[Local-chapters] Fwd: Request to approve Local Chapter Agreement at Board Meeting

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Henk Hoff <toffehoff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thank you for your comments.
> About not having seen any drafts:
> at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters (in the
> History section) is a link to the previous draft. Looking at the page, I can
> imagine that this link might get by unnoticed. The proposal which is send
> around has a couple of changes based on discussions during meetings and the
> mailing list. (3.1 and 4.1)
> And yes, you're right that this page was not mentioned in the meeting
> notes....

We in the US are close to incorporation. We're taking nominations for
temporary officers and we hope to be fully incorporated with a
membership by June of this year, yet it's nearly impossible for us to
make these phone meetings because they're at 3am on a weekday.

Luckily one of our group (Thea Clay) has nominated herself to get up
and make the next meeting- but the rest of us are going off your
meeting minutes and this list, so it's really important for us that
you folks keep detailed minutes and make frequent announcements.

> This article is related to the text in the preamble (2e paragraph) about
> differences in culture and jurisdictions and spreading the workload. This
> means that specific services can be best done on a local scale.

> The text-suggestion you're making sounds good, what does it mean:
> "*required* to act in the best interest"? Would this mean that if the
> Foundation and the Local Chapter have a different opinion about a subject,
> the Foundation can force this opinion to the Local Chapter?

I think we all agree that we want local chapters to act in the best
interest of their members.

The concern I have about the current wording of "provides services" is twofold:

1) I don't know what services need to be provided.

It's a bit like going into a contract but not knowing what you're
expected to pay.

2) Knowing the services may change, there's no way to really make this
sort of agreement.


The wording I threw out earlier was just that if the objective is to
say "Local Chapter will act in the best interest of its members"- then
just say that.

You're right that it's equally vague. In fact it's more vague. But at
least we have some sort of understanding of what it means to act in
the best interest (ie we can discuss it). Services is so much
trickier.

Sorry to be pedantic here- but I hope I'm also providing alternatives
at the same time.

Your issue brings up an important consideration too "specific services
can be done on a local scale".

For some countries, that makes a lot of sense. France, Italy and other
European nations are small enough that no place is more than a day's
drive away. Then there are countries like the United States, Canada
and Australia, which are quite large and "local" takes on another
meaning.

In our case, the US OSM working group has been discussing being the
clearinghouse for govt data imports in the United States, sponsoring
events like SOTM US, etc. Are those the types of local services you
had in mind?

I'm glad we're having this dialogue. I'm also looking forward to see
what will come out of the discussions regarding trademark and other
considerations taking place on this list.

- Serge