Board/Minutes/2017-06-20

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Location: Mumble, Tuesday 2017-06-20, 20:00 London time

Participants

Board members

  • Martijn van Exel
  • Mikel Maron
  • Paul Norman
  • Frederik Ramm

Guests

Open to all 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

  • Peter Barth
  • Kate Chapman
  • Ilya Zverev

Administrative

Previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

2017/4: Fund Kate's travel to SotM Asia

2017/4: Fund Kate's travel to SotM Asia
SotM-Asia has asked Kate to keynote their conference in September in Nepal. While in the past she has found other ways to pay for this sort of travel, she can’t do that through her employer any more. As supporting the OSM Asia community is crucial to expanding the map she has asked whether the OSMF would fund the travel to the conference.
Accepted 2017-05-27 with ultimately 4 votes in favour: Ilya, Peter, Martijn, Mikel
Abstained 2: Frederik, Kate
Opposed 1: Paul

Previous action items

2016-05-28: Martijn to find someone to work with to distill action items and next steps for diversity objectives
2016-05-28: Martijn/Kate to draft diversity policy
2016-05-28: Ilya to compile a draft of an OSMF monthly newsletter from Working Group (WG) & board minutes
2016-08-19: Mikel to review his notes for an agenda/list of topics for the last Face-2-Face (F2F) (done)
2016-08-19: Mikel to put Local Chapters' (LC) discussion notes on the board wiki (done)
2016-05-28: Frederik/Paul to prepare transparency doc from transparency session
2016-08-19: Mikel to send round bullet points on diversity policy proposal
2016-08-19: Ilya to look at implementing means for members to view the membership register
2016-09-25: Martijn to notify board when US has done policy on smaller grants
2016-10-28: Peter to create a page on the wiki, listing software products which are used by OSMF and aren't open-source
2017-02-21: Paul to separate the State of the Map (SotM) net profit discussion items and start the follow-up discussions
2017-04-18: Peter to make a list of requirements for self-hosting and discuss them with the OWG
2017-04-18: Peter to create page on OSM wiki regarding board meeting - which can be linked from the calendar
2017-05-09: Paul to get back to OSMUK with questions about the articles and the membership (done)
2017-05-09: Martijn to create initial draft of AB welcome email and solicit feedback from the board (done)
2017-05-09: Paul to find the contact email for the Italian LC (done)

Topics: F2F | LC apps. | Announce Gold | Geocoding Guide. | Corp. Edit. Survey | HOT

F2F follow-up

The board had a face-to-face meeting in May (20-21). See also: May 2017, April 2017, March 2017.
Lead: Mikel

F2F Minutes

  • Notes from the meeting are too detailed
  • Minutes do not need to be formal

Options:

  • Compile list of topics, next steps and decisions
  • Report/Blog post (Update: This has been done)

Action item: Frederik to talk to Peter about writing a blog post for the F2F meeting.

Microgrants

Proposed and discussed extensively during the F2F (May 2017).

  • Should have some write-up to share with funders
  • Detailed discussion deferred to next board meeting

Action item: Martijn to check with OSM-US if he can share the OSM-US draft policy for small grants.

Topics: F2F | LC apps. | Announce Gold | Geocoding Guide. | Corp. Edit. Survey | HOT

LC applications - current status

In the future we need to explicitly say that we are accepting private feedback for Local Chapter applications.

United Kingdom

OpenStreetMap United Kingdom (OSMUK) has applied to become the OSMF Local Chapter for the United Kingdom (including the Isle of Man and Channel Islands). Previous discussion: May 2017.
Lead: Martijn

Update: Comments related to the community feedback were sent to OSM-UK and a reply was received (the board was cc'ed).

Points mentioned during discussion:

  • Reservations expressed regarding representation of the whole UK community.
  • Reservations shouldn't keep us from accepting the application.
  • OSM-UK made good effort to be representative and are flexible about Northern Ireland.
  • Should trust them to do the right thing.

On holding a vote now:
While it could be said to vote later to give a chance to non-attending members, the issue was on the agenda and if someone had really strong feelings they could have transferred their vote.

UK Local Chapter vote

UK Local Chapter vote
Accept OpenStreetMap United Kingdom (http://osmuk.org/ OSMUK]) as the OSMF Local Chapter for the United Kingdom (including the Isle of Man and Channel Islands).
Accepted with ultimately 4 votes in favour: Martijn, Mikel, Frederik, Paul

Action item: Paul to notify OSM-UK about the result of the vote and ask them to choose an Advisory Board representative.

France

OpenStreetMap France (OSM-FR) has applied to become the OSMF local chapter for France. Please note that for consultation and as part of due diligence, the OSM community has been asked (on osmf-talk and talk-fr) for comments on the application.
Lead: Martijn

Waiting for the community response.

Topics: F2F | LC apps. | Announce Gold | Geocoding Guide. | Corp. Edit. Survey | HOT

Announcing Gold Corporate Members

Proposal about announcing the companies that have signed-up or renewed their corporate memberships at the Gold tier, after the introduction of the new Corporate Membership program in October. Related discussion: Jan 2017.
Lead: Martijn

Options

  1. One blog post highlighting all new Gold Corporate Members, in a similar way to what was done for new/renewing Corporate Members up to the Bronze tier.
  2. Have a separate blog post for each Gold Corporate Member, giving them an opportunity to say why they support OSMF and how they are involved.
  3. Have a separate blog post for each Platinum Corporate Member and a combined one for Gold ones.
  4. Do a joint press release.

On joint press releases:

  • One of the benefits of the Silver Corporate Membership tier and higher ones is one joint press release annually.
  • It would be better if the press release is on the Corporate Members' own initiative.

Timing

One-time announcement and in the next years -if the Gold (or higher) Corporate Members choose so- they can use the joint press release.

Suggestion: Next year do the blog posts for higher Corporate Members first.

Comment on chat by nkv (Guest): Another option could be to do quarterly blog posts.

Topics: F2F | LC apps. | Announce Gold | Geocoding Guide. | Corp. Edit. Survey | HOT

Geocoding guideline status

The Licensing Working Group has produced a draft Geocoding Guideline and FAQ that is open for comments (1, 2). This consultation phase will run to the end of June.
Lead: Mikel

Waiting to hear from the LWG.

Topics: F2F | LC apps. | Announce Gold | Geocoding Guide. | Corp. Edit. Survey | HOT

Corporate editing policy survey

There is an increased interest on OSM from corporations who have employees that edit in their daytime. This might create communication problems between paid and volunteer mappers, or even an imbalance of power. Out of this situation the question arises on how to regulate this to ensure fair play. The board had asked the Data Working Group to work on a corporate editing policy, in a manner that it has sufficient community input, and before anything is decided to come back to the board. Related discussion: April 2017.
Lead: Paul

Update from the DWG:
Decision to do a survey (2/3 written, enough questions)

Purpose

Get people to think and discuss and take that as input to form a policy.

Survey format

  • Multiple choices covering a range of opinions (Strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree).
  • About three pages.

Survey dissemination

It will be probably forwarded to WeeklyOSM and there will be a blog post about it.

Survey platform

Looking for good recommendations of open source survey platforms - please contact the DWG (data@osmfoundation.org).

On involving corporations affected by the policy

Suggestion during the discussion that it might be beneficial to have input about the draft questionnaire from the board and from the organisations that the corporate editing policy might impact.

Points mentioned during discussion.

  • Affected organisations should be part of the process.
  • Ensure that the questionnaire gets a full range of opinions.
  • Could be an important step in incorporating organisations to the OSM-fold.

DWG:

  • Affected organisations are not targeted with the survey, as they can be explicitly contacted to get their feedback.
  • Affected organisations will not be contacted on the phrasing of the questionnaire.
  • The draft survey could be shared with the board.

On community members who are also employees of OSM-editing companies

Expected to answer as individuals and disclose that they are associated to a company (there will be a related question).

Topics: F2F | LC apps. | Announce Gold | Geocoding Guide. | Corp. Edit. Survey | HOT

OSMF and HOT

The board received an email from the HOT board on how they would like to open a collaborative dialogue with OSMF to explore new (and maybe better) ways to pursue our shared goals for strengthening OSM. Some of the options that have been discussed by the HOT board have been:
  • Exploring a formalisation of our working relationship, through thematic chapter license agreement or similar
  • Discussing how we can more proactively support each other. For example, through developing OSMF corporate membership options for NGOs like HOT
  • Supporting / participating in OSMF working groups
  • Better communications channels (both social media and board to board communications)
Lead: Frederik

Suggestions for formalising relationship

Thematic chapter (humanitarian)

  • Might not work, as HOT does not have open membership and would need to make re-structural changes, which they might not want to do.
  • Local Chapters have the end goal to push OSM on the local area. HOT are using OSM a lot but their main goal is humanitarian aid, not pushing OSM in developing countries.

Corporate Membership

  • Nothing from our side stops HOT from becoming a Corporate Member
  • Suggestion to consider adjustment of pricing structure for non-profits

General note for the future: We have to make it clear that the Corporate Membership is for non-profits as well.

Learning session

Suggestion of a learning session from HOT about what they do. Could be open to the whole OSMF membership.

Decision

The OSMF board will invite HOT to the Advisory Board upfront formalising our relationship and assuming that it will eventually lead HOT to become a Corporate Member or a thematic Chapter which would get a seat on the AB anyway.

Action item: Martijn to draft message to HOT board about having a seat on the AB upfront & ask if the current Corporate Membership levels are ok or if they want a discount.

Topics: F2F | LC apps. | Announce Gold | Geocoding Guide. | Corp. Edit. Survey | HOT

Any other business

None.

Closed portion of meeting

The OSMF board had a closed session portion of the meeting.

Potential grant

The potential grant is for operations (new hardware). We will disclose more when the paperwork is finished.
(Related closed-session discussion on Jan 2017 & osmf-talk message)

Next meeting

Tuesday 18th of July 2017, at 20:00 London time,

Meetings are normally recurring on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, at 20:00 London time, unless rescheduled.

Meeting end