Board/Minutes/2018-09-20

From OpenStreetMap Foundation
< Board‎ | Minutes

Location: Mumble, Thursday 20th of September, at 21:00 London time

Participants

Board members

  • Kate Chapman
  • Frederik Ramm
  • Heather Leson
  • Martijn van Exel (Joined after ~ 9 minutes. Apologies for delay.)
  • Mikel Maron
  • Paul Norman
  • Peter Barth

Biographies

Guests

  • 8 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

None.

Previous action items

The list is sortable and collapsible. New items or updates are in blue.

Name Date Action item and status
All 2018-03-15 to send a reminder about etiquette guidelines on osmf-talk, talk & facebook page.
All 2018-02-15 to clean-up the SotM draft policy document.
All 2017-11-16 to send an email to members, months in advance of the 2018 Annual General Meeting, encouraging them to discuss and perhaps propose their own resolutions.
Frederik 2018-08-16 to draft a call for proposals related to API suggested changes, which will be sent to board except Paul.
# Done
Frederik/Paul 2016-05-28 to prepare transparency document from transparency session.
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.
Kate 2018-01-18 to update the etiquette and add a reporting plan.
Kate 2017-08-24 to write to the Advisory Board list about microgrants.
Martijn/Kate 2018-08-16 to coordinate and contact our pro-bono lawyer about potentially offering lifelong OSMF memberships.
# Done
Martijn 2018-06-21 to initiate discussion on the osmf-talk mailing list about refining the Local Chapter criteria. Suggested period for discussion: two weeks.
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.
Mikel 2017-08-24 to send email on the list to find businesses that would like to offer input on the Welcome Mat.
Mikel 2016-08-19 to send round bullet points on diversity policy proposal.
Heather/Martijn 2018-08-16 to coordinate with other board members and start a series of weekly or fortnightly working sessions on microgrants after September 3rd.
# Done
Heather 2018-06-21 to check software/services evaluation templates of other organisations. Related to our FOSS policy.
# Done - waiting for board feedback.
Paul 2018-04-19 to document the evaluation process of software and services used by the OSMF. Related to our FOSS policy.
Paul 2017-02-21 to separate the State of the Map (SotM) net profit discussion items and start the follow-up discussions.
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
Peter 2017-04-18 to make a list of requirements for self-hosting and discuss them with the Operations Working Group.
Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

Terms of Use approval

Voting

Approve the proposed Terms of Use
The Licensing Working Group (LWG) has asked the board to approve the proposed Terms of Use.
Accepted with ultimately 6 votes in favour: Frederik Ramm, Heather Leson, Kate Chapman, Mikel Maron, Paul Norman, Peter Barth.

Not voted 1: Martijn van Exel (not present - joined later)

The suggestion of creating a summary or friendlier version of the Terms of Use might be discussed at a later point.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

Draft Non-Disclosure Agreement

Martijn van Exel joined.

Voting

Approve the proposed Non-Disclosure Agreement
The Licensing Working Group (LWG) has asked the board to review the draft version of the Non-Disclosure Agreement that they are are proposing for working group members.
Unanimously accepted with ultimately 7 votes in favour.

  • This is the recommended NDA to use in all aspects in the OSMF, if an NDA has to be used.
  • Guidance about who has to sign it and when, might be provided later.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

Organised editing guidelines

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 Data Working Group (DWG) has developed a set of organised editing guidelines, after integrating a lot of feedback from the advisory board members, the humanitarian mapping initiatives and the mapping community.

  • Guillaume Rischard (from the DWG) will attend this meeting and can present the guidelines and answer questions.

Timeline:

Previous board discussions: 2018 Jan, 2017 Jul, Jun, Apr

The topic was not discussed at this point (Guillaume joined later, as he did not receive a reply in time).
Related discussion later on: Conflict of Interest and organised editing guidelines.

  • Suggestion: ask questions to Guillaume/DWG in public.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

Risk response plan

Discussion about developing a toolkit/plan to help the working groups (WGs) and the board to handle situations where things could go wrong (vandalism/technical/financial/other).
Lead: Heather

Suggested process:

  1. Working groups to identify potential risks.
  2. Assessment of potential impact of each risk.

Goal: Identify things might need immediate attention and focus on planning who to provide that.
Note: The plan should be agnostic.

Action Item: Heather to draft an email to the working groups and share it with the board.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

Start developing guidance for our involvement in politics/activism

Note: The board has already decided to take a stand regarding the EU's proposed revision of its copyright directive, by signing as the OSMF the https://savecodeshare.eu petition. The discussion here was more general and not focused on article 13.

Suggestions

  • Develop guidelines about activities and agendas we should get involved with.
  • Communicate to our (and to potential) members that we might participate in political discourse when some topics are discussed.

Other points during discussion:

  • Staying out of politics is problematic, if politics directly affect our goals.
  • We might choose not to make a stance, in cases where getting involved is not going to be useful.
    • India case, 2017: The OSMF did not become involved with the laws around mapping in India, after advice from the local community.
  • We should be careful to prevent situations where a subgroup of us use the OSMF as a beacon for their political ambitions.

Action Item: Peter to draft email to start off discussion on the osmf-talk mailing list.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

Microgrants update

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. 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.

Related board discussions: 2018 Aug, Jul, Jun, Apr, 2017 Aug, Jul, May.
Related board working sessions: 2018 Sep, Jul.
Related SotM 2018 session: there was a lightning talk, for community feedback

Lead: Martijn
  • Consultation document on OSMF website ready to be shared with membership and the Advisory Board members. Contains outline and top questions.
  • Will be followed by a comment period.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

GDPR preparation update

The General Data Protection Regulation came into effect May 25, 2018. The necessary steps for GDPR preparation have been discussed during the recent Face-to-Face board meeting (28-29 April). The Licensing Working Group published a document with a set of recommendations, the privacy statement and is working on other documents, such as the Terms of Use.

Related LWG discussions: 2018 Jun, May, Apr, Mar, Feb, 2017 Nov, Sep, Jul
Related Board discussions: 2018 Aug, Jul, Jun, May, Apr, Mar, Feb

API

Draft Request for Proposals (RFP) sent to board - looking for people to write code for implementing changes to API and cgi-map.

Suggested next steps

  • RFP to be shared with Andy, Allan and Matt (maintainers of cgi-map and website). If it is ok, it will be posted to osmf-talk and maybe to the dev mailing list.
  • Find people that will write the code and then present it to the community as a pull request.

Discussion about writing a pull request that gets accepted, rather one that goes through consultation about its acceptance.

Planet download

We need to ask the sysadmins.

Support for downstream data controllers

Next steps

  • Allow downstream data processors to register with us to put them on our website, otherwise they have a responsibility to inform everyone whose data is processed.
  • Tie the list of the downstream data processors with the Terms of Use, during sign-up.

Action item: Frederik to update Roland Olbricht, maintainer of the Overpass API.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

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

Lead: Martijn
  • Joost Schouppe has joined the AB as the representative of OpenStreetMap Belgium, our new Local Chapter.
  • Apple no longer has an AB seat, as their Corporate Membership has expired.

Topics: Terms of Use | NDA | Org. editing guidelines | Risk response plan | Politics/Activism | Microgrants update | GDPR update | AB update | AOB: COI and org. editing guidel. | Guests: New org. editing doc. | F2F minutes | Art. 13 banner | Org. editing guidel. and COI

Any other business

Conflict of Interest and organised editing guidelines

The Board has been discussing developing a conflict of interest (COI) policy and the way to proceed with the DWG-proposed organised editing guidelines (former Directed editing policy). At least two board members appear to have a COI with the proposed organised editing guidelines, so the board has asked for advice from our pro bono lawyer. Legally, participation of board members with a COI in the discussion (not in the voting), is accepted.

For reasons of increased transparency to the membership, Peter has asked the board's email discussion about the organised editing guidelines to be disclosed to the membership (either as it is happening or afterwards). Noted that the discussion so far is nothing one should be concerned about, but he would still want it in public.

Various points during discussion

  • This is not our general practice.
  • There is no legal requirement.
  • Board members are here to support OSM.
  • People with a theoretical COI could use discussion to influence result even if they won't participate in the vote.
  • Having the discussion disclosed will ensure to the membership that no-one does intense lobbying.
  • The suggestion has nothing to do with trust.

No decision was reached.

Time: 1hr 03 min - Martijn had to sign off.

Next step: Kate to write a proposal to the board about how to move forward.

Guest comments or questions

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.

New organised editing policy document?

Question by Imagico about the new document with the organised editing guidelines by the Data Working Group.

> It is a new version of the former directed editing policy, after the feedback the DWG got.

Publication of Face-to-Face minutes?

Question by Nakaner about whether the minutes of the Face-to-Face board meeting have been published.

> No - they currently reside only on the board wiki. These are not official minutes like the way the monthly meeting minutes are and usually summarise discussion and outcomes.

Question by Nakaner about whether board voted to put a banner on OSM.org about article 13 and if yes, mention it.

> There was no vote - opinions were asked over email due to time constraints. As there was not an unanimous acceptance, the topic was not pursued further until it is clear what kind of politics we want to be involved in.

Organised editing guidelines and Conflict of Interest

Comment by Nakaner that Heather also has a COI in relation to the organised editing policy, as Red Cross and Missing Maps will be affected in a similar way to Mapbox and Telenav.

> Heather mentioned that we all have a conflict of interest based on some standards of who we are and how he work on this community. Added that the board had a lot of conversations about COI and that she has handled herself in an appropriate way.

Next meeting

Meetings take place on the 3rd Thursday of the month, at 21:00 London time, unless rescheduled.

The next monthly board meeting will be on the 18th of October, at 21:00 London time, unless rescheduled.

Meeting end