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The Local Chapters working group met earlier this week. We reviewed some comments to the current Local Chapters agreement that came from early consultation with some OpenStreetMappers around the world. Based on early consultation, we’ve set up a provisional timetable for completing the process of setting up local chapters which is included in this post.

What are the issues?

The idea of local chapters is quite simple: an official body can become a federated member of the OSM-Foundation and can represent the OSM-F on official business – things like talking to journalists, dealing with local or national Governments or companies, or organising conferences and mapping parties.

The part of the agreement that needs the most attention is around termination. The OSM-Foundation is granting the right to use its name, its standing and its reputation to a local group. Though unlikely, the Foundation needs to be able to revoke this right if the local group starts jeopardising the reputation of the Foundation by acting illegally or unethically, or if the Local Chapters acts against the aims of the OSM-F. For example, it is the opinion of the OSM-F that tracing roads from Google Maps constitutes copyright infringement and also breaks the terms of service. This view is not unanimously shared within the geo community and the OSM-F would not want a Local Chapter to be infringing copyright and breaching Google’s TOS under their name.

The challenges faced by OSM-F are not unique. Community organisations like the Java Community Process, or Mozilla have dealt with similar issues.

If you’ve been involved in an open source project or another organisation that has dealt with these issues, please get in touch.

For reference, here’s an FAQ I mailed to the OSM List this morning.

What are local chapters?

A Local Chapter is an official group of OSMers within a specific territory that is able to officially represent the OSM-F.

Why do we need local chapters?

Over the last 12 months many OSMers, especially those outside of the UK, have expressed interest in setting up official, local groups so that they can represent the OSM-F when talking to journalists, dealing with companies and governments, arranging mapping parties and conferences. From the Foundation’s point of view, establishing Local Chapters will help to spread the load of work and will lead to the growth and development of OSM in new territories.

Who can set-up a local chapter?

A Local Chapter will have a similar organisational structure to the OSM-F. It will consist of a board of directors who should be democratically elected by the memebership. We’ll let you know more details as they are decided, but for now if you are interested in setting up or being involved with a local chapter, please drop me an email (nick@osmfoundation.org)

What is the timeline for setting up local chapters?

All dates are approximate and depend on the number of review cycles the agreement goes through.

* Draft Local Chapters agreement in place for OSM-F viewing by 22nd Dec (OSM-F Board Meeting)
* First draft available for public comment in early Jan
* Review comments Jan-Feb
* Present revised edition to OSM-F for approval – Feb
* Setting up of first local chapters, driven by local chapters themselves- Feb

Who is in the Local Chapters Working Group?

Nick Black (Chair) – nick@osmfoundation.org
Mikel Maron – mikel_maron@yahoo.com
80n – 80n80n@gmail.com
Henk Hoff – henk.hoff@osmfoundation.org
Simone Cortesi – simone@cortesi.com

Want to help out? Got something to say?

Please email nick@osmfoundation.org or reply to this thread.

I’ve been doing some research as part of the Foundation’s goal to establish a framework for local OSM chapters to be Federated to the Foundation. The idea is that a local or special interest group will be able to set up a formal relationship with the OSM Foundation, allowing them to hold local mapping parties, events, conferences and so on under the broader banner of the Foundation. Federated groups or chapters will also be able to represent themselves to other official bodies – Governments and media organisations being two examples.

Quite a bit of work has already been done on this by the OSM-F Board, lead by 80n, so I’m not starting from cold. Most of the research I’ve been doing today has been into the Mozilla Foundation, who have been recommended as a good template for a central Foundation with federated members. The next step is for me to contact some local OSM leaders and present the OSM Foundation’s current proposal to them to get some feedback – I’ll be doing this over the next 7 days.

More info on the OSM Wiki. As always, if you have questions or would like to be involved with the work of the OSM-F, get in touch

We’ve just released the call for venues for the State of the Map 2009. The conference will be held on the 11th – 12th July 2009, so book you time off now. We want this years conference to be even better that last years, which is why the Foundation started working on the organisation in September.

If you would like to host this year’s event, take a look at this post. I’m going to be on holiday next week, so I won’t be doing any Foundation work. I’ll be catching up with Foundation emails as soon as I return.

One of the things I emphasised when standing for election to the OSM Foundation Board was the need for transparency and communication of Board activities to the membership. This is something I’m going to be working on consistently over the next 11 months. This post is the start of the first phase of the work. I’m going to keep a record of the work I do for the Foundation and try and communicate my work as clearly as possible. A lot of the work happens in bits and pieces – I grab 20 mins on a train or plane to read and write emails, draft press releases and so on. I’ve also set aside 2 hours on Thursday mornings for OSM-Foundation related work, so I’d anticipate these updates following those session.

Lets get going. Today I’ve been working on:

• Drafting a press release for the GPStoGO program’s first unit loan. I’m aiming to get the release out by the end of the week.
• Drafting an announcement for the call for venues for the State of the Map 2009. The announcement should be out by the end of the week and will invite proposals for venues to host the 2009 event.
• Catching up on Foundation emails, particularly regarding the License work, which is an ongoing effort for all of the Board members

Upcoming actions next week include getting up to speed on the process of setting up local OSM Chapters. I have a call with some other Foundation members tomorrow, after which I’ll be getting in touch with some OSM people around the world with the aim of getting local OSM chapters set up.

You can subscribe to my posts about my OSM-F work by clicking on this link.

For all Foundation related requests or info, please email me at nick@osmfoundation.org