Report on the use of Free and Open Source
Software in the OpenStreetMap FoundationAuthors: Felix Delattre, Danijel Schorlemmer, Enock Seth Nyamador and Tobias Knerr
Date: January 2021

Introduction
The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Policy Special Committee of theOpenStreetMap Foundation has been asked by the Board of Directors to assess the degree
to which Free and/or Open Source Software or Services are being used within theOpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF), the board itself, the different working groups, andcommittees. This analysis focuses on collaborative services to be used over the Internet.
The FOSS Policy Special Committee was explicitly excluding the software used by thecommunity at large, local chapters, or systems running on personal computers.

Indicators
The committee has defined two indicators that cover the most important aspects offreedom and openness of software. These are:
1. Programs or Services released under a Free and/or Open Source Software license: Are
the programs or services used released under licenses that have been officially approved byeither the Free Software Foundation or the Open Source Initiative. Only these licenses arefollowing the standards to be considered free and/or open.
2. Control over data stored at hosted services: The key aspect of hosted services is theability of the OSMF and the community to fully control the data hosted and to prevent thisdata from being used for other purposes by a third party. Some of such services are basedon open-source software and can be self-hosted by the OSMF, then offering full control andownership of the data. Non-open services usually do not offer this ability and the fullcontrol of the data is at least questionable if not completely impossible.

Inventory
The committee investigated the programs and services used by the different groups: Boardof Directors, Communications Working Group, Data Working Group, Engineering WorkingGroup, Licensing Working Group, Local Chapter and Communities Working Group,Operations Working Group, and State of the Map Organizing Committee. A total of 51
different programs or services were identified. The overall percentage of programs andservices matching the two indicators are:57% of the collaboration software in the OSMF is Free and/or Open Source Software.
31% of the collaboration software is being hosted by or under control of the OSMF.

Looking into each of the different groups separately leads to the following results:Group

Indicator 1:
FOSS

Indicator 2:
Hosting

Board of Directors

77% (10 of 13)

46% (6 of 13)

Communications Working Group

33% (6 of 18)

17% (3 of 18)

Data Working Group

100% (4 of 4)

75% (3 of 4)

Engineering Working Group

67% (6 of 9)

33% (3 of 9)

Licensing Working Group

50% (2 of 4)

25% (1 of 4)

Local Chapter and Communities Working Group

67% (8 of 12)

25% (3 of 12)

Membership Working Group

57% (4 of 7)

43% (3 of 7)

Operations Working Group

38% (3 of 8)

50% (4 of 8)

State of the Map Organizing Committee

59% (13 of 22)

23% (5 of 22)

Recommendations
The FOSS Policy Special Committee would like to provide practical, feasible, and impactfulrecommendations. The committee has identified several programs to be used and services
that the OSMF should be hosting or subcontracting their hosting with a trusted partner. All
selected programs and services can be considered as standards in the open-source worldand beyond.
To make things easy, the committee suggests evaluating the services offered by trustworthy
providers such as cloud68.co, which is already a partner for the OSMF hosting theBigBlueButton video chat. The committee considers the mentioned providers below as good
possible partners that together have most of the following services in their portfolios:

1. osmfoundation.org email addresses
Emails have always been the core and often times the fallback for communication in andaround OpenStreetMap and the OSMF. All osmfoundation.org email addresses are currently
hosted by the Google Suite, either as simple email address or group. Hosting an email serverby the OSMF or a trusted partner seems to be the most urgent and important step formoving towards FOSS and retaining control over the communication data. The committee
sees this as the most relevant item and would like to encourage the OSMF to pursue this assoon as possible.

2. Code collaboration platform
Currently, most OSM(F)-related software is being hosted on github.com, and this has a highlock-in potential, it is not FOSS and far away from OSMF having any control over it. It
seems that this is mostly due to a lack of alternatives. Therefore the committee
recommends that the OSMF hosts or subcontracts the hosting to have an own OSMrelated software collaboration platform (similar to Debian’s platform Salsa) using GitLab orGitea. This is a great opportunity to build a coding community around OSM and to notdepend on a commercial offer that likely monetizes on user behavior and, in violation of thetrue openness of OSM, exclude contributors from certain countries. This platform should
become the place to go for OSM-related software.

3. Social media (microblogging)Microblogging is dominated by Twitter. While the committee does not argue to abandon
Twitter, it likes to suggest supporting the distributed (Twitter-like) social network based on
Fediverse running on the Mastodon software. The OSMF can tap into an existing initiative onen.osm.town, currently serving 350 users and 1300 followers of the @openstreetmap
account. The operation of cross-posters will allow everybody to use the free and open
Fediverse first, while simultaneously sending and publishing their social-media messages tocommercial market leaders, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The active OSMmapper RoryM is administrating the en.osm.town instance and has expressed openness tomove it under a domain and the control of the OSMF.
The committee recommends endorsing this instance as the official social media platform forOSM and establishing cross-posters to existing commercial platforms. Thus living the spiritof open-first with subsequent inclusion of everybody else.

4. Collaborative editing and document sharing
The foreclosure and monetization of user data by Google are well known. The open
Nextcloud can replace most of the Google services the working groups depend on (e.g. Docs,Drive, Calendar, Forms). The Nextcloud should become the “swiss-army knife” of the OSMF.
Combined with OnlyOffice, LibreOffice online, or Collabora, it can offer rich-text wordprocessing, spreadsheets, and presentations. It contains a comfortable team calendar,surveys, etc. and it is developed by a vibrant community. Relying on Nextcloud will move a
lot of the collaboration in the OSMF towards Free and/or Open Source Software while
maintaining the overall functionality and comfort people are used to.
5. Meeting scheduler
For scheduling meetings proprietary services most often used. These are hosted
everywhere. Consideration should be given to deploying the software Framadate hosted byor under the control of OSMF.

6. Online surveys
Currently, there is no consistent tool for surveys in the OSMF groups. Limesurvey is alreadysuccessfully used by the Board and hosted through a paid plan. It is recommended toextend this offer to all groups in OSMF for complex surveys and to rely on the Forms App
included in Nextcloud for more simple polls, to protect the data of survey participants.
In summary, the six recommendations suggest evaluating the provision of hosting for thefollowing five online software tools:
PurposePotential software

Potential provider(s)osmfoundation.org email
serverThere are many good [ to choosefrommailbox.org,
servercow.de

Code collaboration platform GitLab or Gitea

cloud68.coSocial media platform

MastodonSelf-hosted (Rorym)

Collaboration suite

Nextcloudcloud68.co

Meeting scheduler

FramadateSelf-hosting needed

Conclusions
The six recommendations formulated to ensure that the OSMF follows its FOSS policy ofpreferably using Free and/or Open Source software over any proprietary options. This
would guarantee inclusive global participation and protect all active people from having
their data used for purposes other than OpenStreetMap.
By following the recommendations the overall numbers of the inventory would change to:79% of the collaboration software in OSMF were Free and/or Open Source Software.
68% of the collaboration software were being hosted by or under control of OSMF.
And this would lead to the following results for each of the groups:
Group

Indicator 1:
FOSS

Indicator 2:
Hosting

Board of Directors

92% (12 of 13)

77% (10 of 13)

Communications Working Group

56% (9 of 16)

50% (8 of 16)

Data Working Group

100% (4 of 4)

75% (3 of 4)

Engineering Working Group

88% (7 of 8)

88% (7 of 8)

Licensing Working Group

100% (4 of 4)

100% (4 of 4)

Local Chapter and Communities Working Group

90% (9 of 10)

70% (7 of 10)

Membership Working Group

71% (5 of 7)

57% (4 of 7)

Operations Working Group

86% (6 of 7)

100% (7 of 7)

State of the Map Organizing Committee

72% (13 of 18)

50% (9 of 18)© OpenStreetMap Foundation - Some rights reserved: This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.