[Talk-GB] OSM leaving the UK?

[Rob Nickerson]

>I'm still mulling this over but I'm minded to ask if the Board will
>disaggregate those questions and share their thinking so far on each.
>Thoughts welcome.

Hi Edward,

I think that is a good idea. It would be good to understand the boards
thinking (and any legal advice they have received) on these points.

A few other random thoughts:

- Tax is paid on profits. The OSMF tries to be non-profit so should only
really be paying tax in years in which it is purposely making a profit to
build up reserves (e.g. because they know they are taking on bigger risks /
bigger costs to manage in future years). In years when there is no need to
build up reserves, they should be using any income to support the community
and therefore returning zero profit.

- Database rights only exist in the UK, the EU and Russia. If they are so
amazing and so important, why do so few countries have these rights
protected by law? It seems for many the alternative (contractual terms) is
sufficient. I think legal advice and a risk assessment is helpful here. I
get the logic that it is more clear cut if you have primary legislation to
rest your case on and that being based in the EU will give you that in more
jurisdictions, but is it that important that the OSMF parks other work that
can benefit OSM to focus on this?

- Banking changes are hard to predict. It looks like UK banks have
tightened up their rules which has caused the OSMF some challenges over the
past 12 months, but the OSMF should be wary of thinking the grass will be
greener on the other side. All banks globally face the same issues
(protecting themselves from fraud) so we might just have to get used to
stricted "know your customer" type checks whether it's a UK bank or a
[insert country here] bank.

- I regularly here calls for the OSMF to protect itself more from takeovers
but every time I suggest paying the £35 fee to upgrade to a Community
Interest Company to add an Asset Lock and protect the Non-profit stats by
law (rather than just written in to changeable articles of association) the
response comes back that this will make OSMF more inflexible. That is
precisely the point of legally binding takeover protections. To use an
overused phrase, you cannot have your cake and eat it!

Whatever happens, I do hope the OSMF gets over this reasonably quickly. I
want to see them working on other things such as direct efforts that help
to grow the community. I'm a huge fan of the idea to add a community groups
(aka "Microcosms") section to osm.org and would love to see this getting
more support. (see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBkzcUH0f8s&list=PLqjPa29lMiE0NZ-ouVFWgwz8vftq7dAd1&index=9&t=4s
)

Thank you,
*Rob*
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