Foundation/AGM21/Election to Board/Answers and manifestos/Q5 Transparency Conflicts of interest
Transparency: Conflicts of Interest
A. Is your main source of income related to mapping or GIS work in some way, (whether OSM-related or not)?
B. Are you an employee of, member of, or otherwise affiliated with (paid or non-paid) a company, government organization or non-profit that does work in the OSM ecosystem or might compete with it? Do you have any contracts (employment or otherwise) which would limit what you can say in public that are relevant to OSM? eg a non-disparagement clause with a company/org in the OSM ecosystem? Or an employment contract which commits you to "always work in the company's best interest"?
Related link, added at the time of answers' publication: OSMF Board Conflict of Interest Policy
Guillaume Rischard - Q5 Transparency: Conflicts of interest
A. No. I am, however, looking for OSM-related work in New York City – hire me?
B. Are you an employee of, member of, or otherwise affiliated with (paid or non-paid) a company, government organization or non-profit that does work in the OSM ecosystem or might compete with it? Do you have any contracts (employment or otherwise) which would limit what you can say in public that are relevant to OSM? eg a non-disparagement clause with a company/org in the OSM ecosystem? Or an employment contract which commits you to "always work in the company's best interest"?
B. No. I would not accept a contract that would create such a fundamental conflict.
I believe that board members should not even participate in discussions on topics where they have a conflict, unless invited to by the other board members. Unfortunately, my proposal to update the conflict of interest policy didn’t get approved.
Michal Migurski - Q5 Transparency: Conflicts of interest
I am employed full-time as an engineering manager on Meta’s (formerly Facebook) Base Maps team where I interact regularly with mapping-related activities undertaken by the company, such as our map editing efforts and our long-running AI and machine learning work.
My obligations encourage me to work in the best interests of the OSM project. Meta has been a consistent supporter of the OSM community, growth of the project, and OSM’s ODbL license strategy. Meta is a major user of OSM data in public-facing display maps throughout our many products. My candidacy for the OSMF board has been vetted by communications and legal representatives at Meta.
Amanda McCann - Q5 Transparency: Conflicts of interest
I am a full time employee (since late 2014) at Geofabrik, a corporate member of the OSMF, and an OSM consultancy company.
My employment contract has no requirements for me to act in Geofabrik's interests outside work, and no non-disparaging clause(s). I am not allowed to compete with Geofabrik, and I have to keep company secrets confidential. That's it.
Geofabrik provides hosted services for OSM software. I've probably installed a version of every publically available OSM style, and a copy of nearly every OSM web service. Hence I legally have a “conflict of interest” on some OSMF policies, and may not legally vote. e.g. I was not legally allowed vote on the Attribution Guidelines in 2021. However I'm not aware of any geofabrik services, or clients, doing anything that goes against any of those policies. AFAIK geofabrik has no problem showing OSM attribution on maps.
Mikel Maron - Q5 Transparency: Conflicts of interest
The OpenStreetMap Foundation has a Conflict of Interest policy which requires disclosure of potentially conflicting roles by Board Members, and gives guidance for how to handle CoI issues when they arise on the Board agenda. I think these rules work well and provide proper transparency.
I work for Mapbox as the Community team lead. I've been at Mapbox for 6 years, originally working in data operations. My career has been related to mapping for nearly 20 years. Prior to Mapbox I worked for 1 year at US State Department in the Office of the Geographer on the MapGive program; and before that in GroundTruth Initiative and independently, working on community mapping and mapping technology projects all over the world.
Mapbox builds mapping and navigation tools for developers, and ingests many data sets including in large part OpenStreetMap for those products. Mapbox has supported OpenStreetMap in many ways over the years, with technology, mapping, community support and funding.
While there is information at Mapbox I am obliged to not disclose, this is mainly about our business and not anything specifically about OpenStreetMap. Nevertheless, I do not in any way "represent" Mapbox, and most questions about Mapbox I would defer to other people there. I am here in OSMF to represent OpenStreetMap, and the health and success of the project and Foundation is my foremost concern.
Roland Olbricht - Q5 Transparency: Conflicts of interest
Almost not at all.
My day job is to write software to issue public transit tickets in an interoperable yet secure way. My employer is also a heavy user of OSM data in other settings, and I'm consulting colleagues on more complex OSM matters.
B. Are you an employee of, member of, or otherwise affiliated with (paid or non-paid) a company, government organization or non-profit that does work in the OSM ecosystem or might compete with it? Do you have any contracts (employment or otherwise) which would limit what you can say in public that are relevant to OSM? eg a non-disparagement clause with a company/org in the OSM ecosystem? Or an employment contract which commits you to "always work in the company's best interest"?
I have no relations to any organization that competes with OSM. My current employer is a user of OSM data. In that contract, there are no explicit restrictions: The company is organized in a way such that it has anyway as few business secrets as possible. A side note is that protecting valid privacy concerns of collegues (and, by the way, any mapper or other stakeholder in OSM) by contrast of course applies.
Bryan Housel - Q5 Transparency: Conflicts of interest
Yes, I’m an employee of Kaart, a bronze level corporate member of the OSMF. My primary work at Kaart is supporting the MapWithAI team at Facebook, maintaining and developing the RapiD editor, as well as other open source software in the OSM ecosystem. (I have discussed my candidacy with both Kaart and Facebook and I have their support). For full disclosure, I also own Mapbox shares from my previous employment there.
OSM Foundation's board election 2021: official questions
- About you: Q1 Your OSM activities | Q2 What are your board member goals | Q3 Your time | Q4 Do you have any previous relevant experience | Q5 Transparency: Conflicts of interest
- Your view: Q6 How important is OpenStreetMap being a worldwide map to you and why? | Q7 Attribution and editor links by major map data users | Q8 Dealing with disputes, mediation | Q9 You and OSMF Strategic Plan Outline | Q10 Technology Gaps | Q11 How to increase mapper retention | Q12 Role of OSMF in large-scale data tagging disputes | Q13 Use of proprietary communication channels in OSM | Q14 OSM Carto rendering cycle on zoom levels 1-12
All board candidates' manifestos
OSM Foundation's board election 2021 - OSM Foundation's Annual General Meeting 2021: information and agenda
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