Board/Minutes/2021-02-12

From OpenStreetMap Foundation
< Board‎ | Minutes

Draft minutes for board mid-month video chat.

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 12 February 2021, 14:00 UTC - Countdown
Acronyms

Participants

Board members

  • Allan Mustard (Chairing)
  • Eugene Alvin Villar
  • Guillaume Rischard (joined 34' after start)
  • Jean-Marc Liotier
  • Tobias Knerr
  • Rory McCann

Not Present

  • Mikel Maron

Officers and board
Biographies

Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi

Guests

(non public video chat)

Attribution guidelines

  • The board has received the following from the Licensing Working Group (LWG):
  • document from Dermot McNally (LWG), summarising the gaps that the LWG feels are still open in our latest draft of the Attribution Guidelines.
  • a link to an online document from Kathleen Lu that can be shared with the external counsel, which includes:
    • summary of past drafts
    • relevant references and
    • list of legal questions.

Action items

  • Board to look at the document of Kathleen Lu (LWG) and get back to Allan by early next week if the document can be shared.
  • Allan to negotiate fee with external counsel and create a circular.

Practical workflow for publication of survey results

This page will have the results of the 2021 OSMF community survey, which run from January 16th to February 14th. The survey was available in 18 languages.

Allan Mustard

Brief discussion about normalisation, country analysis and anonymisation.

Action items

  • Allan to send spreadsheet to Jean-Marc and then to Tobias.
  • Jean-Marc to do reverse geocoding.
  • Tobias to do normalisation of numeric data and anonymisation.
    • Allan to write-up the anonymisation process and publish it on the OSMF website.

On comments from languages other than English
Allan suggested
* use of DeepL and publication on OSMF website.
* classification of comments (mainly category, sentiment) by the whole board on a separate meeting.

On publication

  • Suggestion to publish numerical and qualitative data separately from the comments.

GeOsm

In December the Licensing Working Group (LWG) received an inquiry regarding http://geosm.org/ and it's trademark status. This was discussed on the January LWG meeting and Kathleen Lu reached to Willy Franck Sob, the main operator of GeOsm. He explained that GeOsm is an expansion of GeoCameroun, and is now used by 21 African countries. It is a data portal to make open maps for the countries more easily accessible. His hope is that GeOsm will eventually be used by countries all over the world.The LWG suggested that OSMF should come with an agreement with GeOsm.

Action item: Jean-Marc to communicate with Kathleen on drafting something for the board to approve.

Humanitarian OSM and trademark agreement with HOT

OSMF is currently talking with Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) and is working on a draft agreement regarding granting rights for the use of OSM marks.

Some points were not minuted.

  • The Licensing Working Group (LWG) suggested that the board should get feedback from a lawyer on the draft agreement.
  • Rory talked with Pete Masters (Humanitarian OSM Team(HOT)) about the agreement, including about the recent use of the term "hOSM".

Other point mentioned:
If a humanitarian OSMF working group is formed, potential conflicts of interests of members from HOT or other humanitarian organisations.

Suggestions

  • Meeting with Ben Abelshausen (HOT).
  • Board to email HOT about the recent use of the term "hOSM".

Action items

  • Rory to draft email to OSMF pro-bono counsel and get feedback from board.
  • Jean-Marc to talk with Mikel.

OpenStreetMap Uganda Local Chapter application

OpenStreetMap Uganda has applied to be the Local Chapter for Uganda.

  • Income sources: Provided answers about ~20% of their income in 2020.
  • Concern: Collection of proprietary data?

We asked for more information.

Action item: Rory to update the board Gitlab ticket.

OSMF Japan Local Chapter application

一般社団法人オープンストリートマップ・ファウンデーション・ ジャパン (OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan) had applied to be the Local Chapter for Japan. Due to a trademark issue the application did not proceed for a long time, but it is currently again active.

Clarification regarding people joining the organisation as members.

Past board action items - reassignment

https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Board/Action_Items

Guillaume joined ~34 minutes after start.

  • Action item to spend a maximum of three hours talking to lawyers assigned to Guillaume and Rory.
  • Action item to collaborate with Tobias on emailing Licensing Working Group (LWG) regarding the tile licence attribution and rewrite specific part of copyright statement assigned to Tobias. LWG said it is blocked by the attribution guideline.

On attribution guidelines (2nd part)

Action items

  • The board to contact US lawyer recommended by Allen Gunn (Aspiration Tech) to get answers on questions compiled by the board and LWG.
  • Allan first to create a circular regarding fee for external counsel.

Updating Articles of Association

The membership voted on the 2019 Annual General Meeting (AGM) to introduce a minimum time (180 days) that someone must have been a member before they can become a board member. As under UK law only Normal members are considered as "true" members. Thus, this rule makes ineligible for board candidacy any OSMF member that changes their membership from Associate to Normal within the 180 days prior to the AGM, even if they were associate members for more than 180 days prior to the general meeting.

Suggestions

  • Draft proposal to change the Articles of Associations (AoA) so that the period of associate membership is taken into account for the board candidacy eligibility criterion.
  • Vote of membership on the issue, possibly earlier than the December general meeting. Put it together with the issue of code of conduct/etiquette guidelines rewrite other issues.

LCCWG moderation subcommittee

On the 9th of December 2020 a group of community members sent to the osmf-talk* mailing list a statement Calling People to Take Action and Confront Systemic Offensive Behavior in the OSM Community (.pdf on the wiki, Gdoc here) asking amongst others:

  • people to support the statement, help co-write and translate it and
  • OSMF to implement the suggested changes.

The content of the statement was locked on December 16th and it includes the names of 310 community members and 47 organisations in support.

The board has asked the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) to work with other parts of the community and come back in January with a suggested course of action. The LCCWG subcommittee which was formed for this task presented this report on the 29th of January.

The board discussed its response during the February screen-to-screen board meeting and asked the LCCWG to present an implementation plan (steps and time frames) at the March board meeting. The board also urged the LCCWG to accelerate implementation of moderation of the talk lists in less than six months and clarified that it does not expect a rewrite of the etiquette guidelines in that time frame.

Related discussions:

* osmf-talk is the mailing list for OSMF members (Join). All past messages are available here.

  • Concerns expressed during last Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) moderation subcommittee meeting.
  • Report from LCCWG to be applied to the two mailing lists.
  • No public call for participation yet
    • Mentioned on minutes of board meeting, but not many people attend the board meetings or read the minutes.

Suggestion

  • Open call for membership of the committee: mailing lists/post/tweets.

Other points mentioned

  • A code of conduct or revision of etiquette guidelines should go to the membership for a vote.
  • Recent community survey reveals that the foundation membership is reflective of the community membership. A vote of the foundation membership will indicate the way the community will lean to.
  • People tired of nonsense and antagonism.
  • How the board leads will have an impact on the community. If we set acceptable behaviour within OSMF, that will set an example for the rest of the community.
  • Change can only come with consent.
  • Suggestions by LCCWG will apply only to two mailing lists.

Action item: Allan to talk with Maggie Cawley (LCCWG).

Board wiki administrative questions

  • who should have admin rights
  • permission to upload files

Decision: Two board members will become back-up board wiki administrators.

Suggestion: Change to auto-confirm after 1st edit / upload files.

Privacy implications of name suggestion index

To be added to the agenda of the March mid-month meeting.

Meeting adjourned ~58 minutes after start.

Next meeting

Public board meeting on Friday, 26 February 2021 14:00 UTC -- Countdown

Acronyms