Board/Minutes/2021-05-14

Draft agenda.

Location: Video room https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/ror-nt7-6tu
using BigBlueButton.

Please note that this video chat is not open to observers.

Date and time: Friday 14 May 2021, 14:00 UTC - Countdown
Acronyms

Participants

Board members

Not Present

Officers and board
Biographies

Guests

Not open to observers.

Banking situation

Background Wise (formerly Transferwise) is a financial technology company (not a bank) that the OSMF uses to receive/send some payments. They have told us they consider us in violation of their acceptable use policy, but not specified of which part, and blocked our account and credit card. For more information read the April 2021 Treasurer's report. Suggested by Guillaume Rischard (Treasurer).

Licensing Working Group planning during Kathleen's leave

Background Suggested by Mikel Maron.

Investigate moving OSMF out of the UK, and into the EU

Background Even before Brexit was on the horizon, the OSMF occasionally thought about moving the organisation or creating a subsidiary elsewhere (most likely to another EU country). After the recent bank issues, the board is looking to create an account at a new bank and perhaps a subsidiary in the EU.

Past arguments regarding relocation/subsidiary, mentioned during 2020-10 board screen-to-screen meeting:

In favour of moving

• Existential: Keep sui generis database rights [1](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sui-generis-database-rights-after-the-transition-period). We still have other protections, but this is a big one and has been useful in the past.
• Financial reasons:
  • (EUR) banking.
  • Paypal easier.
  • Possible to receive tax-free status as a foundation in Luxembourg?
  • We currently pay about £6000 in tax per year. Will increase with iD/SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) funding income.
• Easier rules regarding membership.
• EU representative for the OSMF for GDPR purposes (a separate issue which is however solvable by simply determining a rep). Kathleen Lu (lawyer, LWG member) thinks it's not necessary.
• Keep .EU domain.

Against

• It's a lot of work.
• Cost (lawyers, registration...).
• Time budget/bandwidth of board.

Related:

• 2020-10: Legal team and Brexit implications - resolve how to respond (session during board screen-to-screen meeting)
• 2020-09: Licensing Working Group discussion about Brexit.
• 2020-08: action item for a board member to have a call with a relocation lawyer and come back to the board with a proposal / circular resolution.
• 2019-02: low-key call to members ("Nonprofits that have relocated from UK ") about any nonprofit organisations -even at a different sector - that started life in the UK and later moved elsewhere.
• 2019-02: Board discussion about Brexit.

Please note that there have been additional board/LWG discussions regarding Brexit.

Suggested by Allan Mustard.

Next meeting

Public board meeting on Friday 28th of May 2021, 14:00 UTC -- Countdown

Acronyms