[Osmf-talk] OSM Uganda Local Chapter application

Wed Dec 2 11:50:28 UTC 2020

Hi,

One of the key questions that comes up seems to be: "Is OSM Uganda a
money-making endeavour using OpenStreetMap, or an OpenStreetMap endeavour
that has found a business model fit for purpose?"

Craig points in the direction of the first, which Frederik turns into:

"You see no issues with granting local chapter status to a commercial
organisation with the main chartered purpose of providing paid services?".

I think that's a bit of an overstatement, as the quotes Craig posted are
"merely" about sources of income, whereas the "main chartered purposes" are
in Article 3 and especially Article 4, and tell a story that must sound
much more familiar to Frederik's ears. Article 4 has the mission statement
of:   "To have a vibrant OpenStreetMap community in Uganda, which is
united, organised and growing to assist, and get involved in National and
global development goals.". I would say that means you have to read
everything in Article 3 in the context of that mission, and everything in
article 19 FINANCIAL PROVISIONS as in support of that mission.
Geoffrey himself says they "have been a community since 2011, and we got
registered in 2017 as a local non-profit organization in Uganda, run by the
OpenStreetMap community in Uganda."

I intend to have a call with OSM Uganda about some of these issues. As well
as Craig's comments, I think Christoph also has a few points that need
clarification:
- confusion between OpenStreetMap Uganda and MapUganda, and how they
presenta themselves at the mapuganda website
- lack of data about "pure OSM activities" (also asked by Mikel)
- membership fee (also requested by Mikel): I can already say that they
mentioned in a chat that they are considering running a sort of "active
contributor membership" program themselves. Should be carefully done
though, as their bylaws have quite high quorum rules

More interesting questions from Mikel:
* How many members are there of OSM Uganda?
That's an easy one, that info should always be on our wiki: Member count
189 as of November 2020 (102 male and 87 female)
* Is there some allowance for people who can't afford the membership fee?
* Are there any public minutes of the Board?
* Are there any public minutes of any meetings of the members? What have
they decided on?

I do have some thoughts on this discussion. Maybe I am overstating things,
but it feels like some people would like Local Chapters to be almost a
carbon copy of the OSMF. I personally think OSMF should reflect the norms
of the various communities around the world, and should make space for
people with other norms. In that process, both the local groups and the
OSMF itself can and should change. I think some of Craig's suggestions
should definitely be considered by OSM Uganda, while others seem like
unneccesary meddling to me (if people like their titles, who are we to
judge - why should an LC have to assume zero paid employees?). I don't
think we should meddle too much in this, but -if- the OSMF wants to
regulate how exactly the Local Chapters can provide themselves with income,
then that should be part of an explicit policy.

On the education requierement: this does sound weird to most of us here, I
suppose. It smells like exclusion: "you need to be of background X to
matter". But stuff like this should raise questions, not lead to
conclusions. A quick websearch turned up both a Ugandan blog post arguing
against the idea, as well as this bit from the "Commission of Inquiry to
review the provisions of the 1995 Constitution":

"the commission reported that the majority of Ugandans supported a minimum
academic qualification, the reasons being: a representative at this level
must be able to communicate in the official language, which is english; a
member of parliament is qualified to be a minister; she/he should be
reasonably educated to represent the country in international fora; there
are many Ugandans with university degrees from which the electorate can
choose; a ‘level secondary education is a reasonable minimum because many
who have achieved it can reasonably express themselves. The majority view
was that a’ level should be maintained as the minimum academic
qualification."
http://parliamentwatch.ug/question/on-governments-plans-revise-the-minimum-educational-requirement-for-an-mp/

While this just scratches the surface (I did not dig deep enough to be able
to value this source) and is certainly not meant as an endorsement, it does
go to show that it's a common idea. When chatting with Geoffrey about this,
I didn't leave with the impression that this wording was "accidental" in
the same way that Rory has. At most perhaps "default thinking". We made it
clear that while we understand some of the reasoning behind the idea, it is
too much of a potential conflict with our ideas about equal opportunity to
remain. From his e-mail's it is clear that Douglas Ssebaggala still
supports the scrapped policy. Unfortunately, he doesn't provide the context
for us to understand why it is of such value. While I don't think the
discussion here is very productive, I think it's a good sign that the group
made a majority decision but that someone from the minotiy does speak out
about the topic.

On process:

I think the whole process does need an overhaul. In my year as Secretary, I
have focused more on clearing the backlog, than on process. The good thing
is that the next Secretary will now have the luxury to think process
matters through more fully. The whole matter of who to consult when, and
what stage comes before what keeps coming back. For me, the part before the
consultations start, is about data collection and spotting any obvious
issues. If we can address them, we do. Since the OSMF-talk mailing list can
feel like a pack of wolves to the un-iniciated, I also see it as a chance
to help avoid some of the turmoil that can occur here. Alas, imperfect
human, imperfect results. Should we share embarrasing mistakes with this
list? In light of transparency, sure. I personally think not all mistakes
should be public - I want local groups to -want- to be a Local Chapter, and
not be afraid of this part of the process. We did give it a try to do OSMF
consultation through the wiki, by putting the application on the main wiki
and inviting comments there. But that didn't really seem to work.
Who should do "the legal review"? For the period that I was involved in
Board work, the entire process was always lead by the Secretary. The
community consulations are used because the Board are few humans, and these
other groups are many humans. Time and time again, it turns out that that
helps spot mistakes and improve proposals.

I also notice a pattern where some ideas are presented as obvious, but are
not outlined in policy. In this thread for example: "only well-established
groups should apply". I guess this was part of the discussion when the
Local Chapters were first envisioned, but I'm not aware of a rule on this.
Such a rule, if needed, should be quite lenient, IMHO. I know at least two
groups where half of the motivation to form an official group was that they
could then become an offficial Local Chapter. Telling people "sure, you
make a formal organization that fits the OSMF is great; but you'll still
have to wait several years to get the seal of approval" would take the wind
out of the sails of people working on formalizing things. Or is about year
between official founding and formal recognition enough to be
"well-established"?

Finally, a bit directed at Simon.
> quote:

*In the past the community review period was directed at the
-local-community so that it could be gauged if they were happy with
beingrepresented by the group running the proposed LC, not an ersatz
legalreview and LC criteria check (naturally that should be done by
theLCCWG  instead of providing the board with more opportunity to moanabout
too much work, but that particular non-starter has already beendiscussed).*

As I said just above, the OSMF consultation does prove useful in this way.
I suppose Simon knows this, but for those still reading: there is always a
local as well as an OSMF consultation. In most cases these run at the same
time, though for OsGeo Oceania we did a more extensive and active outreach
over a slightly longer period.

Why is it "naturally" the LCCWG? If it were a strictly legal matter (it is
not IMHO, since the policy is so vague, couldn't it just as well be LWG?
Can't working groups decide on their own remit?  I thought we made it clear
that we did ask them before, and they said no. It's not that the Board
wants to keep this job, so as to have an excuse to moan about workload. I
find the first statement rather arrogant, and the second quite
disrespectful. If your intent is to demotivate volunteers, keep it up!
Yes, being on the Board brings about a workload that can be pretty
exhausting (though for most of us not so much because of the amount of
actual work, but rather the energy required). And of course, we could just
sit back and only do the bare minimum. We've chosen to do what we think is
necessary, which will hopefully pay off in a more vibrant community taking
a load of our shoulders. For the time being though, things can be tough.
For one thing, I do hope the Board can keep being the friendly place it has
become in the last year. There are still very fundamental disagreements,
that are making this harder recently. But it is only by being a place that
is nice to work in, that you can attract more help. In the LCCWG, we did
see this happen: we've been building momentum over the past year, working
on a limited number of projects. The Local Chapters Congress attracted
people from around the world - around this time, we attracted five new
members. So we must be doing something right. One thing we actively avoided
is meeting any new idea with snarky sarcasm. I think that does help.

Best,
Joost
OSMF Board secretary
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