[Osmf-talk] Moving the OSMF to the EU?

[Philippe Verdy]

I do agree. After all this is what all major international organizations
are doing: e.g. Microsoft or Google with their subsidiary in Ireland
without having their "directors" (of the main organization) to be in
Ireland.
An I really doubt that language support is an issue (even in France: look
at Strasbourg for major institutions of the EU and of the Council of
Europe; only companies located in France have to provide some essential
info in French for French residents; and there are lot of exceptions for
NGOs, like the Red Cross).

Interesting places to look at are then where EU, CoE, or UN institutions
are located: these places are multilingual with excellent support for
English (but not only! And it would be very interesting to be in these
places that support MORE languages for a larger part of the world,
including outside Europe): Haaguen/La Haye (or Amsterdam for their large
internet centers), Brussels/Bruxelles, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Frankfurt,
Geneva... and even Paris (seat of several EU and UN agencies as well). All
these places have excellent/fast transportation with UK (notably Brussels
and Paris, by plane or high speed train, and lot of transportation services
wit hthe rest of the world, huge competition/low prices, high
availability). All these places have very favorable conditions for NGOs
(small like OSM, or large like the Red Cross), and lot of facilities
to manage international financial transfers and assets.

You should not use "English" as a limiting factor, after all once you have
eliminated UK and Ireland, you'll find NO other country in the EU having
universal support of English for everything and everyone. But places that
are already highly multilingual and where legal documents written in
English are recognized exists EVERYWHERE in the EU (and the EU itself makes
lot of efforts to support these English documents as valid, without forcing
them to be translated; judges are also treating lot of affairs in English,
even if by law they will be forced to create a legal translation in their
national official language(s). If you look at the two most important
languages of EU, it has NEVER been English, but French (in FR, BE, AD, MC,
LU, parts of ES, IT, and DE) and German (in DE, AT, CH), followed by
Italian (in IT, part of DE, LI, and CH) or Dutch (in BL and BE).

An international organisation like OSM whose goal is to support the world
would not focus on using English exclusively for everything (and after all
that's another reason why chapters were created, and they should have a
larger role, all ofd them being able to offer services in English when it's
really required). So making some efforts at OSM to be a bit more
multilingual will be benificial (including for the rest of the world: think
about Russia, China, India, South Africa, Israel, Arabic countries, South
America supporting Spanish and Portuguese, or Indonesia: these are very
populated areas of the world with lot of demand and activities for OSM).

Note that the EU is a bit limitative territory, where as single market
rules extend a bit more (at least to the EEA and Switzerland as well even
if it's not part of EU and EEA, but partitipates in almost all activities
and cooperates with lot of countries around the world, via UN agencies).

For me the best candidate place is Brussels (and it is already multingual,
having to support French, Dutch and German, plus all official languages of
the EU for all works and lobbying with EU institutions).


Le mer. 30 juin 2021 à 15:57, Lorenzo Losa <lorenzo.losa at email.it> a écrit :

> On sab, 2021-06-19 at 19:10 +0200, Guillaume Rischard wrote:
> > The OSMF board is considering relocating the OSMF to the EU. We
> > haven’t taken our decision yet, and would like to first consult its
> > membership for feedback, advice and whether we’ve missed anything.
>
> A few years ago there was a search for a country for incorporating an
> international organization in Wikimedia; the project failed, but you
> can find the discussions here, in case there is something useful:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Resolutions/2012_WCA_place_of_registration
>
> >       •  Move the whole foundation? A hybrid approach – keeping the
> > “main” OSMF in the UK and having a sister OSMF in the EU – might
> > reduce the effort or even work better.
>
> You could also work together with a chapter, if it makes sense. I can
> say that the Italian chapter would be happy to help.
>
> Lorenzo
>
>
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