OSMF updates/2019-02
For the 2018 (Jan-Nov) overview, please see the OSMF updates.
OSMF updates - February 2019
- Content: Highlighting updates related to the Foundation - mostly news from the volunteer Working Groups, the Board of Directors, the Local Chapters, the Advisory Board members and some project news.
- Details: For more details you are invited to read the minutes or reports of the Board and the Working Groups (links on each section).
- Accuracy: These reports do not go through a formal acceptance process, like the Board minutes are. This might change. Reports are made known to the Working Groups first, before being sent to the membership.
- Previous reports: here.
Groups: Comm | Data | Eng | Legal | Memb | Ops | SotM | Chapters | AB | Board || Project
Communication Working Group
| General info | Communication Working Group, Join as a volunteer |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | Monthly |
| Next meeting | March, on Mumble |
| Previous minutes | Oct, Sep, Aug, Jul, list. |
Decisions:
- OTRS: Will try OTRS for ticketing, workflow automation and notification.
- Do topical/seasonal blog posts.
- Give translators access to Wordpress to add text. The translations will be published by a CWG member.
- Add translations to the OSMF website with a disclaimer on top.
Collaborative online pads: We use online pads to collaborate on blog-posts and lately, we have our monthly meetings on pads. We have created a team on pads.ccc.de to keep track of them.
Repository with some stock images for blog-posts or social media: Currently here. Images might be moved to the OSM wiki.
Blogposts:
- Can you help make OpenStreetMap.org faster in Brazil, or Australia/New Zealand?
- Organised editing guidelines
- RFQ: GDPR-related changes to the Rails API and CGIMap
- State of the Map 2019
WG volunteers: Ebrahim Hasanzadeh and Eduardo Addad de Olivera have offered to help with translations to Farsi and Portuguese, respectively.
Groups: Comm | Data | Eng | Legal | Memb | Ops | SotM | Chapters | AB | Board || ProjectData Working Group
| General info | Data Working Group, Join as a volunteer |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | Bimonthly |
| Next meeting | |
| Previous minutes | May, Mar, list. |
DWG activity: In the third quarter of 2018, the Data Working Group (DWG) handled 346 cases (activity report).
| Approved - Organised editing guidelines (former directed editing policy) |
|---|
Organised mapping efforts are an integral part of today’s OSM contribution landscape and, when done well, help make OSM better and more widely used. The OSM Foundation has created the Organised Editing Guidelines that summarise expectations, consensus and established conventions based on discussions with the community, members of the OSMF advisory board and humanitarian mapping efforts. Their goal is to provide a framework to both organised mapping initiatives and the communities to encourage good organised mapping. They are not meant to apply to community activities like mapping parties between friends or doing a presentation on OSM at a local club. If you’re not sure whether you should apply them, contact the local community for advice.
The DWG has developed the Organised Editing Guidelines after integrating a lot of feedback from advisory board members, the humanitarian mapping initiatives and the mapping community. The Guidelines have been approved by the Board on 2018-11-15. |
Crimea: The DWG reviewed its past statement on Crimea and made the following resolution, which has been rescinded by the OSMF board, after a request to review that decision. Thus, the previous DWG resolution on Crimea is to remain in force. The board's decision was made close to the 2018 Annual General Meeting in December and no statement was published at the time. A response from the new board (two directors have changed after the board election) was sent to the membership in February.
Ongoing - Resolving issues in copyright violation, disputes, vandalism and detecting and stopping vandalism and imports that do not comply with guidelines.
WG volunteers: We thank Sidorela Uku and Ethan Nelson, who have left the DWG, for all their work and we welcome Michal Brzozowski who has joined.
Engineering Working Group
| General info | Engineering Working Group, Join as a volunteer |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | |
| Next meeting | |
| Previous minutes | Apr, list. |
Google Summer of Code 2019: OpenStreetMap has participated almost every year for a long time, and we're applying as a mentoring organisation again this year. Information for students will be posted at a later date – stay tuned!
GSoC 2019 project ideas: If you're a community member and you have a good idea for a project, please start with posting your ideas at the project ideas page. If you're not sure about your idea, start a discussion on the OSM developers mailing list to seek views from other developers. You may also reach out to the EWG, ask on the #osm-gsoc IRC channel, or contact the organisation admin Peda.
Licensing Working Group
| General info | Licensing Working Group, Join as a volunteer |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | Monthly on the 2nd Thursday of the month, at 20:00 UTC, on Mumble, unless rescheduled. |
| Next meeting | March 14th, 2019 at 20:00 UTC on Mumble |
| Previous minutes | Feb, Jan, Dec, Nov, list. |
Ongoing - Licence compatibility information: Licences that the LWG has evaluated so far for data sources utilized for adding objects to OpenStreetMap or improving existing data. Please read the introduction and realise that determining if the licence is compatible is only a small part of the work that has to be done before a source can be used for OSM, particularly when you intend to directly import third party data you will need to follow the Import Guidelines. The LWG published an evaluation of the "Linux Foundation CDLA Permissive" licence - thanks to Kathleen Lu for authoring the review.
Ongoing - Update attribution guidance: The guidance written in 2012 will be revised, as there are many technical changes (i.e. mobile phones’ screenspace is larger) and some guidance set by the LWG in meetings since then was not comprehensively added to the webpage.
Ongoing - Guidance on small static map images: Discussion on providing clear guidance about whether we require attribution in static snippets.
Ongoing - Information requests from law enforcement: We will get guidance regarding information requests from law enforcement in UK.
Ongoing - DMCA and general takedown procedure: The LWG has drafted a document, which proposes changes to the DMCA procedure and is under discussion.
Brexit: The United Kingdom might exit the European Union without any kind of agreement in March. This would directly affect the way our licence works as we do assume that we have database rights in our data, and not having these recognised in the EU would be problematic. The LWG has suggested to the board a couple of potential ways around this, for example establishing a OSMF subsidiary in the EU to publish the data. We need to explore if such solutions could actually work, in particular work in the context of the Contributor Terms.
Trademark issues: "OSM" apps, OpenGeoHub, OpenStreetCab
Other topics: Canadian OGL variants, 2019 budget.
WG volunteers: We thank Lily Toy, who has left the LWG, for her work all this time and we welcome Nuno Caldeira, who has joined.
Membership Working Group
| General info | Membership Working Group, Join as a volunteer |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | As the needs arises |
| Next meeting | |
| Previous minutes | Nov, list. |
Launched - Membership Fee Waiver Program: The MWG has launched a membership fee waiver program. It is based on the board resolution from Oct. 14th 2014 and the subsequent vote at the 2014 Annual General Meeting. People are able to apply through the fee waiver program for an associate membership if paying the fee would constitutes an unreasonable burden to the member 1) because of lack of a suitable money transfer facility or 2) due to financial hardship. The outcome of the latter applications is decided by the board on a case-by-case basis.
- Fee waiver form is now live.
- The fee waiver program is for "an active contributor" (as defined here): "a natural person (whether using a single or multiple accounts) who has edited the Project in any three calendar months from the last 12 months (i.e. there is a demonstrated interest over time)".
Published - Report about the unusual OSMF membership signups prior to the 2018 board election: On 15 November 2018, there was a significant and unusual spike in signups for OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) memberships as ~100 employees of an outsourcing company in India completed membership applications within a few hours, raising concerns about possible attempts to influence the 2018 election to board. The board initially accepted these memberships, which were not eligible to vote at the elections due to the registration date. The Membership Working Group -which initially became aware of the spike in OSMF member sign-ups- has published a detailed report. You can see the timeline and links to related discussions by members here. The board exchanged emails and had a voice call with representatives of the company, GlobalLogic, which after the publication of the report has offered (2019 February) to withdraw these memberships. The offer was accepted by the board.
OTRS as tracking system: The MWG has set-up OTRS for ticketing, workflow automation and notification.
Policy on MWG members accessing CiviCRM while running for board: CiviCRM is the platform we use for handling our membership database and State of the Map registrations. The MWG has created the following policy: "MWG members running for board may continue to serve on the MWG, but are bound by their NDA [Non-Disclosure Agreement]. If they want to use the membership register for election-related purposes they must request it. They may use the existing export functionality for their own request. Board members may also view the same exports at any time on request, as set out in the AoA, including while running for re-election."
Other ongoing work:
- Member self service area.
- OSMF membership badge on openstreetmap.org pull request.
- Improving the Membership Working Group page and join.osmfoundation.org.
WG volunteers: We thank Heather Leson, who has left the MWG, for her work all this time.
Groups: Comm | Data | Eng | Legal | Memb | Ops | SotM | Chapters | AB | Board || ProjectOperations Working Group
| General info | Operations Working Group, Join as a volunteer |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | Occasional |
| Next meeting | |
| Previous report | Jan, list. |
OSQA: OSQA, the software that powers help.openstreetmap.org, was moved to a Python virtualenv. This allowed the server hosting it to be upgraded to the latest version of Ubuntu. OSQA needs to be replaced by maintained software. An updated summary of options was written. If you have expertise in open-source QA software, the OWG could use your help.
Mailing list configuration: With the OSQA moves, the server running the mailing lists was upgraded and long-standing issue of mailing list emails bounced based on DMARC settings has been resolved. For more information about DMARC and the changes, see LinuxChix’s FAQ for their lists.
Tile logs: Generation of anonymized tile logs has resumed.
Wiki: The Thanks extension has been enabled on the OSM wiki. It describes itself as “a quick way to give positive feedback for productive contributions to MediaWiki sites. It allows users to send public ‘thank you’ notifications to other users for their individual edits and some logged actions.”
Tiles: The stylesheet on tile.openstreetmap.org was updated to v4.19.0.
Ongoing: Ensuring the operation and smooth running of the XML editing API and data distribution services.
Remote hands - Equinix, Amsterdam servers: Remote hands were used for the first time in order to fix a network cable.
WG volunteers: We welcome Paul Norman, who has helped with the new data center move and has joined the Working Group.
State of the Map Organising Committee
| General info | State of the Map Working Group Join as a volunteer |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | Every one or two weeks |
| Next meeting | |
| Previous minutes | Oct 11, Aug 13, Jul 23, Jul 16, Jul 2, list. |
State of the Map 2019 - Estimated timeline:
- 26 Feb – Call for Scholars
- 28 Feb – Call for Abstracts (general and academic)
- 30 Mar – Deadline of Call for Scholars
- 24 Apr – Deadline of Call for Abstracts
- 16 May – Start Early Bird ticket sale
- 20 Jun – Program Announcement
- 04 Jul – Switch to regular ticket prices
- 21-23 Sep – State of the Map in Heidelberg/Germany
Organisational details and openness: Read the blogpost.
Academic track: Following the successful initiation of the Academic Track at SotM 2018 in Milan, this track will be included again in the program.
Scholarship applications - review team: The team that will review this year's scholarship applications has been finalised.
Sponsors: If your company or organisation is interested in sponsoring State of the Map 2019 and our scholarship program, you can take a look at our sponsorship packages and email us at sponsor-sotm@openstreetmap.org for more information.
Local Chapters
| General info | Local Chapters |
| Mailing list | Register (open to official Local Chapters and to people or organisations interested into establishing one) |
The applications of OpenStreetMap Uganda and OpenStreetMap Ireland to become Local Chapters are being reviewed.
Groups: Comm | Data | Eng | Legal | Memb | Ops | SotM | Chapters | AB | Board || ProjectAdvisory Board members
| General info | Advisory Board |
| Members | Current members and their affiliations |
| Communications | Overview of communications |
- Enquiry by Facebook (Gold Corporate Member) about whether OSMF could help Corporate Members by receiving funds on behalf of the regional SotMs and transferring en masse. This would make sponsorship a whole lot easier, as it is currently difficult is getting funds to regional SotMs, because of procurement system requirements. A handling fee for the administrative overhead could be added. This has been accepted by the board (Circular Resolution 2018/Res14).
- OSM UK has been asked by the Open Data Institute to review a document they have written that compares different map data licences under various use cases. AB members have been asked for their views on the following: if someone wants to share a neural network that has used datasets licenced under OdBL (e.g. OSM data) as a training set, are there any restrictions on sharing the Neural Network? Would the neural network be "Produced Work" or a "Derivative Database"?
- Ben Abelshausen is the new representative of OSM Belgium on the Advisory Board, as Joost Schouppe has been elected to the Board of Directors.
Groups: Comm | Data | Eng | Legal | Memb | Ops | SotM | Chapters | AB | Board || Project
Board of Directors
| General info | Officers and Board, Biographies, Rules of Order |
| Meetings | |
|---|---|
| Regularity | Monthly |
| Next meeting | March on Mumble |
| Previous minutes | Feb, Jan, Dec, Nov, list. |
2018 election to board: Tobias Knerr and Joost Schouppe received the most votes and were elected to the board. They fill the seats of Peter Barth and Martijn van Exel. Meanwhile the terms of Kate Chapman (Chairperson), Mikel Maron, Paul Norman, Heather Leson (Secretary) and Frederik Ramm (Treasurer) are continuing. Read the board member biographies.
Crimea: The board has rescinded the DWG's 2018 November resolution, after a request to review it. Thus, the previous DWG resolution on Crimea is to remain in force. The board's decision was made close to the 2018 Annual General Meeting in December and no statement was published at the time. A response from the new board (two directors have changed after the board election) was sent to the membership in February.
Unusual OSMF membership signups prior to the 2018 board election: On 15 November 2018, there was a significant and unusual spike in signups for OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) memberships as ~100 employees of an outsourcing company in India completed membership applications within a few hours, raising concerns about possible attempts to influence the 2018 election to board. The board initially accepted these memberships, which were not eligible to vote at the elections due to the registration date. The Membership Working Group -which initially became aware of the spike in OSMF member sign-ups- has published a detailed report. You can see the timeline and links to related discussions by members here. The board exchanged emails and had a voice call with representatives of the company, GlobalLogic, which after the publication of the report has offered (2019 February) to withdraw these memberships. The offer was accepted by the board.
OSMF to administer payments to regional SotMs: Procurement processes to sponsor regional SotM conferences can be difficult. An OSMF Advisory Board member asked us to consider a program to administer these payments. For 2019, OSMF will administer payments to sponsor regional SotM conferences. Corporate members are eligible to ask OSMF to administer payments. The OSMF treasurer will set an administrative handling fee to manage this service. After 2019, only regional SotMs associated with a Local Chapter will be eligible for this service. Voting.
OSMF Membership payments at SotM US: During State of the Map US 2018, OSM US offered to accept payment for both OSM US and OSMF regular memberships. This was arranged well in advance with the OSMF board. The memberships were created by the MWG.
Face to Face meeting: The board will have a facilitated face-to-face meeting in May.
| Nonprofits that have relocated from UK |
|---|
| Even before the Brexit issue, the OSMF occasionally thought about perhaps moving the organisation elsewhere (most likely to another EU country but all options are open in theory). If you know any nonprofit organisations -even at a different sector - that started life in the UK and later moved elsewhere, please bo<nowiki<ard@osm</nowiki>foundation.org let us know. We would like to ask them about their experiences and collect some facts that might inform our own course in the future. |
General news
Launched - Welcome Mat for Organisations
The Welcome Mat is a guide to organisations and corporations that want to be involved with OpenStreetMap. It has information to familiarise themselves with the project, the community and especially to learn our expectations and their responsibilities.
Goals
- Have organisations better prepared on their own to engage in OSM.
- Clearly communicate what they can expect from OSM, what they should be thinking about, and their responsibilities in getting involved in OSM.
- Direct them to talk to Board, within OSMF and OSM when appropriate.
- Provide contact points to get questions answered.
Servers
New tile caches
Thanks to generous donations and active local community members, the OpenStreetMap distributed tile delivery infrastructure continues to grow. New tile caches were set up:
- Norbert, hosted by Association Grifon in Rennes, France
- Chrysophylax, hosted by iWay in Zurich, Switzerland
- Necrosan, hosted by MilkyWan in Paris, France
- Keizer, supported by Schwarzer IT and hosted by Hetzner in Nuremberg, Germany
- Naga supported by Dorian and hosted by ProxGroup in Paris, France
- Vipertooth, hosted by Ukrainian Telecommunication Group in Kiev, Ukraine.
- Tuatara, hosted by HostedIn.NZ in Wellington, New Zealand.
Can you sponsor a CDN caching server?
Our tile.openstreetmap.org CDN servers have been under extreme pressure lately. In only 6 months (January data) traffic has doubled in some regions, with 30%+ increase overall. For example, India has seen a 95.784% peak traffic increase in only 6 months. We are looking for servers in Brazil, Australia/New Zealand and elsewhere. Please email us at operations@osmfoundation.org. Thank you.