English version based on an automatic translation with deepl.

I would like to supplement my previous discussion of FOSSGIS membership fees and, in a follow-up post, the association’s structure with an update on developments within FOSSGIS.

As I had previously written, the general meeting in March decided to postpone the decision on membership fees to an extraordinary general meeting, which is scheduled to take place online later this year for the first time on a regular basis (i.e., not as a pandemic exception), and it was announced that an informal internal association meeting would be held beforehand for discussion.

The extraordinary general meeting has now been scheduled for June 22, and the internal discussion session took place on May 6. Minutes of the meeting are available. In addition, a discussion in a smaller group apparently took place at a working meeting of the association (which occurs regularly), and this is also publicly documented.

My primary goal here is to share these references – which reflect what is visible to the outside world regarding the association and its internal discussions – with the entire OSM community. These minutes provide some insight into the association’s own perspective on the issue. Although they are apparently aware of my comments on the topic, the internal association discussions seem to revolve primarily around aspects quite different from those I have discussed. This is entirely understandable, because, as I have explained, in addition to its role as the local representative for OpenStreetMap in Germany, FOSSGIS also serves as an advocacy group for professional FOSS developers and users in the GIS sector. However, it is certainly interesting to see how the association internally perceives the various aspects I have discussed – both regarding the membership fee increase itself and the distinction between employed and unemployed members – and how the association justifies these plans internally.

I don’t want to go into detail about this again here, since I have already covered it quite thoroughly, and the linked transcripts don’t really offer any new arguments regarding the topics I have raised. However, I would like to encourage my readers – regardless of whether their perspective is that of a member of the hobbyist mapping community or that of a representative of professional interests – to view this development and the linked documents in particular also in the context of path dependence.