[Osmf-talk] Local Chapters criteria

Tue Jul 23 20:11:23 UTC 2019

Am 23.07.2019 um 18:48 schrieb joost schouppe:
> Hi,
>
> Talking as myself the human here, not as the Board member.
I wasn't aware that we can legally have AIs on the board :-)
>
> I agree that it is important for "national organizations" to represent
> the entire local community, and not just one subgroup. Currently this
> is checked by looking at the statutes and asking directly through the
> local communication channels. Is there anything else we could do?
>
> Op ma 22 jul. 2019 om 00:54 schreef Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch
> <mailto:simon at poole.ch>>:
>
>     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.
>
>
> I agree with the "being an established outgrowth of an active OSM
> community", but " being capable of actually running and financing a
> formally incorporated organisation" isn't really an issue, since the
> Local Chapter can 'outsource' that. If I understand the wiki
> correctly, OSM Belgium is the only Local Chapter where a part of an
> incorporated organisation joined. This requiered both OSM Belgium and
> the mother organisation Open Knowledge Belgium to be screened, but I
> believe that most weight was given to the bylaws of OSM Belgium itsefl.
> So we don't actually need to run an incorporated organisation. For
> Germany and Italy the consequence is the same (the OSM people do not
> necessarily need to run an organisation), though there it seems it is
> the mother organisation that is officially the Local Chapter.
>
> Is there a preference between the Belgian and the Italo-German model?
> Or is this to low a bar in both cases?

This going off on a rather long tangent, but lets try to break it down a
bit.

Why do we want formal incorporation and a bit of a track record?

- we need something to sign the agreement with,

- we need somebody to be (legally) responsible for the operation of the LC,

- we need some assurance that the organisation we are contracting with
is not a fly by night scam, the mafia or similar,

- we need to have assured ourselves that the organisation will be
following local laws and regulations,

- and most important: we need to have assured ourselves that the
organisation is actually interested in supporting OSM in its own right.

Anything that goes wrong with the LC (and mark my words things will go
wrong), will fall back on the OSMF and while there might not be a direct
liability, we will at least suffer reputational damage. Requiring some
base line good practice things and doing some due diligence isn't a
panacea, but it will at least reduce the likelihood of things blowing up.

Why shouldn't we allow, as the norm, sub-groups of existing
organisations as LCs?

The provisions in the template agreement that allow a sub-organisation
to join as LC were likely the most controversial part of the whole
document, they  were mainly added to accommodate local OSM groups that
where already organised as a subgroup of an organisation and that
subgroup was a significant part of the activities of the group. With
other words WMF Italia and FOSSGIS. While I wouldn't totally rule out
further organisations using the same model, in the case of
Australia/Oceania that might happen, there it is a new organisation
being founded together with OSGeo, but it should be the absolute
exception and definitely not the norm.

Why is this so? Because we want a LC to be all in on OSM and not have
any, even potential, conflicts of interests.

For example it is not inconceivable that we would have a disagreement
with the OKF. Where would that leave OSM-BE?

> For some international context: I've heard people propose to copy this
> model to make it easier to join. For example, we could have one OSM
> Africa organisation with individual national organisations being a
> chapter within that organisation. I don't know if that would work.
> Alternatively, one could look for other local organisations. But I've
> understood that if those are present, they might simply not trust the
> OSM people enough to allow them to become an official part of their
> organisation.
>
Why would we want to make it -easier- to join? The requirements are
already rock bottom, just go and compare with any other similar
organisation, WMF, OSGeo and so on. If we want a "lightweight" option
then clearly that should be a in the context of informal users groups,
instead of trying to fudge things in a way that spells T R O U B L E.

> Is everyone still in agreement that Local Chapter can be national
> organisation, subnational and supranational too?
>
The original concept was that LCs would be territorial, without any
further definition, it was however always on the table that there might
be thematic LCs, lets say  EOF could be the thematic chapter for
humanitarian matters.

> What makes it hard for me to think about this, is that I'm not really
> clear about the purpose of the whole construction. For us in Belgium,
> there was the clear benefit of more legitimacy as an organisation. But
> does the OSMF really win much? On the other hand, if you are a more
> established organisation why would you bother to join at all?

For example you get a seat at the table of the advisory board, you get
legitimacy, you get to use the OSMF trademarks to promote your organisation.

Simon

>
> -- 
> Joost Schouppe
> OpenStreetMap
> <http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/joost%20schouppe/> | Twitter
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>
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