My February 2021 in OSM

Last few months have been weird. Those of us in more northern latitudes (I’m at 49° North) are just coming out of winter, with much shorter days. The coronavirus lockdowns make most regular social life is cut off. I (& most people I care about) have been lucky enough not to catch corona, but I’m noticing everyone is more snappy than normal.

• Mapping
  • I reached 11,000 changeset
  • For the first time in a long time, I forgot to make an OSM edit on one day (28th IIRC). I was busy all day. Oops.
• osm2pgql is a workhorse of OSM. I attended a 2h chat from the devs. (announced here)
• Board
  • HOT trademark grant
    • Some OSMers might have seen some usage of “hOSM”/“humanitarian OpenStreetMap”. I believe that’s all been solved and won’t come up again.
    • Communicated with LWG to pay external trademark law firm to look at the trademark contract.
  • Mid month chat on 12th
  • Board meeting
    • Attempted to contact a Local Chapter to give a presentation
  • FOSS policy
    • Explained some of how Mastodon/Fediverse works
  • Advisory Board
    • Meeting
      • The OSMF Board & Advisory Board had a meeting on 24th February
      • As Secretary I had to organise when that was, which involved a few Doodle polls, and HackMD pad for agenda, as well as reminding people, and ensuring new Local Chapters were informed.
      • I emailed the osmf-talk@ list to ensure the OSMF membership was informed
      • I reported on this meeting at the February 2020 OSMF Board Meeting:
        • It was about 1½ hours (scheduled for 1 hr). IIRC, there was one corporate member present (Esri), and the rest (~10?) were Local Chapters.
        • I summarized the Board’s Screen-to-Screen meeting a few weeks earlier
        • Each local chapter gave a short 1 minute summary of what was going on in their region.
        • Allan presented results from the OSMF’s community survey which just finished.
        • Rob Nickerson of OSMUK (the Local Chapter for the UK) raised some ideas about Local Chapters helping for Microgrants.
        • Dermot of OpenStreetMapIreland Ireland (the Local Chapter for the island of Ireland) asked that if a group had a propsal for (e.g.) a vector tile server, that the OSMF would consider paying for it (yes!).
  • Local Chapters
    • Stowarzyszenia OpenStreetMap Polska application for Poland
      • I emailed osmf-talk@ mailing list and talk-pl@ to solict feedback from the OSMF community & OSMers in Poland.
    • 一般社団法人オープンストリートマップ・ファウンデーション・ ジャパン (OpenStreetMap Foundation Japan) application for Japan.
      • I emailed osmf-talk@ mailing list and talk-ja@ to solict feedback from the OSMF community & OSMers in Japan.
      • Some OSMF members had questions, which I collected together and emailed OSMF Japan. They replied with some answers
    • MapUganda application for Uganda
      • Communicated with them about their income sources to address some concerned raised on the mailing lists
    • FOSSGIS (Local Chapter for Germany)
      • FOSSGIS want to upgrade to the new Local Chapters Application.
      • Emailed our pro-bono corporate counsel with how to do this
    • OpenStreetMap US
      • Some back and forth emails about finalizing paperwork for them to be a Local Chapter
    • OSGeo Oceania
      • Contacted them to remind them to appoint someone to the Advisory Board
  • Attribution Guidelines
    • Review the docs from LWG for eventually
  • Take Over Protections
    • Drafted email to counsel to ask advice and consulted LWG on this
  • Voted on small change to OSMF Privacy Policy
  • Brexit
    • Opened gitlab issue for tracking this topic.
• Communication Working Group
  • As part of the OSM Promotional Material Programme, I posted 2 envelopes of stickers to Germany, and 1 to the UK.
• Tagging
  • Inspired by a tweet of a Google Maps mashup, I started a conversation about how to tag whether a medical clinic follows the informed consent model for transgender healthcare. Lists: tagging@ diversity-talk@. Social media: Mastodon/Fediverse Birdsite/Twitter.

Previously: 2021: Jan. 2020: Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec.