Working Group Minutes/SWG 2011-01-06

Attending

• cmarqu: Colin Marquardt
• TomH: Tom Hughes
• twain47: Brian Quinion
• rweait: Richard Weait
• zere: Matt Amos
• Firefishy: Grant Slater
• RichardF: Richard Fairhurst
• chrisfl: Chris Fleming
• mkl: Mikel Maron
• miblon: Milo van der Linden
• woodpeck: Frederik Ramm
• samlarsen1: Sam Larsen
• apmon: Kai Kreuger
• wonderchook: Kate Chapman
• Firefishy: Grant Slater

Apologies

• toffehoff: Henk Hoff

Minutes

• Minutes of 2010 Dec 08 - Proposed by Sam Larsen, Seconded by Chris Fleming
• Mikel's agenda

* Spending Policy

* Publish and act on tile policy. Tile layers scorecard.

* SWG Mission and OSMF Mission

* Clarity on OSMF Resources and Priorities

* Formalize the working group

• Mikel provides update from Board meeting
• Discussion of budgeting / Spending policy.

* draft to come from miblon, woodpeck and wonderchook for next meeting

• Meeting adjourned at top of the hour. Other agenda points were not discussed.
• Next meeting Thursday 13 Jan 2011 1500H GMT

IRC log

(09:58:46 AM) rweait: *** Logging started ***

(09:59:06 AM) samlarsen1 left the room (quit: ).
(09:59:30 AM) samlarsen1 [5b55a713@ircip2.mibbit.com] entered the room.
(09:59:51 AM) mkl: thanks richard. and thanks for starting the minutes too
(10:00:18 AM) rweait: Minutes: (in progress)  http://www.osmfoundation.org/index.php?title=Working_Group_Minutes/SWG_2011-01-06
(10:00:29 AM) mkl: Are we about ready to start?
(10:00:41 AM) woodpeck: +1
(10:01:33 AM) chrisfl: good to go
(10:01:36 AM) rweait: miblon: please check your email. 
(10:01:54 AM) mkl: I recognize the nicks of everyone except miblon
(10:02:20 AM) miblon: mkl; it is Milo van der Linden
(10:02:57 AM) mkl: ah, greets
(10:03:28 AM) miblon: Sorry for the misunderstanding
(10:03:28 AM) mkl: well let's begin
(10:03:38 AM) mkl: 2011
(10:03:39 AM) miblon: rweait, I replied
(10:03:52 AM) mkl: We should start by looking at the last meeting minutes
(10:04:03 AM) rweait: excellent, thank you Milo!
(10:04:13 AM) mkl: 2010-12-26 ... doesn't look like much happened, and previous minutes weren't reviewed
(10:04:34 AM) mkl: should we just take a look at http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes/SWG_2010-12-08
(10:04:57 AM) miblon: read the minutes, no comment.
(10:05:01 AM) apmon [~anonymous@dhcp-80-143.eduroam.ucl.ac.uk] entered the room.
(10:06:00 AM) mkl: henk is out today, so no update on the tile scorecard
(10:06:26 AM) mkl: well anyone who was at this meeting ... can you propose/second
(10:06:34 AM) samlarsen1: propose
(10:06:36 AM) miblon: the pastebin outline strategy  from dec 8 is unavailabe. Is it necessary to have them available during this meeting
(10:06:54 AM) chrisfl: It is in the irc log as well (pasted by me)
(10:07:02 AM) chrisfl: seconded
(10:07:28 AM) Fake [~50b1b3c2@webuser.thegrebs.com] entered the room.
(10:07:39 AM) Fake is now known as FakeSteveC
(10:07:45 AM) mkl: ok thx
(10:08:19 AM) mkl: oh awesome ... does this mean we finally learn his identity?
(10:08:37 AM) mkl: FakeSteveC ... we don't have anonymous participation in the Working Groups
(10:09:03 AM) FakeSteveC left the room.
(10:09:16 AM) mkl: lol
(10:09:20 AM) samlarsen1: ;)
(10:09:53 AM) mkl: ok here's what i have for an agenda
(10:09:57 AM) chrisfl: not even a pithy one liner
(10:10:08 AM) mkl: * Spending Policy
(10:10:17 AM) mkl: * Publish and act on tile policy. Tile layers scorecard.
(10:10:17 AM) mkl: * SWG Mission and OSMF Mission
(10:10:17 AM) mkl: * Clarity on OSMF Resources and Priorities
(10:10:17 AM) mkl: * Formalize the working group
(10:10:39 AM) mkl: Anything else?
(10:10:40 AM) wonderchook [~katechapm@209.155.228.129] entered the room.
(10:10:54 AM) samlarsen1: informal chat about GPSToGo
(10:10:56 AM) samlarsen1: ?
(10:11:03 AM) mkl: yup
(10:11:54 AM) mkl: Ok, so here's what's up
(10:12:17 AM) mkl: OSMF has received a substantial donation from MapQuest
(10:12:26 AM) mkl: This will be announced publicly soon
(10:12:39 AM) mkl: Part of this has already been spent on hardware, I believe
(10:12:58 AM) mkl: But leaves a substantial amount with appropriation
(10:13:19 AM) mkl: The OSMF has rough percentage budget guidelines, drawn up years ago
(10:13:27 AM) mkl: They're out of date
(10:14:13 AM) mkl: So, this presents a good chance for the OSMF to explore what it's budget needs actually are
(10:14:24 AM) mkl: And fill them, to some degree, through this donation
(10:14:37 AM) mkl: The Board discussed this at Pisa
(10:15:03 AM) mkl: And saw that the way to go about this would be for the Strategic WG to coordinate a budgeting process
(10:15:23 AM) mkl: Roughly, asking each WG for a budget proposal for their work for the year
(10:15:54 AM) mkl: And, I'd add, if there's some area that could use funding, not covered by the responsibilities of a WG, we should think about that too
(10:16:11 AM) mkl: So that's where we're at
(10:16:20 AM) mkl: We have til the end of February
(10:16:24 AM) mkl: ...
(10:16:46 AM) woodpeck: let me check what WGs we have
(10:17:30 AM) woodpeck: articles, licensing, data, technical, communication, strategic, sotm, and local chapters
(10:17:32 AM) mkl: technical working group is a good model for this, they already do this
(10:17:51 AM) mkl: i don't think articles is active
(10:18:10 AM) woodpeck: i just quoted from osmf wiki page - no clue who's active and who isn't.
(10:18:51 AM) mkl: so, what do you all think?
(10:19:23 AM) chrisfl: Sounds good to me.
(10:19:25 AM) miblon: Sounds good, to have the working groups do a budget proposal.
(10:19:41 AM) woodpeck1 [~fred@p4FDCEE3A.dip.t-dialin.net] entered the room.
(10:19:45 AM) woodpeck1: sorry.
(10:20:47 AM) miblon: I think the OSMF should not want "areas that could use funding" outside of working groups. If such an area pops-up, it should be addressed by a working group first. That would be better for transparancy
(10:21:29 AM) chrisfl: True, but it makes sense to at least think about any outside area's may come up. Helps with budgeting.
(10:21:35 AM) woodpeck1: i sense bureaucracy overhead. would you want a "gps2go working group"?
(10:22:08 AM) miblon: woodpeck1, I don't know what it means to the osmf yet. Will wait whengps2go comes up later in this meeting
(10:23:20 AM) mkl: sure, i could gpstogo go either way ... within a current group, or as part of a new group with wider remit than just this
(10:23:38 AM) mkl: for instance, gpstogo has a lot in common with the sotm scholarships follow up projects
(10:23:39 AM) samlarsen1: are operations like HOT supposed to source funds from outside of the OSMF funding model?
(10:23:47 AM) mkl: but anyway, this is an aside
(10:24:06 AM) mkl: HOT is an independent organization, for many reasons
(10:24:31 AM) mkl: liability and capacity are important reasons
(10:24:43 AM) miblon: I agree with mkl on HOT
(10:24:49 AM) mkl: we discussed at Pisa how OSMF and HOT should be related
(10:25:00 AM) mkl: and decided it's a discussion for post-local chapters
(10:25:16 AM) mkl: because many of the issues are the same, but it's not geographically based
(10:25:46 AM) woodpeck1: well any kind of query we address to the individual WGs would have to come with some guidance. for example, if the data working group were asked about their funding needs, I could say "we don't need funding, we just do as much work as we get done and that's it", or i could say "we really need a part time staffed position for someone to do official communications"
(10:26:12 AM) woodpeck left the room (quit: Ping timeout: 480 seconds).
(10:26:15 AM) woodpeck1: but then if someone asked me whether i'd rather have a staffed position for data working group, or a faster and more reliable database server, i'd probably choose the second...
(10:26:48 AM) woodpeck1: so there's a danger here of overlooking the relative importance of working groups, perhaps.
(10:27:26 AM) mkl: woodpeck1: yes, we need to also say, that wg won't necessarily get what they ask for
(10:27:39 AM) mkl: someone will need to make these choices
(10:27:46 AM) chrisfl: But it does make sense to look at everything that could be funded, the funds available, the long term implications of what we fund now (especially staff) and balance all that out. No harm in finding out what people want.
(10:28:35 AM) chrisfl: But can't fund everything... as we don't want to start putting Steve's face all over the map :)
(10:28:58 AM) miblon: chrisfl, speak for yourself, perhaps that is what I want ;-)
(10:29:19 AM) mkl: yup. i think it's a very good exercise for us. and this funding cycle won't be the last.
(10:29:28 AM) samlarsen1: are the WG's going to propose spending which will be approved/allocated by OSMF?
(10:29:38 AM) samlarsen1: outside of already allocated funds
(10:30:09 AM) woodpeck1: i don't know what the others think but for me the *default* way of spending money is hardware and server hosting and all that, i.e. the TWG realm. any money not desperately needed elsewhere would, in my world view, have to go towards making our technical backbone more speedy & more resilient
(10:30:16 AM) samlarsen1: sorry (OSMF = board)
(10:30:47 AM) ***Firefishy just joined.
(10:31:13 AM) mkl: samlarsen1: that's undecided
(10:31:22 AM) mkl: ultimately it's the Board, yes
(10:31:36 AM) mkl: how much work Strategic puts into making the recommendation, that's up for design
(10:31:47 AM) samlarsen1: woodpeck1: agreed - i think TWG should secure up needed funds for better services as a priority and we should all fight over the scraps
(10:32:03 AM) Firefishy: mkl: Hardware spending is up2date: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Servers/Upgrades#Upgrade_History
(10:32:28 AM) Firefishy: mkl: TWG also never received a response to the question of a second DB server. Estimated cost is £12k.
(10:32:43 AM) Firefishy: (question was to OSMF Board)
(10:33:08 AM) mkl: woodpeck1: yes i think that's everyone's priority. still we need for all operations to start planning, right?
(10:33:55 AM) samlarsen1: do we have any defined ideas for extra spending in strategic? - anyone?
(10:33:56 AM) mkl: Firefishy: I believe this was agreed to, but could be wrong. Go ahead an requery the Board please. 
(10:34:23 AM) chrisfl: I agree with woodpeck
(10:34:46 AM) mkl: We had a lengthy discussion in Pisa about re-architecting the DB, so it can be more scalable
(10:35:02 AM) chrisfl: I can't see anything that strategic would need to spend money on.
(10:35:27 AM) Firefishy: mkl: And that was looked very negatively on by TWG. We didn't hear about that discussion and have never been asked.
(10:35:31 AM) TomH: mkl: Yes, we did notice that... 
(10:35:46 AM) TomH: as Firefishy says, something for TWG really
(10:35:55 AM) RichardF: I'm not aware that there are any experienced db admins on the board?
(10:36:46 AM) chrisfl: We're getting a bit off topic here.... but it did seem an odd topic for the board to cover.
(10:37:23 AM) mkl: Yea, let's take that up in a seperate thread.
(10:37:53 AM) woodpeck1: i guess we all agree that the TWG is the group to decide if and when any re-architecting is done, otherwise we can simply dissolve them ;)
(10:38:17 AM) woodpeck1: now this other topic form pisa, the "incubation" thing, is that part of this funding discussion as well, or does it come as an extra topic=
(10:38:50 AM) mkl: there's only one Board member here so let's take that another time :)
(10:39:29 AM) samlarsen1: looking at SWG activities - i can't see any blindingly obvious needs for funding for us
(10:39:59 AM) mkl: That's another topic, related, but aside. something we've discussed before
(10:40:49 AM) mkl: samlarsen1: me neither. but something we can explore in the budgeting process we need to design :)
(10:42:27 AM) woodpeck1 is now known as woodpeck
(10:42:42 AM) mkl: So there's not much for the TWG to do in this process ... they've already done it
(10:42:44 AM) mkl: Set the model
(10:43:12 AM) miblon: So on spending policy: Can this agenda item be concluded as: the SWG will design a budgeting process?
(10:43:36 AM) mkl: What Strategic needs to do is draw up the guidelines for the other groups, set deadlines, figure out how to apply priorities, etc
(10:43:55 AM) mkl: miblon: we need to start on this asap
(10:44:06 AM) miblon: mkl and have roles and responsibilities clearly defined so funding-parties clearly know who to address
(10:44:08 AM) samlarsen1: do we have any models to mould or make it up from scratch?
(10:44:13 AM) chrisfl: Sounds good.
(10:45:09 AM) woodpeck: one thing that would be very important to me is utmost transparency. as soon as a working group even formulates their budgeting request that should be public or at least accessible to interested project members
(10:45:18 AM) miblon: I think it would be gould to make it up from scratch. It ain't rocket science and I think it would be good to have a quick draft that can then be moulded as the OSMF moves through time and space ;-)
(10:45:34 AM) miblon: woodpeck, agree
(10:45:45 AM) woodpeck: in most cases it will automatically be so as the minutes are public however i would very much like to avoid a situation where everyone hands in their sealed letters to SWG and then there's the big surprise at the end ;)
(10:46:04 AM) chrisfl: The budgeting process should ideally fit within the OSMF financial year.
(10:46:20 AM) mkl: we should be transparent! even the US Congress is now transparent ;)
(10:46:54 AM) samlarsen1: so someone to start a wiki page - like how we tackled the new tile policy?
(10:47:03 AM) ***miblon started posting irc-logs to wikileaks when this meeting started ;-)
(10:47:15 AM) mkl: chrisfl: i believe our financial year starts in the summer, but not sure
(10:47:42 AM) rweait: We're down to under 15 minutes to go.  mkl, did you want to address another point on the agenda?
(10:47:46 AM) mkl: in which case, we could ask the WGs to draw up proposals for the second half of the financial year
(10:47:46 AM) RichardF: presumably as the MQ donation is a one-off but technical needs are on-going, there'll need to be a fairly hefty chunk held in reserve against future hardware expenditure
(10:48:22 AM) mkl: RichardF: that's called planning and prioritizing :)
(10:48:30 AM) chrisfl: and/or we need to identify long term sources of funding
(10:48:41 AM) mkl: those are there
(10:48:47 AM) RichardF: well, it's a particular instance of planning and prioritising
(10:48:50 AM) mkl: we have standing offers to submit proposals
(10:49:14 AM) Firefishy: mkl: 31st August is the end of OSMF financial year.
(10:49:22 AM) Firefishy: I believe.
(10:49:25 AM) mkl: so can 1,2,3 people take responsibility for writing up  the process guidelines
(10:49:34 AM) mkl: Firefishy: thx
(10:50:10 AM) ***miblon raises hand
(10:50:39 AM) woodpeck: i'll help
(10:50:52 AM) woodpeck: or at least try to be helpful ;)
(10:50:53 AM) miblon: woodpeck, thanks, I need some "native english" help here ;-)
(10:51:05 AM) woodpeck: then you have the wrong person ;)
(10:51:22 AM) woodpeck: but we'll make do.
(10:51:26 AM) mkl: cool thx ... so by next week we have a draft. we could discuss on the mailing list if there's something available earlier
(10:51:31 AM) ***wonderchook I can help you guys 
(10:51:40 AM) mkl: great
(10:51:40 AM) miblon: woodpeck, oops! sorry :-)
(10:52:06 AM) mkl: ok with the 10 minutes left
(10:52:20 AM) mkl: i suggest we jump to gpstogo
(10:52:45 AM) mkl: ok?
(10:53:00 AM) miblon: can someone add wonderchook tot the list of "attending": http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes/SWG_2011-01-06
(10:53:36 AM) rweait: miblon: In there.  I don't update that often.
(10:54:13 AM) miblon: rweait thanks!
(10:54:22 AM) miblon: wonderchook, that would be great, thanks
(10:54:40 AM) mkl: i gotta leave right at 10am, so maybe we're ready to close
(10:55:11 AM) samlarsen1: anyone want to stay to discuss gpstogo
(10:55:16 AM) rweait: perhaps formalize swg?
(10:55:52 AM) miblon: I will stay
(10:55:53 AM) chrisfl: I can hang on
(10:56:05 AM) wonderchook: I can stay 
(10:56:09 AM) mkl: samlarsen1: i gave you a quick brain dump, if you wanted to lay out what's up with gpstogo
(10:56:18 AM) samlarsen1: yes please
(10:56:25 AM) mkl: cool
(10:56:26 AM) samlarsen1: oh - yes got it
(10:56:59 AM) mkl: i think the question is ... who takes charge of it? is it SWG, or something else, or something new?
(10:57:03 AM) mkl: anyway...
(10:58:02 AM) samlarsen1: i think it should be linked to the scholarship program - it's all charity & getting less developed regions up to speed
(10:58:44 AM) wonderchook: yeah, I think that makes sense. I was mostly hanging on because HOT has been handing out lots of GPS units
(10:58:48 AM) woodpeck: but the scholarship program is directly linked to the conference, is it not? and gps2go does not necessarily have to do with someone traveling?
(10:59:17 AM) wonderchook: I was thinking maybe not linked to the same people, but handled in the same group
(10:59:29 AM) rweait: mkl: we need a date for next meeting
(10:59:38 AM) mkl: same time, next week?
(10:59:48 AM) samlarsen1: the problem is - it doesn't seem to be functioning well as-is
(10:59:50 AM) rweait: seconded.  objections?
(10:59:56 AM) mkl: woodpeck: there's two pieces linking it to sotm scholarships
(10:59:56 AM) samlarsen1: same time next week - second
(11:00:09 AM) chrisfl: works for me.
(11:00:27 AM) rweait: Move to close the meeting. 
(11:00:49 AM) mkl: ok meeting closed!
(11:01:00 AM) miblon: thanks mkl for organizing
(11:01:03 AM) rweait: *** Closing Log ***