Board Meeting Minutes 2013-02-19

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

OpenStreetMap Foundation Board Meeting

Telephone Conference

19 February 2013 20:00 UK / 21:00 CET

Participants:

Board members:

  • Matt Amos (joins 10 minutes in)
  • Henk Hoff
  • Oliver Kühn
  • Simon Poole (chairing)
  • Frederik Ramm (Minutes)

Chairman Emeritus:

  • Steve Coast

Apologies:

  • Dermot McNally

Administrative

Previous Minutes

Board_Meeting_Minutes_2013-01-29

Proposed: Henk
Seconded: Oliver

Open Actions from previous Meetings

  • Quarterly Accounts to be provided to the board - Oliver had the accountant prepare a provisional 2012 statement but there were some issues with it that prevented release; issues will be fixed and statement for 2012 and “year to date” 2013 will then be distributed.
  • Update on Geocode™ issue - Simon will prepare a short document about wording that is unproblematic for the community to use (which will likely cover most of what we *do* use) but will touch base with legal counsel first, then send draft to board, then publish.

Status of SOTM planning

Henk reports that moving the BIrmingham conference closer to FOSS4G time-wise would have been much more expensive so we had to forgo that opportunity. Bid from Argentina was interesting and might be considered for 2014; Henk in discussions with Argentina team about that. Kick-off for Birmingham planning with full team (local+SOTM WG) tomorrow.

Short discussion about continental-level conferences; it will make planning easier for people wanting to conduct such conferences if SOTM-international is scheduled early and we’re trying our best but manpower is limited; organisers of continental-level conferences can expect moral support but not support in terms of manpower from OSMF. We hope to be able to publish plans for SOTM 2014 at the end of SOTM 2013.

AoA followup

Henk suggests to break out small bits of AoA and discuss with the community piecemeal within a pre-defined time window where each of the bits could have it’s own discussion leader; then summarise individual discussions, draw conclusions and continue to next point. When finished, get legal counsel to make “legalese” version of what we want. Henk believes it is possible to complete this process in time for this year’s AGM.

Frederik is skeptical about schedule and says that board might need to first come up with a proposal; Henk and Matt prefer to involve the community very early without coming to them with a finished proposal as this might look like the decisions had already been made. Henk says that an AoA change is a major thing that one would not like to have every year, so changes cannot easily be implemented year after year.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Strategic_working_group/Articles_of_Association_Review

Simon to discuss with Michael Collinson whether LWG would be able to drive this process. Contingency plan is Henk reviving the AoA working group.

Any other Business

A petition to the board was received via Steve in January with regard to a mapping dispute in Germany. Steve forwarded to Simon who discussed with the mapper - someone who was short-term blocked by DWG for wholesale reverting changes by others in his local area. Discussion was not fruitful however and the mapper left. Frederik mentions that DWG is looking into establishing some kind of independent “ombudsman” position to deal with complaints.

Agenda item “Clarification of Chairman Emeritus Status” postponed due to non-attending board members.

Henk will be at SOTM France this weekend.

Next Meeting

provisionally, Wed March 20th 20:00 UTC/21:00 MET

Meeting End

21:11 UTC