This document has been automatically translated from the original athttps://gitlab.fossgis.de/verein/oeffentliche-dokumente/-/raw/master/jahresberichte/ and received
only minor cleanup and corrections by Frederik Ramm on 10 May 2023.

FOSSGIS e.V. Annual Report of the Board of Directors 2023
Reporting period 03/2022 – 03/2023

Table of Contents
1 Membership development.................................................................................................................2
2 Events................................................................................................................................................2
2.1 FOSSGIS Conference 2023.......................................................................................................2
2.2 FOSSGIS OSM community events...........................................................................................2
2.3 Federal President's Citizens' Festival.........................................................................................3
2.4 OSM Indoor Workshop..............................................................................................................3
3 Events and cooperation with other associations................................................................................3
3.1 OSBA - Open Source Business Alliance...................................................................................3
3.2 OGC - Open Geospatial Consortium.........................................................................................3
3.3 FSFE - Free Software Foundation Europe.................................................................................4
3.4 Bits und Bäume (Bits and Trees)...............................................................................................4
3.5 Souvereign Tech Fund...............................................................................................................4
3.6 Mobility Data Act......................................................................................................................4
3.7 Bundeskartellamt (Federal Antitrust Office).............................................................................4
3.8 IDs and tools for networking institutions and topics.................................................................4
4 Activities............................................................................................................................................5
4.1 Board Meetings..........................................................................................................................5
4.2 Cooperation between BKG and FOSSGIS e.V..........................................................................5
4.3 Coordination Office...................................................................................................................5
4.4 Support of the events.................................................................................................................5
4.5 Support for the work of the working groups..............................................................................6
4.6 Typical office work....................................................................................................................6
4.7 Miscellaneous............................................................................................................................6
5 IT / Admin.........................................................................................................................................7
6 Reports of the Working Groups.........................................................................................................7
6.1 List of Service Providers............................................................................................................7
6.2 WG Public Tenders with FOSS.................................................................................................8
6.3 WG Open Data (BKG and OSM)..............................................................................................8
6.4 WG OSM Server........................................................................................................................8
6.5 Communication WG..................................................................................................................9
7 Closing Note......................................................................................................................................9

1

Membership development

As of February 9, 2023: 264 members, of which• 200 employed• 38 legal• 26 reduced
Admissions 2022: 11 (2023 so far 5)
Resignations 2022: 4, of which 2 exclusions due to non-payment and no availability

2

Events

2.1 FOSSGIS Conference 2023
FOSSGIS 2023 is being planned and will take place from March 15-18, 2023. A lot of effort goes
into supporting the local team, because the Institute of Geography has few human resources
available for the preparation . The contract with the university was negotiated, including agreementswith individual responsible persons of the HU Berlin, the Erwin Schrödinger Center and theInstitute of Geography. Activation and support of comrades-in-arms and partners for preparation.
The programme committee launched the Call for Participation in September. Locations for the
supporting program were requested and negotiations were conducted. Detailed planning, program
as well as ticketing and information for the website have been concretized around the turn of theyear and have been published . The supporting programme includes the unofficial start, the evening
event , the general meeting, two MSF mapathons and three excursions. The OSM Saturday as an
OpenStreetMap event in unconfer-ence format is planned and launched. The wish that it is possible
to participate in FOSSGIS online is also met. Accordingly, the program will be planned in a hybrid
format. Thanks to all participants with co-organizers!

2.2 FOSSGIS OSM community events
Since early summer 2022, meetings have been possible again, so FOSSGIS e.V. was able to support
two community meetings at the Linuxhotel in Essen in 2022. From July 1st-3rd, meeting number 17
took place with 18 participants who took the opportunity to spend a working weekend at theLinuxhotel. Among other things, the Bundeskartellamt's request to the association was processed at
this meeting and the next steps for planning the stand at the Federal President's Citizens' Festival
were discussed. The report on the end of the working week can be found on the association's
website. From September 16-18, meeting number 18 took place with 16 participants, who took theopportunity to work on their topics and projects and discuss them with other participants . Meals areprepared and eaten together at these meetings and provide additional space for exchange. These
community meetings strengthen cohesion and cooperation within the association.

2.3 Federal President's Citizens' Festival
On August 26 and 27, 2022, the Federal President's Citizens' Festival, which had been planned for along time and postponed twice due to Corona, took place in the Bellevue Palace Garden. The
association was provided with a place in the presentation area of the palace garden as well as apointed pagoda tent. The design of the appearance was taken care of by the working group
Bürgerfest, which had been founded for this occasion . In the run-up to the event, the working groupplanned the stand concept and construction in consultation with the agency and organised theinterior fittings. Among other things, a large tarpaulin has been created, on which 16 OSM map
styles show a map section with the Bellevue Palace Park and the surrounding area. 15 people fromthe OSM environment could be recruited as booth personnel .
Friday was reserved for invited guests of honour, and on Saturday the Bürgerfest was open toanyone who had booked a ticket. In conversation with the visitors, it became clear that many use
OSM, fewer are aware of it, but far too many do not know it. It was a pity that the citizens' festival
was ultimately a bit more difficult than planned due to the storm. The board would like to thank the
Citizens' Festival Working Group, which excellently prepared and implemented the appearance atthe booth under the motto "We are playing with open cards". The press release of the working groupcan be found here: https://fossgis.de/news/2022_09_05_pressemeldung_buergerfest/

2.4 OSM Indoor Workshop
Based on a need that had become apparent during the OSM event 2022, a working meeting on the
topic of indoor in OpenStreetMap was organized. This took place from October 14-16, 2022 inFrankfurt am Main, a report can be found here: https://fossgis.de/news/2022_10_15_treffen_indoorosm_okt2022/

3

Events and cooperation with other associations

3.1 OSBA - Open Source Business Alliance
Since November, FOSSGIS e.V. has been a supporting member of OSBA. Thanks go to theworking group "Public Procurement with FOSS", which has promoted cooperation and is also
talking about it: https://fossgis.de/news/2022_11_15_fossgisev_osba/

3.2 OGC - Open Geospatial Consortium
The board had considered whether it would make sense to join the OGC as an associate member.
For this purpose , a survey was launched among the members. 39 members participated. 15
members thought it made sense for the association to become a member and two have agreed toparticipate in a working group on the topic. For the establishment of a working group andmembership in the OGC, this narrowness was not enough for the board. In the meantime, OSGeo
has established a working group for standardization. This group will be a member of the OGC .
Pirmin is a member of the OSGeo working group. Thus, on a factual level, the question ofmembership of FOSSGIS e.V. in the OGC is settled for the time being.

3.3 FSFE - Free Software Foundation Europe
FOSSGIS e.V. co-signed FSFE' s open letter on the universal right to install any software on any
device.

3.4 Bits und Bäume (Bits and Trees)In October, the Bits und Bäume Conference took place, an event that deals with the topics ofdigitization and sustainability, using a similar setup to the FOSSGIS conference, only 5x larger. The
participants from the FOSSGIS community have recorded a few impressions in an article on theassociation's homepage. Sovereign Tech Fund Katja kept an eye on the initiative of the Sovereign
Tech Fund and wrote an article on the occasion of the community evening.
https://fossgis.de/news/2022_10_15_eindr%C3%BCcke_bits_und_baeume_konferenz/

3.5 Souvereign Tech Fund
Katja has kept an eye on the Souvereign Tech Fund and reports from a community event here:
https://fossgis.de/news/2022_12_12_sovereign_tech_fund/

3.6 Mobility Data Act
FOSSGIS e.V. was invited as a stakeholder to the kick-off event to define the cornerstones of afederal Mobility Data Act. As described in the article, there are opportunities to get involved in thisprocess.

3.7 Bundeskartellamt (Federal Antitrust Office)
The Bundeskartellamt had contacted the association as part of a procedure relating to card services
and provided a questionnaire that was completed by the association as well as by companies in the
FOSS environment.

3.8 IDs and tools for networking institutions and topics
Thanks to Peter Löwe's initiative, the association is now registered as a scientific nonprofit
organization in the Research Organisation Registry (ROR), the ROR ID of FOSSGIS is: 004t5s645.
The ROR registration can be a useful/high-profile thing in the future if the FOSSGIS (or working
groups, etc.) participate in publicly funded projects. The ROR-ID can be used to make contributionsof the FOS-SGIS visible and comprehensible in research information systems (FIS ). FIS are an
important topic for research associations such as Helmholtz, Leibniz, MPI or Fraunhofer, but also at
the European level and, if necessary, at authorities, see also https://ror.org/about/.
ORCID's vision is a world where all those involved in research, science and innovation are clearly
identified and connected to their contributions across disciplines, boundaries and time.
ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID. FOSSGIS e.V. now also has an ORCID,
although it makes more sense for individuals to have one.
The club now also has a profile at Zenodo. This is an online storage service that can be used mainly
for scientific data sets, but also for science-related software, publications, reports, presentations,videos, etc. This will be used, for example, for the publication of the conference proceedings andfor future publications under the umbrella of FOSSGIS e.V. emerge can be used.

4

Activities

4.1 Board Meetings
The Board meetings will continue to be held in public, guests are welcome. The next date is in the
club calendar (see above). If you would like to listen and be part of it, please note that the board nolonger meets in Mumble, but now with video in jitsi: https://meet.fossgis.de/vorstand. Protocols are
published under https://www.fossgis.de/verein/vorstand/4.2 Cooperation between BKG and FOSSGIS e.V.
There is a lively exchange between FOSSGIS e.V. and the BKG, and in recent months the main
focus has been on the exchange of data and knowledge on OpenStreetMap. At the beginning of2022, a framework agreement on the cooperation between FOSSGIS e.V. and BKG was launched.
Katja and the contact person of the BKG, Eszter Kiss, have dedicated themselves to the upcoming
topics. For example, a brainstorming workshop was launched on the question of cooperation with
the OSM community in the event of a disaster, which had arisen from unsatisfactory options foraction for the OSM community during the Ahr Valley disaster in the summer of 2021 . This took
place on June 30, 2022 as an online meeting and brought to light numerous questions that need tobe discussed in further sessions. Representatives from the BKG, BBK, THW as well as activists
from the OSM community took part, transcript 30.06.2023. Unfortunately, a continuation of thethematic debate has not yet succeeded. It turns out that the community and the authorities work very
differently and think that they need to get to know each other further and approach each other, seetranscript Tref-fen on 20.12.2023. Another topical issue is the agreement to support the financing of
the coordinating body by the BKG, as the cooperation takes up a larger share of the coordinating
office 's work. In addition to the existing cooperation agreement with the BKG, the aim is to reach a
cost agreement between BKG and FOSSGIS.

4.3 Coordination Office
Address: FOSSGIS e.V. Bundesallee 23 10717 Berlin Phone: +49 30-62932037
The coordination office is available from Monday to Friday. More than 50% of the working time isspent on conference organization, about a quarter is used for internal club support, the other quarter
is for cooperation and external communication. Katja arranges her working hours flexibly according
to the requirements. Meetings often take place in the late afternoon or evening, but there is also agreat need during the day to ensure the accessibility of the association. The planned 30 hours ofworking time per week leave room to do justice to the tasks at hand.

4.4 Support of the events• FOSSGIS-OSM-Community-Event• Citizens' Festival of the Federal President• FOSSGIS 2023
• OSM-Indoor Workshop• Brainstorming workshop "Cooperation with the OSM community in case of disaster"

4.5 Support for the work of the working groups
The „public tenders“ working group, which has adapted the name of the working group to thethematic focus, has continued to meet regularly. Further information can be found in the report of
the working group as well as transcripts of the meetings in the wiki.
The Open Data working group met regularly and discussed the upcoming topics, these meetings arealso documented in the wiki.
The service provider list working group was less active in 2022, as the big goal of launching such alist was implemented in 2021. The list of service providers should be further developed andupdated.
The press and public relations work is allowed to develop further, there is no real working group
work on this. In order to advance the visibility of the association and the topics, commitment would
be good at this point. On the club's homepage you can find numerous interesting articles underNews . Anyone who would like to participate in expanding the press and public relations work of
the association is cordially invited to get involved.

4.6 Typical office work
The coordination office receives numerous phone calls with a wide variety of questions about theuse of OSM, in search of solutions, services or access to the community. Our offers of the mailinglist FOSSGIS-Talk, uMap as well as the OSM forum are very helpful, as they can be referred to.
The coordinating body tries to avoid becoming a bottleneck for information or initiatives. Between
autumn and spring, conference organization tasks predominate. After the conference is before theconference, but there is still a little more time available for supporting the association's work,
planning events or dealing with topics. The association works with the FOSSGIS Gitlab system,
which serves as a storage and memory medium to keep an eye on the topics and document theprocessing. If new people want to become members of the association, they will receive a welcome
e-mail as well as a personal letter with a pin and stickers as well as a FOSSGIS association flyer
after the board has approved their membership.

4.7 Miscellaneous
In November 2022, Katja received an invitation from the Hamburg Convention Bureau for a twoday study trip to which various associations from Germany were invited. Conference rooms andevent locations in Hamburg were presented. The background of the invitation is that the city of
Hamburg wants us to organize an event there. As part of the task of "securing the financing of theassociation", Katja keeps her eyes and ears open for opportunities for the association. With regard to
the future prospects of the coordination office's work , Katja occasionally pursues ideas that could
lead to an expansion of the activities in the coordination office and would be happy if at some pointthere were more people who could devote themselves full-time to the upcoming tasks to support thedissemination of open source and open data in the geospatial sector . Ideas or initiatives arewelcome.

5

IT / Admin

The association currently administers nine servers. In addition, there are 14 servers, which aremaintained by the OSM server group, and 8 servers for funding projects. The sysadmin work is
mainly done by Nils Nolde and the responsible board member. For the conference organization,
externally hosted open source software is mainly used as SaaS.
Two funding applications were submitted in 2022:
Funding application for participation GI Salzburg (OpenStreetMap Austria)• Funding object: Exhibition of OpenStreetMap, FOSSGIS and OS-Geo at the " GI_Salzburg"(previously "AGIT") during the 2/3 days of the fair. The costs indicated concern the overnight stayof 2 people and a parking space for 3 nights in a student dormitory. There will also be a special
lecture block with the topic OSM/FOSSGIS/OSGeo .
• Requested amount: approx. 300 €• Unanimously approved by circular resolution on May 30, 2022.
• The requested sum of €300 was slightly exceeded and refunded in full . Funding application
osm2pgsql Development-Server• Funding object: A Hetzner server for the osm2pgsql project. The server is intended to serve as adevelopment and test server, on which a planet can be loaded into a database and on which various
functionality and performance tests can be run.
• Amount requested: EUR 99.96 per month• The Board of Directors approved the funding application by circular resolution dated August 28,
2022.
• actual costs: 99.96 EUR/month, until 12/2022, since 1/2023 109.84 EUR/month (priceadjustments with the provider)
Travel allowances
There were three applications for travel grants for FOSSGIS 2023. An application was not granted(applicant is in an employment relationship in the GI environment). Two applications were granted(students involved in the FOSSGIS environment ), the amount of €113.55 and €92.30. 8

6Reports of the Working Groups

6.1 List of Service Providers
The WG was intended as a temporary AG with the task of initializing the list of service providers on
the FOSSGIS homepage. Last year, there was no need for work. It is still possible to be entered in
the list via the coordinating body .

6.2 WG Public Tenders with FOSS
The WG "Public Tenders with FOSS " continued its work last year and produced the following
important results. At the meeting of the working group on 17.9.2022 at the LinuxHotel, we decided
to rename the working group "Public Tenders with FOSS" and continued to work together on thedraft for a handout on the topic of FOSS in public tenders in the GitLab of FOSSGIS. Even thoughmore and more publications on the topic are appearing, the working group continues to work on thishandout in order to prepare the topic well for the target group of public administration. In
November, the working group was represented at the OSBA General Assembly, where it deepened
its contact with the members of the Working Group Procurement within the OSBA, further
information can be found in the report. For the FOSSGIS Conference 2023, we were also able toinspire representatives of the OSBA for a lecture on the topic of public procurement andprocurement with FOSS, which has now also been prominently included in the program
immediately after the opening event. In addition, the working group participates in the FOSSGIS
Conference 2023 with the organization and implementation of a panel discussion on the topic. To
this end, we have been in contact with some stakeholders in the field of open source software,digital civil society and public administration in recent months. In order to further advance the topic
of how an open source ecosystem for public administration can be promoted, we are looking
forward to further interested parties who want to participate in the working group.

6.3 WG Open Data (BKG and OSM)
The year was marked by general topics from the field of Open Data and OSM . Impulses fromfederal events on the topic of Open Data were brought to the working group and discussed here.
FOSSGIS was invited to participate as a stakeholder by the responsible Federal Ministry inconnection with the drafting of the Mobility Data Act. One challenge here was to find a common
time for volunteers and federal employees. This is an aspect that should not be underestimated if theinterests of the community are to be heard in the legislative process .
Specific topics from the field of OSM and the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG)
were the topic "Cooperation in the event of a disaster" and the addition of the "Data License
Germany – Attribution – Version 2.0" for the use of data of the authorities by the OpenStreetMap
project. In the case of "cooperation in the event of a disaster", the Coordination Office has takenover the organisation. In this respect, the Open Data Working Group was only involved as a
bystander. The addition of the "Data License Germany – Attribution – Version 2.0" for the use ofdata of the authorities by the OpenStreetMap project has been used by the BKG since late summer
for certain data sets that are subject to the exclusive sovereignty of the BKG.

6.4 WG OSM Server
Also this year we have invested more time in the stable operation. Smaller services (osmweekly,
podcast archive) were added to the configuration management and were also moved immediately. In
this way, a machine could be cleared. The DNS for openstreetmap.de has also been migrated andintegrated into configuration management. Overpass has been switched to a new version. Thanks to
improved performance in the software, an increase in requests from 3 to 4 million per day has beenobserved. Umap is also becoming increasingly popular. More than 35000 maps have already beencreated. We are currently looking for a co-admin for the rendering server.

6.5 Communication WG
These social media channels are regularly updated with information:• Twitter• Mastodon • LinkedIn• Facebook • Posts and articles on the association's website.

7

Closing Note

The report was prepared by the Board of Directors due to the diligent work of Katja Haferkorn.
The reports from the working groups were provided by the working groups.
Thank you very much for that!
Berlin, 1 March 2023
On behalf of the Executive Board:Jörg Thomsen 1st Chairman FOSSGIS e.V.