[Osmf-talk] Local Chapters criteria

[Simon Poole]

I believe it is fairly important to give a bit of background here.

In 2014 when I wrote the text Joost is quoting, the template LC contract
had been just approved by the OSMF board, bringing to an end 7 years
(from the 1st OSMF board meeting on) of faffing around on the subject of
what the criteria for acceptance of a local chapter should be and
related issues. It was always clear that the points mentioned in the FAQ
would only be  necessary, but not sufficient criteria for an OSMF local
chapter.  Definitely there is and was no promise that simply creating an
membership organisation that is not a branch of the respective local
organized crime group is sufficient to becoming an OSMF LC.

At the time all of the potential LC candidates were well established and
would have likely easily fulfilled any criteria that would have
crystallized after another 7 years of faffing, and it seemed more
important to provide the facility so that the well established LCs could
be bound to the OSMF and to remove any excuses for not formalizing the
relationships than to continue the bike shedding. I believe this was
clearly a correct decision, even if it hasn't stopped certain
organisations from stringing along the OSMF to this day.

But, back to Joosts question, yes, IMHO, we shouldn't in general be
accepting organisations that have not established their standing both by
being an outgrowth of an active OSM community in the territory in
question, and themselves having a proven track record of being capable
of actually running and financing a formally incorporated organisation,
but actually nailing that down is difficult. For example while OSM-UK
clearly was and is a product of an existing active OSM community, the
actual formal organisation had essentially no track record at the time
it was accepted, had there been hard criteria with respect to the
organisations maturity they very well might have had to postpone the
official LC status process for a number of years.

Simon

Am 17.07.2019 um 21:31 schrieb Joost Schouppe:
> Hi,
>
> The list of Local Chapters is growning, and it hopefully will for a
> long time. Currently however, there are very limited rules as to the
> requierements of joining as a Local Chapter. From the FAQ [1] :
>
> /Currently there are no set in stone criteria outside of the
> following: you will have to be a non-profit incorporated entity or
> part of one, the way you are incorporated should allow easy and mass
> membership and democratic participation in the decisions processes.
> Your group should be dedicated to supporting the aims of the
> OpenStreetMap Foundation and the OpenStreetMap project, however you
> can be part of a larger organisation as long as that does not have
> conflicting goals./
>
> The Board would like to know how you feel about this. Should this be
> elaborated more, and if so, in what sense?
>
> Some examples that were given:
> - how established must a local organization be to be eligible to
> become a Local Chapter
> - how can we measure this as objectively as possible, and
> - how to handle applications from organizations that have a broader
> scope than just OSM
>
> Thanks for the input,
> Joost
> for the OSMF Board
>
> 1: https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Local_Chapters/FAQ
>
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