Foundation/AGM2022/Election to Board/Answers and manifestos/Q05 Transparency - Conflicts of interest

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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"?
  • Will your employer remunerate you in any way for your work for OSMF. If yes - in what way?

Daniela Waltersdorfer J. - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

A.) I work for a Transportation Consultant Firm based in the United States. Although I do GIS work for different Transportation Agencies, I do not get paid for mapping on OSM. I do push for putting content on OSM and giving back if and when we use OSM data for projects. I think it's the least one can do when having such an enormous, in-depth, amazing, open geospatial data set. Most of my involvement OSM is voluntary and because on a personal note I am very passionate about the project.
B.) No. I believe my involvement in the OSM US Board has taught me great skills in time management and separating my every-day paid work from OSM. I look forward to continuing this practice.

Arnalie Vicario - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

Declaration of CoI: Yes, my main source of income is related to OSM: I work as Online Community Engagement Lead and part of the voting membership of Humanitarian Openstreetmap Team (HOT). If I get to be elected as board member, I will abstain from any HOT-related topics or discussions that require a vote.

Employer Contract: There's nothing in my HOT contract (nor in the HOT Voting Membership Code) which prevents me from speaking critically about HOT. I do speak critically in public about things my employer (HOT) does, which is well-accepted by my management who value critical thinking and an independent viewpoint with the best interests of the wider community in mind.

One such instance where I publicly criticized and called out HOT happened in 2020 while I am already a voting member and before I joined as an employee. Chronologically:

  • May 2020 - I joined HOT as voting member
  • September 2020 - Together with members of OSM community in the Philippines, I signed the A Call to Correct Narratives about Geospatial Work in the Philippines, a direct criticism and call out to HOT and Amazon Web Services produced video
  • December 2020 (to present) - I joined HOT as staff and have been critical to HOT’s work and pushing the community-centered agenda

Employer remuneration: Should I be elected to the OSMF board, I can use some of my paid time - considered as extracurricular activities similar to my participation in SotM WG and LCCWG. With this, I do not have the obligation to represent, take direction from, nor report back to HOT regarding my board duties. I will be representing my own views, and those OSM communities and community members who come from the same background as me - people from historically oppressed & marginalized communities.

You can listen more about my views about community in Openstreetmap and humanitarian open mapping including paid contribution and varying capacities of contributors in the Geomob Podcast Interview - Arnalie Vicario: Building inclusive spaces in OSM (this is last question of the interview).

Włodzimierz Bartczak - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

I work for one of the retail chains in Poland. Therefore, my main source of income is not directly related to GIS and OpenStreetMap, but I use spatial analysis tools on a daily basis. The company I work for is not related to OpenStreetMap and does not compete with it in any field. No one in my family is associated with any commercial company affiliated with OpenStreetMap.

However, I am a member of the Board of Directors of the OpenStreetMap Poland Association (local chapter of OSMF) and a conflict of interest, may exist when implementing programs to support local communities. For this reason, I will remain completely transparent in this regard.

I perform my duties to my current employer under a contract that admittedly obligates me to "always work in the best interests of the company," but my duties and the company's operations are not related in any way to OSM or GIS. My employer will not compensate me in any way for my work for OSMF, I will have to perform my duties as a board member in my free time.

Ariel Kadouri - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

A. My day job is a software engineer on the Automated Mapping Platform at Woven Planet, a subsidiary of Toyota.

B. We do not work in the OSM ecosystem or compete with OSM. I will not be compensated for any of the work done for the OSMF. I have no such clause in my employment contract but in the event I am elected I will seek a waiver to explicitly ensure an understanding between the company and myself. I am not running to represent any other interests besides my own and those of the OSM community.

Victor N.Sunday - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

Christian Shadrack - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

I have been working with the Joint Geographic Information System (JGIS) of MONUC (Mission of the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of Congo), with UNOCHA – Cote d’Ivoire (United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Cote d’Ivoire), I have been collaborating with CartONG France in an important project named “Data collaborative in DRC regarding the Health sector”, with action in building a final dataset regarding health facilities, Health Zone and Health Area in DRC, I’m collaborating with IFRC/ DRC Country office for the data readiness for epidemic and pandemic preparedness (CP3) and I’m a HOT voting member and an active OpenStreetmap contributor in my country and I’m participating in the popularization of the “opens source tools” and “the digital mapping with openstreetmap”. Currently I am not paid for OSMF

Sarah Hoffmann - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

I'm a freelancer developing OSM software with a focus on geocoding. You can check out the list of main sponsors for this work on nominatim.org and the Github sponsors page. I've been also paid in the past by the OSMF for work on Nominatim, which would be a conflict of interest while being on the board. I have no contracts with a non-disparagement clause and no intention of signing one.

Logan McGovern - Q05 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)?

Yes. I am a GIS Technician II for Kaart, which means I review contributions by our other editors to the database to ensure their consistency and high quality.

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?

As I stated in the first part of this question, I work for Kaart. Kaart's interests align with those of the OSMF. Volunteer mappers and other corporate contributors to the map only enhance the quality of the collective database we are contributing to. A hostile takeover would kill the golden goose. Partnerships are common, and collaboration is frequent among the corporate participants. At least 70% of the data contributed by hobbyist local mappers is excellent, adding significant value to the database. I'm quite confident the CEO of Kaart understands this dynamic very well.

Do you have any contracts (employment or otherwise) which would limit what you can say in public that are relevant to OSM?

I mean even if its not in the terms of the contract I am not going to disparage my boss, but I highly doubt that Aaron Young would ever give me any reason to. I am privy to knowledge of partnerships formed between various corporate actors in the OSM community which I can not discuss freely. In my terms of contract I know there is a non-competition clause which I think would prevent me from effectively working for Digital Egypt or Grab for example, but that is the extent of what I cannot do in the 'company's best interest'.

Will your employer remunerate you in any way for your work for OSMF. If yes - in what way?

No. That is a controversy my company will not engage in at any cost, and I will oppose any attempts or offers of remuneration.

Arun Ganesh - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

A. Yes. My professional employment is as a software engineer on the Mapbox boundaries team where we work with non-OSM GIS data of global boundaries.
B. Yes, as an employee of Mapbox. There are no contractual restrictions that limit my ability to express freely about OSM. My professional role does not involve the use of OSM data and there will be no renumeration for any work for OSMF since it is expected to be on personal time.

Mateusz Konieczny - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

A very large part of my income is GIS-related, and a large part of that is OSM related. For the good news, this is freelancing and I am not a long-term employee of any specific company or organization.

I received funding for development work on OSM Carto (as part of GSoC) and on StreetComplete (as part of NL.net) and from OSMF (microgrants). These grants were either announced in the OSM community in general or I disclosed them - see [1] [2] [3]

I plan to look for similar funding, primarily for StreetComplete. Obviously in case of being elected, I would be ineligible for OSMF-provided funding but maybe I would look for one in future, which can be concern.

As a freelancer, I am likely to work on OSM-adjacent projects and will continue to work on something. Rent and food will not pay for itself, I need to work.

I used OSM data in some paid projects and in gifts (yes, clear attribution visible to all users was included).

I am not aware of any enforceable contracts which would ban me from criticizing any companies or organizations.

I never signed something that has "always work in the company's best interest" acting beyond my work and extending to my private life or interfering with my own projects.

I was never paid to promote something in OSM or to not promote something in OSM. Funding that I mentioned in the first paragraph was given for something that I planned to do anyway.

No one is going to pay me for spending time on OSMF.

This is probably not relevant in OSM, at least for now, but I want to mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order which were issued for example in UK or USA, including bans on ever saying anything about being served with one.

Craig Allan - Q05 Transparency: Conflicts of interest

Declaration of no Conflicts:

My income is from my own savings and has nothing to do with mapping or GIS work. I have no employer so there can be no conflicts of interest with my employment. I have no contractual limits on speech or loyalty. I will work on OSMF tasks as a volunteer and will receive no payment from anyone for that work. I will be loyal to OSMF and will always work in the best interests of OSMF.


OSM Foundation's board election 2022: official questions

All board candidates' manifestos

2022 OpenStreetMap Foundation's: Board election - Voting information and instructions - Annual General Meeting

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Annual General Meetings of the OpenStreetMap Foundation
Board Elections
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