OSMF updates/2020-08

Breaking news - Active Contributor Program launched by the Membership Working Group

If you are an active OpenStreetMap contributor (with at least 42 mapping days in the last year or other contributions) you should have a voice in the OpenStreetMap Foundation, which is supporting the project, and be able to vote for the board members of your choice. There is now an easier and costless way to become an OpenStreetMap Foundation member: the Membership Working Group has launched the active contributor membership program, where you can easily apply to become an Associate member of the Foundation and there is no need to pay the membership fee.

Announcement:

• DE Aktiver OSM-Mitarbeiter? Sie können jetzt einfach der OpenStreetMap Foundation beitreten
• EN Active OSM contributor? You can now easily join the OpenStreetMap Foundation.
• FR Contributeur OSM actif? Vous pouvez désormais rejoindre facilement la Fondation OpenStreetMap.
• GL Es unha persoa que contribúe de forma activa a OSM? Agora pódeste unir á Fundación OpenStreetMap.
• NL Actieve OSM-bijdrager? U kunt nu gemakkelijk lid worden van de OpenStreetMap Stichting (OpenStreetMap Foundation)
• PL Jesteś aktywnym współtwórcą OSM? Teraz możesz w łatwy sposób dołączyć do Fundacji OpenStreetMap.
• RU Активный участник OSM? Вступайте в Фонд OpenStreetMap
• Add a language

Launched in August.

OSMF updates - 2020 January to beginning of August*

• 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 the Committees.
• 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 public Board minutes are. This might change. Reports are made known to the Working Groups first, before being sent to the membership.
• Previous reports: here.

* With minor exceptions.

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Launched/Completed/Approved

Adopted - Microgrants policy The board adopted in January 2020 this Microgrants policy framework.

Feedback was asked on:

• 2018-Jul from attendees of a https://2018.stateofthemap.org State of the Map 2018] microgrant-related session (read some discussion points and questions)
• 2018-Oct from the membership on this consultation document, which contained an outline and top questions and was shared with the OSMF members and members of the Advisory Board.
• 2019-Oct from the membership on this document (the document had initially been put to vote but voting was subsequently cancelled for consultation of the members - see the related osmf-talk thread).
• 2020-Jan from the membership on this second published draft of the document (osmf-talk message).

Launched - Microgrants

12 microgrant proposals have been selected for this first trial round.

Providing microgrants was a topic discussed extensively during the Face-to-Face board meeting in April, where a plan was developed. You might know similar programs from e.g. OSM-US, HOT or FOSSGIS. A Microgrants committee was formed (members were selected by the board from interested applicants) to oversee this round.

2020

• Feb Call for microgrants committee members.
• Mar 5 selected committee members from 13 applications
• Apr Call for microgrant applications, Board update
• Jun Selection of 2 observers out of 4 applicants, Observer report, Board update
• Jul Announcements of 12 selected microgrant proposals.

Timeline with more details here.

Adopted - Hiring framework The board adopted on 2020-07-30 the following Hiring Framework. The draft was sent for membership consultation (osmf-talk* thread) from 15 to 30 July 2020.

* If you are an OSM Foundation member, you can subscribe to osmf-talk here. Become an OSMF member here.

Background - Related resources

• 2020-05 Hiring policy board discussion during mid-month board chat, Board's email to membership: "Framework for the foundation's hiring practices", Board's email to Advisory Board: "Framework for the foundation's hiring practices", Related meeting of the board with Corporate representatives on the Advisory Board
• 2020-03 Board discussion: Hiring session during board's 2020 screen-to-screen meeting, Dialogue with OSM System Administrators during board's 2020 screen-to-screen meeting
• 2016-09 Dorothea hired as an Administrative Assistant
• 2016-05 Call for Admin position applications
• 2016-04 Thread on osmf-talk about "OSMF Admin Position"
• 2015-11 Pre-election discussion: "Paying People"
• 2015-03 Thread on osmf-talk about "Hiring help for OSMF administrative tasks"

Adopted - LWG recommendation for standard style tile license The LWG recommended to the OSMF board that map tiles in the "standard" style produced on and provided from OSMF infrastructure are better to be licensed as a ODbL 1.0 Produced Work with no additional terms. The board approved the recommendation (June 2020) and the new licencing became effective on July 1st 2020. Translation of the change to all languages is not yet complete.

Blogpost: New licence for the “standard style” tiles from openstreetmap.org

Adopted - Diversity statement In January the board adopted the following Diversity Statement (Foundation's history link).

"The OpenStreetMap Foundation and the global OpenStreetMap community welcome and encourage participation by everyone. Our community is based on mutual respect, tolerance, and encouragement, and we are working to help each other live up to these principles. We want our community to be more diverse: whoever you are, and whatever your background, we welcome you."

Diversity Appendix

"We have created this diversity statement because we believe that a diverse OpenStreetMap community is stronger and more vibrant. A diverse community where people treat each other with respect has more potential contributors and more sources for ideas, and will create a better map.

Although we have phrased the formal diversity statement generically to make it all-inclusive, we recognize that there are specific attributes that are used to discriminate against people. In alphabetical order, some of these attributes include (but are not limited to): age, culture, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, national origin, physical or mental difference, politics, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and subculture. We welcome people regardless of the values of these or other attributes.

The OpenStreetMap community welcomes people no matter what languages they are fluent in. (Although core OpenStreetMap work is done in English.) The OpenStreetMap Foundation encourages the creation of local chapters everywhere, and many of them are listed on our wiki. Many of these chapters also have mailing lists in the locally preferred language.

The writers of these guidelines are deeply indebted to the Python Software Foundation."

Adopted - Conflict of Interest Policy for board In May the board adopted the following Conflict of Interest (CoI) Policy (Voting, history link). The policy is applicable only to board members.

Related board discussions:

• 2020 Apr
• 2018 May Face to Face meeting, Sep (CoI and organised editing guidelines), Nov (CoI and organised editing guidelines)

Reaffirmed - Support for existing value statements The OSMF board reaffirmed (voting) their support for the community's core values described at https://wiki.osm.org/Foundation/Core_Values (history link). In addition, the board views https://wiki.osm.org/How_We_Map as a good summary of how the OSM community works. The board does not intend the Diversity Statement (Foundation's history link), adopted in January 2020, to be at odds with either of these older documents.

Approved - 13 of 17 membership fee waiver applications due to financial need People were able to apply through the fee waiver program for an associate OpenStreetMap Foundation membership, if paying the membership fee (GBP 15 per year) constituted an unreasonable burden to the member because of lack of a suitable money transfer facility or due to financial need. Applications due to financial need were being processed by the Membership Working Group and then voted by the board.

Since January 2020 the board has voted on 17 membership fee waiver applications due to financial need and approved 13 of them.

The fee waiver program was replaced in August 2020 by the Active Contributor membership program.

Approved - Czechia, Argentina and Oceania Local Chapter applications OpenStreetMap Česká republika has been approved in February as the OSMF Local Chapter for Czechia.

Asociación Civil Geolibres and OSGeo Oceania Limited were approved in August 2020 as the Local Chapters for Argentina and Oceania, respectively.

• They are considered to be the first two non-European Local Chapters.
• OSGEO Oceania is the first supranational Local Chapter.

On supranational Local Chapters
The topic of supranational LCs was discussed by OSMF and board members and the Oceania application was approved with the agreement that OSGEO Oceania will up a page about their Local Chapter status, including a note about how they welcome the formation of more Local Chapters within Oceania; combined with an "official" e-mail to the OSMF board that they will keep that note online.

If you or your organisation are interested in the becoming a Local Chapter please see the FAQ, the documents needed for application and the template agreement. If you have quesYou can contact the Secretary, at secretary@osmfoundation.org and there is also the Local Chapters mailing list, which is dedicated to the discussion of topics and issues of interest to the Local Chapters of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, as well as those groups interested in becoming a Local Chapter.

Approved - Money-transfer privileges granted to Treasurer and Accountant

• Motion to give Guillaume (Treasurer) money-transfer privileges accepted.
• Motion to give Michelle (accountant) money-transfer privileges accepted.

Updated - Local Chapter agreement The updated Local Chapter agreement (history link) was approved in July and is available to new and existing Local Chapters (LCs).

Updated - Board Rules of Order to cover working groups and special committees The Board Rules of Order were updated in July 2020 to cover working groups and special committees.

The following section was added:

9. Working Groups, Committees, and Special Committees

1. Working groups handle much of the day to day activity of the OSM Foundation. They have an ongoing scope and remit, with delegated responsibility from the Board.
2. Working groups are proposed by members of the Foundation. A proposal includes its purpose, scope and remit; membership criteria and governance structure; logistics of meetings, and internal and external communications; a first-year work plan and budget.
3. The board considers working group proposals, and approves, rejects, or requests changes and re-submission of proposals.
4. Board members may serve in OSMF working groups, but should refrain from chairing them.
5. Committees are defined in the Articles of Association 91-94, and not typically employed by the Board.
6. Special committees are formed to deal with backlog and future Board action items in an expeditious manner, by studying and recommending actions on issues, or to handle a time delimited set of topics. They are not standing Committees, but deal with a delimited set of tasks.
7. A special committee is proposed and approved or rejected by the Board. A proposal includes a list of the specific tasks the special committee will undertake, and when it will report back to the Board.
8. The work of a special committee is initiated by a board member. Other board members, members of the Foundation and community may be invited to the special committee if deemed helpful and appropriate. The chair may be anyone sitting on the special committee.

Completed - Switched banks - of interest if you have set up recurring bank transfers to us Our previous bank, Barclays, decided to terminate its business relationship with us. After a long search for a new bank, we moved our savings to Triodos Bank and our everyday movements to TransferWise.

If you have previously set-up a recurring bank transfer for either your membership fee or for donations, please use one of our Transferwise accounts, listed here (GBP, EUR, USD).

Recent Treasurer reports: 2020 Jun, May, Feb

Completed - State of the Map 2020 - the first virtual, international SotM conference

The SotM organising committee successfully organised the first virtual, international State of the Map, which was originally planned to take place in Cape Town, Africa. Talks were pre-recorded and broadcasted live. Live Question and Answer sessions took place, where community members were able to ask questions to the speakers via online pads. The OSM awards were discontinued (see the 2020 nominees here) and Ilya Zverev, the OSM awards organiser, announced the osmcards.org website, where you can send (or request) postcards to fellow OSM-ers (watch the talk and more info).

• Watch the talks (programme here).
• See online notes by participants on the pad of each talk (open a page for a talk -programme here- and click "session pad" on the left").
• Read write-ups by community members (EN, ES, RU).
• Check out the posters.
• Test your OSM knowledge with the State of the Map 2020 Quiz.
• Provide feedback.

Started - Google Summer of Code 2020

Five student projects have been accepted to take part in the Google Summer of Code 2020 and are ongoing:

• Refactor PT Assistant
• Fix and Improve Mapillary Plugin for JOSM
• Adding Search suggestions for osm.org
• Indoorhelper plugin: BIM Import
• Simple Indoor Tagging Support for OSM2World

Minutes: Engineering Working Group

Started - 1 hour monthly discussions with Corporate Members of the Advisory Board In May the board started to have 1 hour monthly discussions with Corporate Members of the Advisory Board.

The Advisory Board members are separate from the OSMF board of directors - individuals are either representatives of Gold/Platinum Corporate Members of the OSMF, Local Chapter representatives or invited directly by the OSMF board of directors and they can be consulted by the OSMF board. Please note that the OSMF board is considering splitting the Advisory Board in two bodies.

• June Online meeting with four of the six Corporate Members of the Advisory Board about attribution.
• May Online meeting with five of the six Corporate Members of the Advisory Board, about a "framework for the foundation's hiring practices" (related to this osmf-talk email).

Started - 10 minute monthly presentations by Local Chapter representatives during board meetings In May the board started to have 10 minute monthly presentations by Local Chapter representatives during the monthly, public board meetings.

Each established Local Chapter can have one representative on the Advisory Board, which currently also has representative from each of our Gold and Platinum level Corporate members of the OpenStreetMap Foundation. Please note that the OSMF board is considering splitting the Advisory Board in two bodies.

• July Presentation of OpenStreetMap France by Christian Quest.
• May Presentation (pdf, file size: 100 KB) by OpenStreetMap á Íslandi, which is historically the first OSMF Local Chapter. The presentation was given by Jóhannes Birgir Jensson.

Started - Board mid-month video chats In April the board started to have mid-month video chats (not open to observers). Please see the email on the membership mailing list. Draft notes from these chats can be found here, together with minutes of the public board meetings.

Granted - Permission to Cesium to use our trademark in their product “Cesium OSM Buildings“ This permission from the OSMF board to Cesium did not grant them exclusive rights.

Please note that a community project called "OSM buildings" exists since 2012, where the "OSM" mark in that project name is already covered by paragraph 3.3.6 of the Trademark policy and does not need further permission.

Board voting

Announced - FOSS Policy Committee call for volunteers If you would like to see an OSMF powered by free and open source software, consider joining the FOSS Policy Committee.

• The call for volunteers is here.

Send an email to tobias@tobias-knerr.de if interested.

Ongoing or discussed 2020 January to August

Working on an attribution guideline The Licensing Working Group (LWG) has drafted an attribution guideline and the board is currently working on its text.

• Current board draft (text as on 2020-06-22).
• Diff with LWG version.

Attribution guidance related LWG minutes:

• 2020: Jan (“Twitter attribution thread”), Feb, Mar, Apr
• 2019: Jan, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
• 2018: Dec

Attribution related board minutes:

• 2020: Jan Attribution and lack thereof, Apr Update on LWG's rewrite of attribution policy, May Status of Attribution policy, Status of Facebook attribution issue on mobile, Jun Status, Meeting with Corporate Members of the Advisory Board on attribution
• 2019 Oct Attribution by Facebook

OSMF members related discussions:

• Attribution guideline status update: 2019 Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
• Attribution: board letter to Facebook: 2019 Oct, Nov

Plans to hire a Senior Site Reliability Engineer This will be the first position based on the hiring framework which the membership [discussed in July and was adopted by the board.

Proposal to fund projects used in core infrastructure (Nominatim, osm2pgsql, Potlatch, iD) Please see the message of the board on osmf-talk (mailing list for OSMF members) and the subsequent discussion. Funding of iD was discussed in a separate thread.

• Osm2pgsql - Proposal by Jochen Topf
• Nominatim - Proposal by Sarah Hoffmann
• Potlatch 2 - Proposal by Richard Fairhurst

Related board discussions: 2020 Jul 16, Jul 30

Discussions with HOT The OSMF board had an online meeting with the HOT board on the 24th of June and there are ongoing discussions about a short-term "Memorandum of Understanding".

Request for comments on adoption of community structure toward resolution of controversies related to iD The OpenStreetMap Foundation Board of Directors, seeking to resolve controversies that have periodically arisen around updates of and enhancements to the iD editor, had published this request for comments (published June 2020). Comments were invited to be sent as replies to this message on the OSM-talk mailing list (register to OSM-talk). Please note that the current iD developer, Quincy Morgan, was consulted regarding the content of the post.

Request for comments on OSM’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities and threats that OSM faces Allan Mustard, the new OSMF board chairperson, asked (January) the OSM community members to share their perspectives on OSM’s Strengths, Weaknesses and Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) that OSM faces. Strengths and Weaknesses refer to internal facets of OSM over which we, the community, have control. Opportunities and Threats are external influences with which we may and in some cases must deal.

Feedback was collected on the OSM wiki (register here).

Publication of pseudonymous membership lists Suggestion of publishing list of usernames of OSMF members as an additional protection against takeover concerns and to improve transparency in general. Opt-in basis to alleviate privacy concerns.

Related board discussion: 2020 May

Investigation of fee waivers for full membership Related to takeover protections.

Currently the old OSMF fee waiver program and the active contributor OSMF membership program grant only associate membership, not normal membership..

Some differences between Normal and Associate members:

• Normal members have to supply their full residential address, while Associate members only their country of residence.
• Only normal members can be candidates for election to board.
• Associate members can vote on some issues while normal members on all issues. See Membership.

Both normal and associate members can vote their preferred board candidates.

The board has asked and received advice from our pro bono laywer on the matter.

Restricting new memberships to people with significant investment to OSM The board has instructed the Membership Working Group (MWG) to forward to the board anyone who applies for OSMF membership and doesn't have 30 mapping days in the last year.

Related board discussions: 2020 Feb, Jan, 2019 Dec (AOB)

Trust and safety An action item from board's screen-to-screen meeting was to compile a list of questions to pose to the people who are administrators or moderators position on many different OSM communication channels.

Related to etiquette guidelines.

Related board discussions: 2020 Apr Trust and safety , 2019 Feb Move etiquette guidelines to OSMF website, Nov Moderation and etiquette.

Splitting the Advisory Board The Advisory Board members are separate from the OSMF board of directors - individuals are either representatives of Gold/Platinum Corporate Members of the OSMF, Local Chapter representatives or invited directly by the OSMF board of directors and they can be consulted by the OSMF board.

Please note that the OSMF board is considering splitting the Advisory Board in two bodies.

Paused - board mainly

Start developing guidance for our involvement in politics/activism Start developing guidance for our involvement in politics/activism: We have already taken a stand regarding the EU's proposed revision of its copyright directive, by signing as the OSMF the https://savecodeshare.eu petition. The board also had a more general discussion about our involvement in politics/activism.

Other news

Bitcoin donation On 2020-02-13 12:28 we got a new big donation (thanks!).

Background: OSMF accepts Bitcoin donations too. Our bitcoin address is: 1J3pt9koWJZTo2jarg98RL89iJqff9KobpBitcoin. The transaction history is a matter of public record, and can be viewed e.g. at https://blockchain.info/address/1J3pt9koWJZTo2jarg98RL89iJqff9Kobp.

Stopped using Mollie as a payment processor Stopped using Mollie as a payment processor due to their unresponsiveness and difficulty on taking the amount out.

Background: We signed up with Mollie in October 2019 on request from the Membership Working Group (MWG), as it allowed people to pay their fees using bank transfers that were automatically recorded (as opposed to MWG operatives having to manually mark a membership as paid after they see money coming in through the bank).

Board answer to press enquiry about female participation in OSM

The OSMF board and the OSM Communication Working Group have been contacted on 2020-03-04 by Anastasia Moloney (Reuters Foundation reporter). Her questions were:

• Does OSM have any data to show how many women contribute to OSM and from where? She looked at the membership statistics but couldn’t find data broken down by gender or age.
• Why do so few women contribute to OSM?
• Is OSM doing anything to address the big gender gap and encourage more women to contribute to OSM?

Answers provided. The article is here.

Working Groups

Operations Working Group, Contact/Join

• Ensuring the operation and smooth running of the XML editing API and data distribution services.

Overview of activities 2020 January to beginning of August here.

Data Working Group, Contact/Join

• Resolving issues in copyright violation, disputes, vandalism, and bots, beyond the normal means of the community;
• Helping to set policy on data;
• Detecting and stopping vandalism and imports that do not comply with guidelines.

January to beginning of July 2020

• 1005 tickets were created in OTRS in quarter 1 and 2 (324 of these were copied from the web site issue tracker). Some issues of minor importance that were submitted to the web site issue tracker, or off-topic issues submitted via the DMCA form, are sometimes handled directly in the web site issue tracker or with a short email response, and will therefore not be counted.
• A total of 1468 messages were received in the context of these tickets, and 2417 messages and memos were written by DWG members.
• 86 tickets were discarded as spam.
• 710 tickets created in quarter 1 and 2 were closed, and additionally, 225 tickets from previous periods were closed (total 935 tickets closed).
• 12 DWG members were active in the quarter (90% of cases were handled by the five busiest members).
• The majority of tickets were handled in English (787), but we also used the languages French (46), Russian (30), German (26), Dutch (6), Spanish (6) and Italian (5). (We will also often include auto-translated versions of English messages in responses.)

Generally, all these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt because edge cases can be mis-counted in our statistics.

• Activity reports: Q1, Q2

Notable cases:

• "Odd" edits in Sweden (and later the UK)
• Private Driveway in the Netherlands.

New member: We welcome David Morais Ferreira (Luxembourg)

Licensing Working Group, Contact/Join

• Licensing matters relating to using our geodata, (our end user license, community guidelines, License FAQ).
• Licensing matters relating creating our geodata, (contributor terms, [imports], using aerial imagery ...)
• Legal matters relating to responsibility and risk, (trademarks, safe harbour, privacy, child protection, ...)

Overview of activities 2020 January to beginning of August here.

WG members:

• Nuno Caldeira had decided to place OSMF/OSM on hold for the near future and was thanked for his participation on the LWG.
• Simon Poole (LWG chair) announced that he will step down on November.

Minutes: Licensing Working Group

Local Chapters and Communities Working Group, Email, Chat: IRC, Element Aims:

• Building local community cohesion
• Facilitating a global exchange of ideas
• Improving the Local Chapters affiliation scheme

The relaunch of the "Local Chapter Working Group" (LCWG) as "Local Chapters and Communities Working Group" (LCCWG) with new mission statement was approved by the board in December 2019.

January to beginning of August 2020

• Discussion on focus items.
• Run survey with existing Local Chapters and future applicants to get views why they applied/will apply to become an OpenStreetMap Foundation local chapter. The survey's aim is to make recommendations to the Board regarding the Local Chapters affiliation scheme based on the findings. Language: English. Responses: one response requested from each Local Chapter or community group. Run period: February to April 11, 2020
• Decision to hold a Local Chapter and Communities Congress (LCCC) separately and later from State of the Map 2020. Notes from past congresses are here.
• Working with OSM India to be in a position to make a Local Chapter application.
• Feature comparison of various Local Chapters and local communities websites with the main OpenStreetMap website. The idea is that this can provide information on improving the OSM website, but more importantly the comparison can be used as a source for Local Chapters and local communities for when they create or improve their own websites.

Minutes (Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, Jun) WG new members: Charles Chilufya and Geoffrey Kateregga.

Membership Working Group, Contact/Join

• Member self service area
• Administering the membership database
• Answering routine membership queries
• Increasing OSMF Membership

January to beginning of August 2020

• Implemented and launched the Active Contributor Membership program, where community members can easily become members of the OSM Foundation without a membership fee, if they have at least 42 mapping days during the previous year or other non-mapping contributions - Announcement. The Active contributor membership program is replacing the old "fee waiver" program (active from 2018 January onward) where the membership fee was waived in cases of financial hardship or lack of suitable money transfer ability. The change was made possible by a vote during the 2019 Annual General Meeting. The Membership Working Group has consulted the community and written down the details of the implementation here. The Board agreed with the MWG further implementing the program as outlined on the page above.
• Request for comments (4-30 April) on proposal for OSMF membership based on sizeable contribution to the project (now known as "Active contributor membership program"). The MWG proposed to automatically grant memberships to mappers who request it and who have contributed at least 42 calendar days in the last year (365 days). Not everyone contributes by mapping, and some of the most familiar names in our members list barely map. Some are very involved, for example, in organizing conferences. Those other forms of contribution should be recognised as well, and the board would take circular decisions on these applications. This program has now been implemented (see above).
• Handled 17 membership fee-waiver requests due to financial need (now superseded by the Active contributor membership program).
• Nepal was accepted as another country for the fee-waiver program for lack of suitable money transfer (now superseded by the Active contributor membership program).
• Discussion about providing full membership to new members via the active contributor membership program.

Membership statistics as of 1st September 2020 here.

Minutes: Membership Working Group

State of the Map Working Group, Contact/Join

• State of the Map Policy
• Responsible for the organization and execution of the annual OpenStreetMap Foundation Conference "The State of the Map" (SotM).

January to beginning of August 2020

The SotM organising committee successfully organised the first virtual, international State of the Map, which was originally planned to take place in Cape Town, Africa. Talks were pre-recorded and broadcasted live. Live Question and Answer sessions took place, where community members were able to ask questions to the speakers via online pads. The OSM awards were discontinued (see the 2020 nominees here) and Ilya Zverev, the OSM awards organiser, announced the osmcards.org website, where you can send (or request) postcards to fellow OSM-ers (watch the talk and more info).

• Watch the talks.
• See online notes by participants on the pad of each talk (open a page for a talk anc click "session pad" on the left").
• Read write-ups by community members (EN, ES, RU).
• Check out the posters.
• Test your OSM knowledge with the State of the Map 2020 Quiz.
• Provide feedback.

Minutes: State of the Map Working Group

Engineering Working Group, Contact/Join

• Coordinating "Google Summer of Code" projects.

January to beginning of August 2020

Five student projects have been accepted to take part in the Google Summer of Code 2020 and are ongoing:

• Refactor PT Assistant
• Fix and Improve Mapillary Plugin for JOSM.
• Adding Search suggestions for osm.org
• Indoorhelper plugin: BIM Import.
• Simple Indoor Tagging Support for OSM2World.

Minutes: Engineering Working Group

Communication Working Group, Contact/Join

• Communicating the work of the Foundation and related news, through official channels.

News distribution

• Blogposts are tweeted, and tweets are auto-published on Mastodon.
• Blogposts are also announced on language-specific channels on Telegram and recently on announce@openstreetmap.org/forum.

Summary of activities 2020 January to August here.

Get notified of new blog posts and translations (whenever available) by subscribing to our language-specific RSS feeds: AL, DE, EN, ES, FR, GL, FA, HR, HU, IT, LT, NL, PL, PT-PT, PT-BR, SQ, UK, RU, ZH-HANT

• Do you want to translate blogposts from English to another language..? Please send an email to communication@osmfoundation.org with subject: Helping with translations in [language].

Committees

Committees take on time delimited scoped tasks.

Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee, Contact The Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee (DISC) was appointed by the OSMF Board in January 2020.

• Discussion of objectives, thoughts on work plan, research, consultation and governance structure.
• Wrote Diversity Statement, which was adopted (January) by the board.

Minutes: Feb and Apr

Microgrants committee The Microgrants committee was formed in March 2020 (members were selected by the board from interested applicants) to oversee the first round of Microgrants provided by the OpenStreetMap Foundation.

12 microgrant proposals have been selected for this trial round. Fund disbursement is pending as of August.

• Feb Call for microgrants committee members.
• Mar 5 selected committee members from 13 applications
• Apr Call for microgrant applications, Board update
• Jun Selection of 2 observers out of 4 applicants, Observer report, Board update
• Jul Announcements of 12 selected microgrant proposals.

Timeline with more details.

Minutes: Apr (4 meetings), May (4 meetings), Jun

Advisory Board

Advisory Board

The Advisory Board members are separate from the OSMF board of directors - individuals are either representatives of Gold/Platinum Corporate Members of the OSMF, Local Chapter representatives or invited directly by the OSMF board of directors and they can be consulted by the OSMF board.

Please note that the OSMF board is considering splitting the Advisory Board in two bodies.

• Overview of communications 2020 January to August

Local Chapters

Local Chapters Local Chapters are country-level or region-level not-for-profit legal entities representing the area's mappers when dealing with local government, business, and media. They have been officially recognised by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) and can use the OpenStreetMap marks.

• Local Chapter agreement updated. The new agreement is available to new and existing LCs.
• New Local Chapter: Czechia. OpenStreetMap Česká republika has been approved as the OSMF Local Chapter for Czechia.
• Swiss LC: The Swiss OpenStreetMap Association updated their bylaws: DE, EN.
• German LC: FOSSGIS provided their position on OSMF hiring staff.

Local chapter overview 2020 January to August here.

If you or your organisation are interested in the becoming a Local Chapter please see the FAQ, the documents needed for application and the template agreement. You can contact the Secretary at secretary@osmfoundation.org and there is also the Local Chapters mailing list, which is dedicated to the discussion of topics and issues of interest to the Local Chapters of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, as well as those groups interested in becoming a Local Chapter. Also see the section regarding the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group.

How can I help the Foundation?

Become a Member
Help a Working Group
Become a Local Chapter
Become a Corporate Member
Donate

• Normal members provide their full residential address and can vote on all issues. They can also be candidates in the election to Board.
• Associate members provide just their country of residence and can vote - but not on all issues. More information here.

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