Board Meeting 2021-10-03

This board meeting is scheduled Sunday 03 October 2021 at 13:00 UTC through Jitsi, a record of motions is preserved on loomio and actions on osgeo todo issue tracker. This is a 4h board meeting considered as F2F for FOSS4G 2021.

Agenda

Current items

1. roll call
2. Review and approve past minutes
   • Board_Meeting_2021-08-30 - vote on loomio
3. AGM outcome
4. Pretalx / Pretix services for FOSS4G and Local Chapters & update on FOSS4G 2022
5. Feedback from GIZ/GEO
6. OSGeo Community Project check-in, request clarification on handling of platform applicants,
7. Concerns raised on copyleft-equality
8. Update on OGC OSGeo MoU
9. B2B initiative (global chapter)
10. Elections preparations
11. Action HOT
12. Add your topic here

Minutes

• Presiding:Till
• Scribing: all
• Attending: Mike, Till, Angelos, Astrid, Codrina, Michele, Tom, Vicky, Helena
• Guests: Jody, Luca

roll call

• 9 out of 9, so we have quorum
• discussion on length of the meeting (4h vs two 2h parts)

Review and approve past minutes

• Board_Meeting_2021-08-30
• Motion available on loomio: https://www.loomio.org/p/r59yGa4e/motion-to-approve-meeting-minutes-from-board-meeting-2021-08-30

AGM outcome

• Angelos created new ticket: https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues/112
• do we want the project-reports done by the project-officer only?
  • board agrees on, that anyone from the project can present the project on the AGM
• prepare a template for a slide so that reports are similar
• OSGeo Community Project check-in, request clarification on handling of platform applicants
• List of the projects https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues/112
• Discussion about who can present a project at the AGM - outcome: it is ok, if a person of the team presents
• [ACTION] Michael Template for the next AGM to give a structure and ask questions like (how often do you meet, Budget, …) Find some ideas in the GeoTools reports https://github.com/geotools/geotools/wiki/Formal-Correspondence
  • https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues/113
• add a checklist to the template (Do you have a CoC, … ? e.g. )
• Angelos asks what we do with 2021, where 2 projects did not report
• Marble was missing
• PyWPS was also missing:
• board agrees on reminding these projects to report at least to the board
• Orfeo-toolbox, degree and GeoMoose reported with slides only,
• [ACTION] Astrid Mail to the projects Mailing list to thank for the reports and link to the
  • https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues/114
• some slides were not updated or have prior 2019 content (financial guidance document)

AGM video

• Very good to make the video ahead
• Video improvements
  • volume was different
• maybe next time move to another platform as streamyard has the restriction to 10
• there is a need for having a main channel for communication
  • Angelos proposes to use the newly setup matrix-server (everybody can login with the osgeo-id)
  • strong agreement on email as the most easy way to communicate (osgeo discuss list)
  • announce officially that the discuss list should be used for discussions, also we as board should report after we had our board meetings
• how to attract especially younger people to get them to osgeo
  • [ACTION] Michele and Helena will ask their students and report in the next meeting (Done through e-mail)
• twitter: Focus on Announcements on twitter
• for 2022: Projects on incubation should not report on AGM

Questions from AGM:

1. In one session, yesterday, the suggestion came up to have a dedicated track on education at (local and global) FOSS4G. Is there a central place to keep track of such suggestions for the future LOCs ?
2. Climate crisis is the major issue for humanity in the years to come. We saw a lot of talks concerning EO related to climate crisis, and this is good. Does the OSGeo foundation need to adapt to handle this topic more or differently ?
3. What is the most active/preferred communication collaboration channel (short of issue-specific Git-based communications) that provides cross-pollination of users and developers? The osgeo community/communications page seems quite fragmented. Slack, email lists, social media, IRC chat...
4. Are there any plans for comprehensive workshops, (1-2-3 days) where we could get up to speed with certain open source programs? We get all the good "teasers" during the conference, but we get stuck fast in the usage/deployment of tools. In this way we can as well get up to speed on how to contribute to those give projects.
5. Does anyboday know if there's a community developing a cloud GIS with functionalities like ArcGIS Online? RStudio for instance has a complete cloud version which works the same than the desktop version?
6. Are there resources with arguments/justification for convincing a private company or supported government agency to provide either direct sponsorship $$ support or donate/encourage developer time as "in kind"/"professional development"?
7. At the beginning, you mention you need more people. Could you please precise in which part / domain or to do a specific task ?
8. This is my first conference about OpenSource GIS (at work we use proprietary GIS software). From the exposure at this conference I have seen that there are LOTS of options and in some cases some solutions have specialized advantages and I can't tell what easily works together. Is there any kind of "family tree" of OpenSource GIS Developments that work together well or are derived from each other?
9. Could we promote, be a member and participate without financing osgeo ?
10. Could OSGeo push/fund cross-project development, such as a rerun of the WMS Shootout, or OGC Features API Shootout?
11. Does OSGeo have a protocol for sponsoring, giving guidance, or even joining as an organizer about hackathons* ? *(promoted by organizations as government or companies that doesn't have a direct relation with OSGeo) Answered during AGM Financial guidance
12. Is the preference to generate sponsorship at the OSGeo level, or should individual projects also be trying to raise their own sponsorship?
13. What is the process for submitting/proposing a project?
14. Where should one find out more about contribution opportunities?
15. Is there an aspect in the GIS/Geo world that you feel is missing in the current zoo of osgeo projects? Answered during AGM
16. Could you comment on the GDAL funding, and how relations between Numfocus and OSGeo work in that case ? Answered during AGM
17. Sorry. didn't read through the financial report, but how are finances generally going ? (thinking of the impact of cancelled conference etc) Answered during AGM

Pretalx / Pretix services for FOSS4G and Local Chapters & update on FOSS4G 2022

• Astrid reports on thoughts in FOSSGIS to let the pretalx hosted and FOSSGIS pays a higher fee and then the platform is open to all local chapters
• FOSS4G 2022 uses the same pretalx-version as F4G2021 did
• [ACTION] Till add to handbook kind of howto on the systems used (pretalx, pretix, etc. …)
• [ACTION] Astrid to contact the pretalk/pretix team and report in the next meeting
• [ACTION] Till to report on the discussion on pretalx/prefix from the board to the CC
  • https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues/115
• News on status F4G2022
  • contract with PCO is in final preparation and will soon be signed (8% of total income)
  • work on early sponsorship
  • Luca asks whether there is a contract between LOC and osgeo is needed (Bonn, Bucharest had) ** discussion on hybrid event in 2022, Luca is yet not sure how many people are to be allowed
  • strong agreement on having a hybrid event
  • is a contract between OSGeo - FOSS-IT is needed (review minutes from meetings after F4G2020 was cancelled) [ACTION ITEM] all: review minutes and make a proposal if contract is needed

Feedback from GIZ/GEO

• Big interest from participants
• hypothetical question; “What does osgeo do with 1mio $ ?”
  • perhaps we need a special session about this
• Ask the community without creating expectations?
• Long term sustainability of projects
• This raises the discussion on broader goals of OSGeo and what resources we would need to accomplish.

OSGeo Community Project check-in, request clarification on handling of platform applicants,

• Community initiative is getting applicants which do not fit, passing over to the board to decide if we should move the bounds of the community initiative or redirect to open data group or something
• Some examples:
  • https://www.osgeo.org/projects/gc2-vidi/ - accepted to community initiative (by recasting as a client framework and / server frameworks)
  • https://gitlab.com/GISCollective - recent applicant
  • https://github.com/MapStory/mapstory - example of platform GitHub repository
• Consider https://www.osgeo.org/choose-a-project/information-technology/portal/
• [ACTION]: Setup a meeting with the board and GISCollective
  • https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues/116

Concerns raised on copyleft-equality

• Board should look at those challenges and review the incubation/community program to match (see email discussion https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/2021-September/004412.html for context)
• See https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2020/jan/06/copyleft-equality/
• Context Greg Troxel from OGC/OSGeo MOU https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/standards/2021-September/001274.html
• Moving to the next meeting, perhaps invite Bruce?

Update on OGC OSGeo MoU

• https://git.osgeo.org/gitea/osgeo/todo/issues/80
• OGC committee needed?

B2B initiative (global chapter)

• Check if there are volunteers to run
• Set their own rules and infrastructure and report to the board

Elections preparations

• Ask CROs when we can start the elections
• Discussing how to deal with charter members not voting for 3 years
• Send reminders for members to update their contact information before the election
• https://twitter.com/OSGeo/status/1443506359304065025

Action HOT

• MOU signed
• shall we ask for volunteers?
• Perhaps ask OSGeoLive to make a technical meeting with HOT
• [ACTION] Astrid will contact Miriam to discuss the next steps (Done through e-mail)

IRC Log

• no log, Will be a meeting on jitsi

Next meeting

• Board Meeting 2021-10-25