21:53 rweait1: :-)
21:53 toffehoff: MS: no not in money (except being sponsor of SotM)
21:54 rweait1: I might make for an interesting timeline, a look at one aspect of OSM history.
21:54 rweait1: but it would serve as a resource for those with current questions about donations.
21:54 harry-wood: OSMF list discussion was here: http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/osmf-talk/2012-April/date.html seems to have stopped
21:55 harry-wood: I posted a comment to the pcworld article: http://www.pcworld.com/article/252649/microsofts_secret_weapon_against_google_maps_open_source.html
21:55 toffehoff: I cannot put the finger behind it, but I do not feel happy with having a donors list on the wiki.....
21:56 rweait1: hmm, not sure why?
21:56 rweait1: how about others? What do you think?
21:56 toffehoff: Like I said: I cannot put the finger behind it yet.....
21:56 toffehoff: wonders if that's a typical Dutch expression....
21:56 rweait1: no page yet, but it could go here. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Donation/History
21:57 rweait1: not a front page article or blog. Just one aspect of osm history.
21:57 rweait1: We already keep a log of small donations.
21:57 rweait1: http://donate.osm.org/comments/
21:58 rweait1: Do we have an obligation to report large donations in the annual financial reports?
21:58 rweait1: If we have to publish it, the wiki page is a simple matter of formatting.  :-)
21:59 JonathanB: Don't think so -- we're not a charity, but would have to check with an accountant (i.e. my wife)
21:59 toffehoff: We have to publish how much we got via donations. Not sure if we have to name every donor... Don't really think so...
22:00 toffehoff: Let's put it this way: we have never done it in the past ....
22:00 harry-wood: We blogged the esri donation. And we have a category 'funds' http://blog.osmfoundation.org/category/funds/
22:00 rweait1: as far as I know, we've blogged all of the major donations.
22:01 rweait1: some with the amount included others without.
22:01 toffehoff: I think blogging about it is the right way to do so. Having a page with all donations listed .... that's going a bit far...
22:02 harry-wood: The recent microsoft nonesense is irritating for two reasons.. 1) There was no donation! 2) People hate microsoft and in a lot of comments people rapidly jumped to the wrong conclusion, that microsoft now controls OpenStreetMap (not least because that's what the original incorrect article implied)
22:02 JonathanB: If the information's already public, then as rweait1 says it's just a matter of formatting
22:02 toffehoff: What we've learned from the Esri thing is that not mentioning a number does raise questions.
22:03 harry-wood: Well I knew that well ahead of the esri blog post. So I wouldn't say that's something *I* learned
22:03 rweait1: Perhaps we should let this topic rest for a week?
22:03 harry-wood: I learned that people will kick a fuss *amazingly* quickly on the mailing list without getting in touch with me about it
22:03 toffehoff: harry: that's fair :-)
22:04 rweait1: we can let toffehoff see if he can put a finger on his reluctance. then talk about it again next week?
22:04 toffehoff: I'm pretty sure that next week I still will feel not positive of having such a list ;-)
22:04 rweait1: Wow, how did we go over the hour?
22:05 harry-wood: time flies when you're having fun :-)
22:05 rweait1: Should we just vote now, then?  :-)
22:05 toffehoff: It's one of those things where you know how it started.....
22:05 toffehoff: ... and you cannot go back from it....
22:06 rweait1: I expect that if there is now easy resource to counter such rumours, then there will be more rumours in future.
22:06 rweait1: s/now/no/
22:06 harry-wood: but I'm not sure if it would counter this rumour very effectively
22:07 harry-wood: The absence of a donor on a list might mean the list hasn't been updated for some reason
22:07 rweait1: The wiki page doesn't have to counter the rumour. The community will, with the wiki page as a resource.
22:07 toffehoff: The discussion is not about the money. The discussion is about whether big companies will have a say in what OSM is doing.
22:08 toffehoff: You do not control that with a donor-list.
22:08 harry-wood: Yes. As I say. the microsoft thing is annoying because some people now think OSM is nothing but a microsoft pawn.
22:08 harry-wood: particularly irritating as there *was* no donation from them! :-)
22:09 harry-wood: I suppose a list sends out a message that we have *several* significant backers, which helps counter that
22:10 toffehoff: Significant?
22:10 toffehoff: The amounts we're talking about is change compared to Wikipedia.
22:10 toffehoff: change being pocketmoney.
22:11 rweait1: We're not talking about wikipedia, were talking about OSM.
22:11 rweait1: Why would we be concerned about their project and perspective?
22:11 harry-wood: are you saying we should say the amounts on the wiki page? or say that these folks all donated >x amount?
22:11 harry-wood: (supposed we'd have to do the latter)
22:11 rweait1: Either way works.
22:12 toffehoff: It's about the message it sends out. What we might think is "big" money, others might have a complete different view of.
22:12 rweait1: So?
22:12 toffehoff: We have just had the same discussion with SotM about the ticket fee.
22:12 harry-wood: Maybe we should have a wiki list which is empty because noboday has donated enough yet!  :-)
22:12 toffehoff: When we lower the price, some might be happy. Others see it as "that's not much, so it cannot be any good".
22:13 toffehoff: What is the real problem we want to solve here?
22:13 toffehoff: Or is this just a blurb of us being overly open about everything?>
22:14 rweait1: I'm sorry Henk, are we reciving directino from the board to be less open?
22:14 rweait1: we started by talking about a rumour.
22:14 harry-wood: problem we're trying to solve: quash any future dubious rumours of donation
22:15 rweait1: Do we want to address it directly, probably not.
22:15 rweait1: Do we want to reduce the likelihood of rumours getting traction? That might be nice.
22:15 harry-wood: but a counter-problem which a list creates: Sending out a message of evil corporate involvement/control
22:15 toffehoff: But then: do we only mention companies who give us money?
22:15 rweait1: Who said that?
22:16 rweait1: We have a list of every paypal donation.
22:16 toffehoff: There are severval ways of being a donor.
22:16 rweait1: by date and amount, and by name and comment (optionally)
22:16 toffehoff: Giving money. having people off to work on OSM
22:16 rweait1: several ways, yes. Contribute data, code, etc.
22:16 toffehoff: What are we going to do with that.
22:17 toffehoff: ?
22:17 rweait1: data donations are in the planet.
22:17 toffehoff: Eg: AOL gave Matt time to work on the rebuild.
22:17 rweait1: everybody sees that (if they care to look)
22:17 rweait1: The quesiton was about money.
22:17 rweait1: was it not?
22:18 toffehoff: The rumour about MS has a broader thing.
22:18 toffehoff: MS has supported OSM with making a script to easily draw ways from imagery.
22:19 toffehoff: So, just saying that MS is not giving us money does not make the rumour go away
22:19 toffehoff: B/c they are doing things for OSM
22:19 rweait1: Where is this coming from henk?
22:19 toffehoff: "Whow, so MS people are actually working for OSM in MS-time!?" That sounds like MS owns OSM !
22:19 rweait1: Do you mean front door? Is that open source now?
22:20 toffehoff: We are talking about a rumour and how to react to that.
22:20 JonathanB: Tools aren't the same thing as cash -- OSMF Board Members can't misappropriate tools.
22:20 rweait1: code donors show up in the commit logs and repositories?
22:20 rweait1: data donors show up in planet
22:20 toffehoff: I'm just saying that a list of donors is not the solution to react on those rumours.
22:20 rweait1: Then what is?
22:20 JonathanB: If it shows that we get donations from many and varied corporate sources, yes it is.
22:20 rweait1: Hiding the list of donors does not seem to be a solution.
22:20 toffehoff: And we blog about it!
22:21 toffehoff: It's not hiding!
22:21 toffehoff: hiding would be: we put in online and at some day we remove it.
22:21 rweait1: so you think CWG should take no action on this?
22:21 rweait1: this rumour?
22:21 toffehoff: ... or "forget" to put some donors on the list ....
22:22 toffehoff: Currently .... no.
22:22 rweait1: okay, Henk: no. other voices?
22:23 harry-wood: I can't decide
22:23 harry-wood: pros and cons
22:23 rweait1: JonathanB ?
22:24 JonathanB: What reason do we have to hide stuff?
22:24 rweait1: client / attorney privilege.
22:24 toffehoff: Hide? we blog about it.
22:24 rweait1: but other than that...
22:24 toffehoff: Everybody can find it.
22:25 toffehoff: Just like data donation in the database (Although I doubt that).
22:25 toffehoff: And code in the responsitory.
22:25 toffehoff: The financial donation we blog about. It's all in the open.
22:26 toffehoff: Creating a list means maintaining it, which leads to all kinds of new questions.
22:26 rweait1: okay, we're at ninty minutes and I'm sick of all of you now.  :-)
22:26 harry-wood: yes
22:26 rweait1: push this topic to next week for a vote?
22:26 JonathanB: +1
22:26 harry-wood: push till next week
22:27 harry-wood: (or later)
22:27 rweait1: :-) big hug, harry. enjoy the vacation.
22:27 toffehoff: I think I've voiced my opinion enough for now :-)
22:27 rweait1: same time and place next week?
22:27 toffehoff: harry-wood: when are you returning?
22:28 toffehoff: (I know, not the question you wanna hear during a vacation ;-) )
22:28 harry-wood: checks calendar
22:28 harry-wood: Still in Brasil next monday
22:28 harry-wood: In Washington DC the monday after
22:29 harry-wood: but I may or may not be able to attend on either of those
22:29 rweait1: Somebody want to chair in harry's absence?
22:29 toffehoff: enjoy your vacation!
22:30 harry-wood: didn't know he was chairing :-)
22:30 rweait1: You were great, as usual.
22:30 toffehoff: +1
22:30 harry-wood: So maybe I'll see you in a week
22:30 rweait1: okay, all done? See you next week.
22:30 toffehoff: Bye!
22:30 harry-wood: Bye!

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