[Osmf-talk] Proposed v2 of the Local Chapters Agreement, hopefully leading to OSMUS as a LC

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

I wasn't aware that negotiations with OSM-US would result in a new LCA
for everyone. But I guess it's just fair.

I wonder what thoughts the OSMF board has had about monetization of the
OSM trademarks. Let's assume that one local chapter was exceptionally
successful in raising donations or earning money with conferences or so,
all under the banner of "it's for OpenStreetMap so give richly".

Do we require that they even tell us? (To my knowledge, no, they have to
submit a report but we don't require financial details.)

Would we, at some point, expect that they share some of that revenue
with the wider project, rather than just using it for stuff in their
country?

(What if the reach of the chapter is much bigger than the region we have
given them local chapter status for - for example what if 20% of SotM-US
visitors or sponsors came from Canada?)

Questions like that become relevant now that you're essentially making
the agreement un-stoppable. In the past I would have said, these things
do not require regulation because if it should come to the hypothetical
point where a local chapter out-performed even the OSMF in marketing and
fundraising, we could always have said "hey, dear local chapter, you're
eating up our revenue stream, please stop" and if they don't, we could
cancel the agreement. With an essentially un-stoppable agreement, I
think we need to put more thought into finely documenting all the things
we do not want a local chapter to be doing.

Regarding the use of trademarks, I would be very happy if it could be
made clear that the use of the trademark must not be misleading and that
it is the chapter's responsibility to ensure this in dealings with third
parties. I don't want to read in the press that "XY corp has partnered
with OpenStreetMap to do Z" when it fact it was an agreement with some
local chapter.

I would also like to make clear that the rights to use the OSM
trademarks apply only to the region the chapter is registered for. I
would not want a local chapter in one country starting to open
"OpenStreetMap outreach offices" in lots of other countries. I think the
agreement does not currently forbid that.

As I said... with an agreement that can be terminated with no questions
asked year on year, all that is not really relevant. But this new
agreement sounds a bit more like a marriage, so I think some prenups are
in order.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"