Board/Minutes/2020-04

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Participants

Board members

  • Allan Mustard (chairing)
  • Paul Norman
  • Rory McCann
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Joost Schouppe
  • Tobias Knerr
  • Mikel Maron (joined approximately 5' after start)

Biographies.

Guests

  • ~ 32 guests

Open to all OSMF members.

Guests are welcome to speak at the end of the meeting on the topics that have been discussed.

Not Present

Administrative

Previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

Board_Rules_of_Order#7._Circular_Resolutions

2020/Res14 Bond proposal

Background by Treasurer:

We agree that we want to put some cash away, and keep at most £250k, which is Michelle's insurance limit, in cash. The question is where to place the cursor.

Bank bonds have guaranteed returns, and are safer than having

I think it'd be safe to have at least one year of outgoings on our current account, and have the rest squirreled away staggered by three months.

Our outgoings are about £100k per year for regular stuff, and then SOTM you could say we’re another £100k, though as they are mostly geared to ticket sales you don't really need keep all of that to hand

This is just a proposal, which I'm happy to amend based on your comments, and might of course need to be slightly adapted to match currency exchange fees and the reality of what our bank(s) can offer.

Proposal
  • Keep €100k and £50k in cash
  • Immobilise the rest in one year bonds, staggered to mature at three month intervals
  • When the bonds mature, evaluate the OSMF's cash needs; if they haven't changed, re-invest in bonds right away to keep €100k and £50k in cash.

Not passed 2020-03-12 with 1 vote in favour: Guillaume Rischard
6 not voted: Joost Schouppe, Paul Norman, Mikel Maron, Allan Mustard, Tobias Knerr, Rory McCann.

The proposal was kind of superseded by recent Barclays news (they no longer want to bank with us, so we are searching for a new bank). However the board might want to do something similar after arranging the new bank.

2020/Res15 Face to face meeting

In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, having a face to face meeting in London seems like a bad idea. We will instead try to hold a digital version of this meeting at the same time. We will try to recuperate sunk costs.

  • It is becoming increasingly unlikely that most Board members could make it to the Face2face meeting in London, given the covid-19 crisis
  • We do not know when the situation will improve, so we cannot really reschedule
  • All of us do however have this time scheduled in our agendas, and the meeting is crucial to planning out the year

Accepted 2020-03-17 with 6 votes in favour: Joost Schouppe (I originally hoped to still make it myself, but this is out of the question now), Paul Norman, Guillaume Rischard, Tobias Knerr, Mikel Maron, Rory McCann (I am not sure what the exact proposal is. I am still willing to go to London, but I understand not all would be. For those who aren't there, a digital link up is required, and not terribly difficult to do).
1 not voted: Allan Mustard.

2020/Res16 Start the Microgrants Committee

From the candidates we received to run the Microgrants Committee, we will ask the following people to form the Committee:

Geoffrey Kateregga
Christopher Beddow
Clifford Snow
Janet Chapman
Hanna Kruger

We will inform them that there were several more volunteers for this job. The Committee can decide together if and how to get their help. We will ask the non-selected people if it is OK to share their information with the selected people.

Accepted 2020-03-24 with 6 votes in favour: Tobias Knerr, Mikel Maron, Guillaume Rischard, Joost Schouppe, Allan Mustard, Rory McCann
1 not voted: Paul Norman.

2020/Res17 Approve accountant quote

Hire Chater Allan to prepare our statutory accounts, make the assessment of Corporation Tax and file our accounts with Companies House.

Michelle Heydon (accountant) writes:

Chater Allan prepare our statutory accounts, make the assessment of Corporation Tax and file our accounts with Companies House. The accounts are required to be filed by 30/09/2020.

The charge last year was £1200.00 incl VAT. I recommended them to Frederik*, as I also use them for another Co.

I would like to work with them again this year.

Unanimously accepted on 2020-04-10 with 7 votes in favour: Guillaume Rischard, Tobias Knerr, Mikel Maron, Allan Mustard, Joost Schouppe, Rory McCann, Paul Norman.

* Frederik Ramm - Previous OSMF Treasurer

2020/Res18 Switch from audio-only Mumble to video chat for meetings

After the success of the screen2screen board retreat, we propose to try and switch our monthly meetings from voice only (Mumble) to video conference type meetings. We have done a successful test run with BigBlueButton* and suggest to try this out for the next meeting. We will inform the membership and set up a public test meeting to smoothen the transition

Unanimously accepted on 2020-04-12 with 7 votes in favour: Rory McCann, Paul Norman, Allan Mustard, Guillaume Rischard, Joost Schouppe, Tobias Knerr, Mikel Maron.

* BigBlueButton:

OSMF FOSS policy

Previous action items

The list is sortable, collapsible and contains items that did not arise from board meetings. Incomplete.
Items in blue are either new or have updates.

Name Date Action item and status Source Related to
Allan 2020-01-30 to recirculate to the board the document with the previous action items and to appoint the board volunteers to committees.# Done meeting Action items
Allan 2020-03 to directly engage Quincy Morgan (iD maintainer), then assign next action item# Done S2S 2020 "Sustaining and fortifying OSM. Section: iD"
Allan 2020-03 to define iD stakeholders and convene them# Done S2S 2020 "Sustaining and fortifying OSM. Section: iD"
Allan 2020-03 to talk to Quincy Morgan, Andy Allan and Michael Spreng about liquid democracy# Done S2S 2020 "Governance infrastructures"
Allan 2020-03 to share top-lines of outreach conversations with other board members when able

# Done

S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement"
Allan 2020-03 to send Guillaume contact info he has for Advisory Board members

# Done

S2S 2020 Local Chapters
Allan 2020-03 to reach out to FOSS community for expertise/experience in software governance S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement"
Guillaume 2020-03 to ask opinions from AB members on his suggested attribution solution (attribution always on and collapses) S2S 2020 "Attribution"
Guillaume/Allan 2020-03 to move forward on proposal / scope out fundraising structure S2S 2020 Finance
Guillaume 2020-03 to ping MWG/self-ping about status on membership prerequisites and transparency S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Enforcement of policies etc"
Guillaume 2020-03 figure out way forward on github, maybe pay for testing account# Contacted Github S2S 2020 "Dialogue with OSM System Administrators"
Guillaume 2019-12-23 to pay Loomio when our free period runs out.

# Done

meeting MWG
Guillaume (Taken up 2020-02. Previously: Board) 2019-07 to decide on next steps regarding an email service for OSMF.
# Guillaume is looking into it (2020-02). An added difficulty is the documents hosted by Working Groups on Google drive.
email FOSS policy
Guillaume 2020-02-27 to prepare a circular on the bonds suggestion # # Done meeting Finance
Joost/Heather 2019-10-16 to work on a running document regarding Facebook attribution. Meeting Facebook
Joost Heather 2018-12-28 to process the OpenStreetMap Uganda Local Chapter application.
# In progress.
email Local Chapters
Joost Heather 2019-07-23 to process the FreeMap Slovakia Local Chapter application.
# In progress.
email Local Chapters
Joost Heather 2019-08-23 to process the OSGeo Oceania Local Chapter application.
# In progress.
email Local Chapters
Joost Heather 2019-09-19 to process the OpenStreetMap RDC Local Chapter application.
# In progress.
email Local Chapters
Joost 2020-01-20 to process the Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova Local Chapter application.
# In progress.
email Local Chapters
Joost 2020-03 to ask LCC WG for timeline on their outreach S2S 2020 LCCWG - "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Better understanding and community disposition on board"
Joost 2020-03 to follow up on hiring policy S2S 2020 "Hiring"
Joost (Taken up 2020-02) to follow up on the OpenStreetCam domain email LWG
Joost (Taken up 2020-02) 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

The decision seems to be (2019-10) to work on a running document (questions/opportunities/decisions to be made) and contact Facebook afterwards with a list of questions.
email LWG
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.

# Decision on 2020-02-27: the action item will be removed

email Vandalism
Kate 2019-05-18 to write Administrative Assistant's job description.
# Possibly completed.
F2F 2019 Admin. Assistant
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

# Decision on 2020-02-27: the action item will be removed

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 2020-03 to summarize key points of discussion on trust and safety for community
# Done
S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Trust and safety for community."
Mikel 2020-03 to share key points of discussion on trust and safety for community and get feedback from Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee and ask for next steps and recommendations S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Trust and safety for community."
Mikel with help of Allan, Joost, Tobias 2020-03
  • Scope out possible scenarios for possible paid staff, including risks
  • Personnel committee:
    • structured way of working with Dorothea
    • Concern about confidentiality /HR issues
    • Scoping out boundaries on committee, safety measures, how to mitigate effects on volunteers, e.g. de-motivation
S2S 2020 "Hiring"
Mikel/Rory 2020-03 to Invite local chapters to board meetings e.g. via lottery# Done S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Trust and safety for community"
Mikel 2020-03 to ping Mikel about Conflict of Interest policy
# Done
S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement"
Mikel 2020-03 to talk to Tom at Mapbox about Guillaume’s suggested attribution solution (attribution always on and collapses). S2S 2020 "Attribution"
Mikel 2020-01-30 to draft proposed changes to board rules of order and go back to the board. meeting Rules of order
Mikel (Taken up 2020-02) (was: 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).

# Mikel plans (2020-02) to circulate to people in Ruby community

F2F 2019 GDPR
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.

# Done

meeting Communication
Mikel/Joost 2019-05-18 to document working group practices, draft WG “rules of order"

# 2020-02 Mikel has some suggestions for draft board Rules of Order changes that he will circulate when ready.

F2F 2019 WGs
Mikel (previously: board) 2019-09 to decide about registration at the Benevity Causes Portal
# Email sent to Benevity (2020-02-26) by Mikel. No reply and issue was closed.
email Donation
Paul 2020-03 to find cases where things in OWG get done manually S2S 2020 "Dialogue with OSM System Administrators"
Paul 2020-03 to share key points of discussion on trust and safety for community and get feedback from DWG, mailing list moderators, help.osm.org S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Trust and safety for community"
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
Rory 2020-03 to announce and then do gentle, friendly, first warnings, formal reminders noting exceptions and suggesting alternative actions (Ideally include “escalation path” guidelines and learn from Guillaume’s efforts). S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Enforcement of policies etc"
Tobias 2020-03 to keep the takeover/AoA change topic moving S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Enforcement of policies etc"
Tobias 2020-03 to share key points of discussion on trust and safety for community and get feedback from Forum moderators, Wiki Admins S2S 2020 "Taking stock of governance and identifying areas for improvement. Section: Trust and safety for community"

Treasurer's report

Update on bank search.
Guillaume

After nine banks, we've got an agreement with Triodos, UK.

Microgrants update

  • 49 proposals on OSM wiki.
  • Deadline for community endorsement and comment of proposals: 21 May 2020 (midnight Pacific time US, 9am Central European Time, 7pm New Zealand time).

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.

Related board discussions/decisions:

Related osmf-talk discussions:

Related board working sessions: 2019 Aug & Oct, 2018 Jul & Sep.
Related SotM 2018 session: there was a lightning talk, for community feedback

Mikel
  • Weekly meetings of committee.
  • Draft on wiki.
  • Blogpost to be published. (#Post-meeting addition: blogpost)
  • Entry ready for weeklyOSM.

Conflict of Interest policy

See conflict of interest (CoI) policy proposal.
Mikel
  • Motion to adopt the COI policy proposal.
  • Discussion about recusal from visibility section.
  • Suggestion that all conflicts to require recusal.
COI policy and Working Groups

Points mentioned during discussion

  • At later stage reach out to WG to see how it could adapt for their purposes.
  • Different considerations and legal requirements.
  • Not all WGs have formal votes.
Decision

Unanimous decision to postpone vote to next meeting. #Post-meeting addition: Superseded by Circular Resolution

DISC report

The Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee (DISC) was appointed by the OSMF Board in Jan 2020 to address diversity and inclusion in the OSM community and Foundation.
Mikel

Meetings:

  • 2 in February on same day due to different timezones
  • 1 in April

Diversity statement

  • Small revisions, based on community feedback.
  • Will be forwarded to the board for decision on adopting the changes.
  • Discussions about goals and what is feasible for the group.

Next steps

  • Summarise existing research.
  • Community consultations.

On diversity and inclusion research

  • The group had direct contact with some researchers.
  • Maggie Cawley to organise resources on OSM wiki.
  • Heather Leson offered input from IFRC community consultations.
    • Series of calls in different timezones and languages.
    • Specific topics and questions.
    • Person analysing discussions and drawing conclusions on root causes and potential solutions.

On doing quantitative research (question by Tobias)

  • The group will probably not do quantitative research.
  • The group might do some demographic analysis on Foundation's membership.

On group's governance structure

  • Rory will work on that.
  • Currently using email list.

Suggestion to contact science mailing list (Joost).

Update on LWG's rewrite of attribution policy

The Licensing Working Group (LWG) has written an a draft attribution guideline.

Attribution related board minutes:

Attribution guidance related LWG minutes:

OSMF members related discussions:

  • Attribution guideline status update: 2019 Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
  • Attribution: board letter to Facebook: 2019 Oct, Nov
Guillaume

Currently the issue is on board's hands.

Action item: Guillaume to contact stakeholders.

Update on OpenStreetCam / Telenav / Grab

The board had received a request (2019-07) from the Licencing Working Group (LWG) to contact Telenav about the transfer of the openstreetcam.org domain to the OSMF, or at least enter an agreement in which the domain and any other rights to the name are transferred to the OSMF in the case that the current scope of the OSC project significantly changes from contributing to OSM.

2019-12 The project was transferred from Telenav to Grab (Gold OSMF Corporate Member).

Related board discussions: 2019 Jul, Nov.

Joost

They will probably change the name of the product to an acceptable name but might like to keep the domain name.

Action item: Joost to have a phone call with them.

Update on tile server overload

Overloaded tile cache servers have caused degraded user experience on osm.org and other tools and sites which rely on our tile service. The OWG and sysadmins have been taking steps to fix the issue, including:
  • amendment of tile usage policy to reflect current practice and the increased load on the tile infrastructure.
  • addition of cache servers
  • reduction of load. A number of default user-agents and heavy use apps have had their access to tile.openstreetmap.org restricted.
Paul
  • Load reduced as some heavy users that have no relationship to OSM (such as commercial apps/websites) had their access restricted.
  • Added cache servers - doubled capacity in US with servers owned by OSMF.
  • Updated tile usage policy to reduce cases of contacting the OWG.
    • Added definitions of bulk downloads.
    • Clarified some communication channels used.

Growth rate for tile usage

  • 3% month on month (15% year on year)

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • Possible sponsorship from Fastly.
  • Geocoding usage growing as well.
  • Some community members in Germany mention that tile loading is still slow for them. They could help to try debug the issue.
  • The board has to think how to deal with this in the longer tem.

Decision: Topic to be added to May meeting.

Trust and safety

The topic was called "Enforcement of Code of Etiquette". Our etiquette guidelines are at: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Etiquette

Related board discussions:

Mikel

Action item from board's screen-to-screen meeting was to compile a list of questions to pose to the people who are administrators or moderators position on many different OSM communication channels.

  • Getting a comprehensive sense of what views in the community and making sure that everyone who has a stake in OSM is heard.
  • Proliferation of different channels.
  • People not being comfortable posting on some channels.
  • List of questions compiled. Sample of questions:
    • How are the channels managed?
    • What are their thoughts about the etiquette guidelines that we have in place.
  • Communication channel outreach divided among board members.
  • Started getting responses.

Plan:

  • Synthesize responses.
  • Come up with next steps.

OSM US update

Initial interest has been expressed before 2017 in a Local Chapter application from the US, as OpenStreetMap US has been operating for nearly 10 years and would like to see the organisation become an official Local Chapter. Communications restarted after the new OSM US was elected in 2019. The OSMF board discussed during the 2019 F2F meeting the questions received and there were in-person meetings of members of both boards during the State of the Map 2019 conference. As a first step forward, the board proposed that OSM US draft an addendum to the local chapter agreement.

The received proposed draft addendum is here. The board has talked about inserting clarification regarding trademark to addendum.

Related board discussion: 2019-11

Guillaume

OSMF and OSM US board went over a few versions of the agreement.

  • Agreement and all the points.

Suggestions for next steps

  • Get feedback from lawyers on the latest version of the agreement (suggestion by Maggie Cawley, OSM US, present at the meeting)
  • Consultation from OSM community and existing LC representatives as soon as possible.
  • Look at different documents from applying chapter.
  • Signing during online State of the Map 2020.

Update on applications for Local Chapter status

Current applications are listed here.
Joost
  • Czechia - application to be signed live at a future board meeting or online event.
  • Slovakia - waiting for Slovak translation of message for community consultation.
  • Argentina - looking good. The Secretary had meeting with founding member of local community.
  • Oceania - top down.
    • Strong representation of OSM in core members.
    • Suggestion to have phonecalls with core contributors and take more care in community consultation (Rory will help).

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:
2020 Jan, Feb
2019 Jan, Mar, Jun, Jul, Aug, Oct

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

Joost

No updates.

Local Chapter presentation - OpenStreetMap Italia

See: New idea: Invite a LC to speak at each OSMF Board meeting.
  • Founded in 2005.
  • 300 members.
  • 8 employees.
    • one with main focus OSM and open data.
    • the rest work across different projects.
  • Having an official identity and a person working only on OSM issues was very efficient in giving a single point of contact for parties interested in OSM.
  • As both Wikimedia and OSM chapter, try to make connections between two worlds and different projects.
  • Thinking about locally discussing more the imports policy, which is not well understood by local community.

Activities
For 2018 see this page.

  • Mapping parties.
  • Dialogue with public institutions to offer open geodata and connect with OSM.
  • Public services already using OSM (e.g. the 911-equivalent emergency service).
  • Increase awareness about OSM with communication and events.
  • In recent weeks movement about things related to Covid19 (mapping features useful in current situation) and reaching out to government.
On background of members

They do not keep track of how many of our members came from OSM, however:

  • More people with neither Wikimedia or OSM background (interested in free knowledge, coming from cultural institutions).
  • More people with Wikimedia background than with OSM background.
  • Some people involved with both communities.
LC and Foundation
  • Had discussions about delegating more tasks from Foundation to LC. LC could do more work, with some official delegation from Foundation WGs.
  • LCCWG can be a powerful tool.

The LC representatives asked board members how they can help the Foundation

  • More membership in the Foundation.
  • More participation in the WGs, particularly the OWG and DWG.

On joined (LC and OSMF) membership'
They found it an interesting idea.

Any other business

Email from HOT about agreement on trademark use

Guillaume asked for any board member volunteers to work on that. None.

Guest comments or questions

Comment on the chat about BigBlueButton.
  • Not very mobile friendly

Next meeting

Board meetings take place online once a month.
New recurring date and time: On the 3rd or 4th Thursday of the month, at 17:00 UTC.

Acronyms