Board/Minutes/2019-10-16

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Location: Channel "OSMF Board of Directors (Public)" on Mumble.
Date and time: Wednesday 16th October, 19:00 London time
Countdown

Acronyms

Participants

Board members

  • Kate Chapman
  • Heather Leson
  • Tobias Knerr
  • Joost Schouppe
  • Mikel Maron
  • Paul Norman (joined around 5'30'' after start)
  • Frederik Ramm (joined around 16' after start)

Biographies

Guests

  • 10 guests

Open to all OSMF members.

Guests are welcome to speak at the end of the meeting on the topics that have been discussed. Please note that text messages sent on Mumble chat may not be seen by people who join using mobile apps.

Not Present

Administrative

Previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

Board_Rules_of_Order#7._Circular_Resolutions

2019/Res18 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019080110000108

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.

Accepted 2019-08-29 with 6 votes in favour: Heather Leson, Frederik Ramm, Tobias Knerr, Joost Schouppe, Kate Chapman, Mikel Maron
1 not voted: Paul Norman

2019/Res19 Approve financial hardship fee waiver 2019080710000053

The Board currently decides on membership applications for a fee waiver due to financial need on a case-by-case basis.

Accepted 2019-07-30 with 6 votes in favour: Frederik Ramm, Joost Schouppe, Heather Leson, Mikel Maron, Kate Chapman, Tobias Knerr
1 not voted: Paul Norman

2019/Res20 OSM Ireland to become an OSMF Chapter

OSM Ireland has completed the paperwork to become a formal OSMF Chapter. The community and .ie community were consulted. There was one dissenting opinion, which was addressed. Please see the application documents. OSM IE will have representatives at SOTM. It would be great to welcome them as a chapter.

Accepted 2019-09-15 with 6 votes in favour: Kate Chapman, Paul Norman, Joost Schouppe, Mikel Maron, Frederik Ramm, Heather Leson
1 abstained: Tobias Knerr

2019/Res21 Sign FOSSGIS PoA

Let us sign the original PoA and send it to them accompanied by a separate message that says we expect them to keep us appraised of any developments. Details see Mikel’s email to board dated 22 Sep 2019 subject “Informal meeting of OSMF and FOSSGIS”.

Unanimously accepted 2019-10-11 with 7 votes in favour: Heather Leson, Kate Chapman, Paul Norman, Joost Schouppe, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr, Frederik Ramm.

Related to Power of Attorney request from FOSSGIS (2019-08).

2019/Res22 Approve financial accounts

Approve financial accounts for 2018 as provided in Fred's email (to board) dated 05 Oct.

Unanimously accepted 2019-10-13 with 7 votes in favour: Paul Norman, Mikel Maron, Tobias Knerr, Heather Leson, Kate Chapman, Joost Schouppe, Frederik Ramm.

Previous action items

The list is sortable and collapsible and contains items that did not arise from board meetings. Incomplete.

Name Date Action item and status Source Related to
Board 2019-09 to decide about registration at the Benevity Causes Portal email Donation
Not assigned 2019-07-17 to contact Telenav about transfer of openstreetcam domain.
# Potentially also contact other parties, depending on the feedback from the LWG.
meeting LWG
Board 2019-09 to decide about the NextGIS donation. email Donation
Board 2019-07 to decide about the NextGIS donation. email Donation
Board 2019-07 to decide on next steps regarding an email service for OSMF. email FOSS policy
Board 2019-07 to decide on whether the team that plans a SotM in Africa can get the sponsorship amount from Facebook through OSMF. Unknown amount and whether this will be needed for more sponsors.
# Pre-requisites: Sign the SotM quick licence agreement and agree to provide invoices to OSMF prior to the money transfers.
email Regional SotMs
Board 2019-07 to provide feedback on Heather's draft email to OSM US, related to their interest in applying for LC status. email LC appl.
Board 2019-06 to decide on next steps regarding the request from a contributor to notify Facebook and remove their rights under ODbL if the violation is not fixed after 30 days of notice, as written on ODbL.
# Related talk@ discussion
email LWG
Frederik 2019-09-14 to send an announcement to osmf-talk about proposed Articles of Association changes/resolutions email AoA
Frederik/Heather 2019-05-18 to complete and share job description for someone to prepare a pull request for acceptance against the current “openstreetmap-website” code that will implement these changes (related blogpost).
# Possibly completed.
F2F 2019 GDPR
Frederik 2019-08 to pay Gunner for 2019 Face-to-Face board meeting facilitation.
# Done
F2F 2019 F2F
Frederik 2019-02-20 to create a circular about accepting the proposed budget. Once accepted, the budget will be put up on the OSMF website.
# Done
meeting Budget
Frederik 2018-09-20 to update Roland Olbricht, maintainer of the Overpass API (downstream data controller). meeting GDPR
Frederik 2019-08 to follow up with FOSSGIS about the Power of Attorney request.
# Done
meeting Budget
Joost/Mikel 2019-08 to write up a draft of the public documentation on the microgrants process, along with remaining questions and present at the August Board meeting.
# Done - document here.
F2F 2019 Microgrants
Joost 2019-07 to gather the responses from the WG survey.
# Done
F2F 2019 WGs
Heather 2019-08-23 to process the OSGeo Oceania Local Chapter application and review the satisfaction of the minimum LC requirements email Local Chapters
Heather 2019-07-23 to process the FreeMap Slovakia Local Chapter applicationand review the satisfaction of the minimum LC requirements email Local Chapters
Heather 2019-06-27 to process the OpenStreetMap Česká Local Chapter application and review the satisfaction of the minimum LC requirements email Local Chapters
Heather 2018-12-20 to draft email to start off discussion on the osmf-talk mailing list about developing guidance for our involvement in politics/activism.
# Was Peter's. Assigned to Heather on 2018-12-20.
meeting Activism
Heather 2018-09 to draft post on OSM validation practices. email Vandalism
Kate 2019-05-18 to write Administrative Assistant's job description.
# Possibly completed.
F2F 2019 Admin. Assistant
Kate 2019-05-18 Board terms/Roles/Announcement: Write announcement and communication plan.
# Done
F2F 2019 Board terms
Kate 2018-12-20 to write to the Data Working Group to see if there's anything further the board can do to support them. meeting DWG
Kate 2018-09 to draft rapid response plan for when bad things happen. email Vandalism
Kate 2018-02-15 to follow up with Grant about the technical workaround of having conference announcement banners on osm.org linked to landing pages on the website. meeting OWG
Kate 2018-01-18 to update the etiquette and add a reporting plan. meeting Communication
Mikel/Paul 2019-06-19 to document the process on evaluating a (SotM) Trademark request.
# To be suggested to the Trademark committee
meeting LWG
Mikel/Paul 2018-03-15 to look at the ten most active mailing lists and see if people listed as admins are active in the moderator role, what is in place, and how they manage the lists.
# 2018-05-24 Mikel drafted email and both agreed on some modifications.
meeting Communication
Mikel/Joost 2019-05-18 to document working group practices, draft WG “rules of order". F2F 2019 WGs
Paul 2019-06-19 to switch limesurvey plan to annual & expert, transfer (limesurvey) ownership to OWG, billing to OSMF and give access to Mikel, Joost and Dorothea.
# The plan won't be changed for the time being.
meeting Surveys
Paul 2018-05 to take feedback from the pre-F2F 2019 survey to developers that is about software.
# Might have been completed.
F2F 2019 Survey
Paul 2018-04-19 to document the evaluation process of software and services used by the OSMF. meeting FOSS policy
Paul 2016-10-28 to create a page on the wiki, listing software products which are used by OSMF and are closed-source and/or are externally hosted.
# Was Peter's
meeting FOSS policy
Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Attribution by Facebook

Facebook uses OSM data in various of its products. It is also an OSMF Gold Corporate member. The lack or way that it does attribution has been a subject of community discussions in the past years (see links towards the end of this section).

On 2019-06-06 a request was made to the OSMF board, as the Licensor under ODbL 9.4 c), to notify Facebook and remove their rights under ODbL, if the attribution violation is not fixed after 30 days of notice, as written on ODbL.

Suggestions for discussion:

  • Ask the Licencing Working Group (LWG) for an analysis of the problems and their previous actions.
  • Ask LWG to report on the status of the new attribution guidelines during this meeting.
  • Let the community know that we're working on this.
  • Contact Facebook to say that our community is really worried, and that this might result in problems for them at some point.
  • Ask Facebook to communicate more clearly about their relationship with OSM, when they communicate.

The current requirements for attribution are specified on the Licence and Legal FAQ. The LWG is currently working on producing an updated version of the document (Snapshot of draft on 2019-10-07).

Related community discussions:

Related LWG topic: 2018 Jun

Lead: Joost

5'46'' Pnorman joined

Suggestions:

  • Ask the Licencing Working Group (LWG) to report on the attribution guidelines progress.
  • Work concurrently with the LWG.
  • Work on a running document (questions/opportunities/decisions to be made) and contact Facebook afterwards with a list of questions.

Action item: Heather and Joost to work on a running document.

Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Working Groups - Board relation

The relation of the Working Groups and the board has been a subject of discussion during the 2019 board face-to-face meeting, which prompted a survey to be sent to the Working Groups. Feedback was received from representatives of the Data, Membership and the State of the Map Working Groups. Additionally, there was a discussion between board and WG members present at State of the Map 2019 in Heidelberg (description of session, video).

Related board discussions: Mar, Apr, Jun

Lead: Joost

Points mentioned during discussion:

  • WGs are overtasked.
  • Community health issues and gaps.

Suggestions:

  • [On surveys] Send emails to individual WG members instead of the whole WG.
  • Could have conversations with experts, if people have suggestions on who to approach.
  • Work on guidelines or rules of order related to way of working between WGs and board.

Decision: Include sysadmins in the Working Groups survey.

Annual General Meeting planning

Planning the 2019 Annual General Meeting, which will take place in December.

Related board discussion: Aug (Articles of Association changes)

16'19'' Frederik joined

Need to do:

  • Ensure we have the Opavote platform set up.
  • Set up the agenda for the AGM: report chairperson+treasurer+other things.
  • Set timeframe for elections to board.

Official invitation has to list special resolutions and be sent before Nov 14th.

Suggestions

Decisions

  • AGM on Saturday, Dec 14th.
  • Have post(s) of board members about working on the board and why it is a good idea for people to get involved.

Action items

Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Microgrants update

Providing microgrants was a topic discussed extensively during the 2018 Face-to-Face board meeting, where a plan was developed. You might know similar programs from e.g. OSM-US, HOT or FOSSGIS. As a start and as a first trial we want to make a time-bound program where you can apply for microgrants until a specific date. A consultation document was shared in 2018 with the membership and the Advisory Board members, which contained an outline and top questions. There were also two microgrant-related sessions at the State of the Map 2018 conference (read some discussion points and questions).

Work on Microgrants was paused in 2018 and restarted after the 2019 F2F meeting.

Community feedback is welcome on this document (the document had initially been put to vote but voting was subsequently cancelled to consult the community - see the related osmf-talk thread).

Related board discussions:

Related osmf-talk discussions: 2019 Aug, 2018 Oct (asking for input)
Related board working sessions: 2019 Aug, 2018 Sep, Jul.
Related SotM 2018 session: there was a lightning talk, for community feedback

Lead: Joost

Points mentioned during discussion

  • Good feedback from Michael Reichert. 16 issues, most quite easy to resolve.

Paying for work

  • Vagueness by design. We want to support volunteers but leave opening to paying people to do things.
  • Should only be possible if there are no volunteers to do that.

Suggestions

  • Explicitly state ""prefer volunteers to do work, unless not possible".
  • Share news on other communication channels (blog, Twitter, Facebook).

Action items

  • Tobias to share news with weeklyOSM (their decision to publish or not).
  • Heather and Joost to work on blogpost.
Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Agenda publishing deadline (potential Rules of Order update)

In January, the decision was made to set the meeting agenda seven days in advance of the meeting, although the processes haven't really changed much as a result. There was also a reminder during July's meeting. Proposal to update the Rules of Order by inserting the following paragraph as §6.3 (and renumbering others accordingly):

"The date and agenda of board meetings is announced to the OSMF membership one week in advance. Time-sensitive issues can still be added to the agenda after that deadline."

The goal of this would be to allow members of the community to informally offer input and raise concerns even for topics where the board doesn't do an explicit request for feedback. One week would allow volunteers to translate the agenda into other languages and for it to be spread to other platforms than osmf-talk (e.g. through Weekly OSM).

Lead: Tobias

Voting

Proposal to update our Rules of Order by inserting the following paragraph as §6.3 (and renumbering others accordingly):

"The date and agenda of board meetings is announced to the OSMF membership one week in advance. Time-sensitive issues can still be added to the agenda after that deadline.".

Unanimously accepted with 7 votes in favour.

Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Advisory Board - monthly update

The Advisory Board members are separate from the OSMF board of directors - individuals are either nominated by Corporate Members of the OSMF or invited directly by the OSMF board of directors. The OSMF Board of Directors will publicly minute, in the board meeting minutes, any communication sent to, or received from, the AB members. This monthly section is reserved for this purpose. Overview.

AB related updates and board discussions:
2019 Jan, Mar, Jun, Jul, Aug

2018 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Dec
2017 Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May (F2F), Oct

Lead: Heather
  • OSM-UK sent email about their fixme project.
  • Heather forwarded emails from Open Source Initiative:
    • "OSI Seeks Faculty (YOU!) to Teach New Open Source Management Courses".
    • "Help the OSI Define Open Source Education".
  • Dermot McNally was added to the AB mailing list as the OSM-IE representative.
Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Any other business

Suggestion for additional OSM data backup

  • Sysadmins make regular backups of ancillary data, like user accounts and passwords, that is not public. We are quite secure from catastrophic server failures.

Not currently secure in cases of:

  • OWG* hostile takeover.
  • Passwords stolen from OWG*.

*Note: later in the discussion it was clarified that the mention was for sysadmins and not OWG.

Suggestion (originally by Andy Allan, former OWG member) from a risk-mitigation standpoint:

  • Rent a storage volume and set up a mechanism that copies the existing backup to that volume in regular intervals.
  • Access only by board members.

Price: EUR 60-70 per month from Hetzner.

Private data: Board members will have more access to private data (sign-up IPs etc).

Points during discussion

  • Board might not be the right group to maintain/secure a server.
  • Access to back-ups: ~Probably~ Grant, Tom and Mat (resigned from OWG, still sysadmin).

Suggestion: OWG to have a set-up where not everyone has access to all copies.

Decision: deferred to email.

Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Guest comments or questions

No comments or questions.

Topics: Facebook attribution | WGs-Board relation | AGM planning | Microgrants | Agenda publishing | AB | AOB: Additional data backup

Meeting end
57' after start of recording.

Next meeting

Meetings take place online on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, at 19:00 London time, unless rescheduled.
The next monthly board meeting will be on the 20th November 2019 at 19:00 London time, unless rescheduled.

Meeting end