OSI Board Meeting Minutes, Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Quorum
Quorum reached and meeting called to order at 08:05 am PDT.
Attendees
Board Members
- Mr. Michael Tiemann, President
- Mr. Harshad Gune, Director (joined late at 8:45 am only via IRC)
- Dr. Fabio Kon, Director (joined at 8:07 am)
- Dr. Martin Michlmayr, Director
- Mr. Simon Phipps, Director (left at 9:19 am)
- Ms. Alolita Sharma, Secretary
- Dr. Tony Wasserman, Director (left at 9:17 am)
Guests and Observers
None.
Expected, but Not Present
- Mr. Ken Coar, Board Observer
- Ms. Nnenna Nwakanma, Board Observer
Sent Regrets
- Ms. Danese Cooper, Treasurer
- Mr. Russell Nelson, Director
- Mr. Andrew Oliver, Asst. Treasurer
- Mr. Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel
Agenda
- Minutes Review and Approval
- Officer Reports
- Committee Reports
- Old Business
- New Business
- Motions for Consideration by Board
- Next Board Meeting
Minutes Review and Approval
Please review the following minutes as edited for public posting.
June 2, 2010 – Monthly board meeting minutes
Mr. Tiemann moved that we approve the minutes for June 2, 2010. Ms. Sharma seconded. The minutes were approved with general consent.
Officer Reports
President's Report:
First off I would like to thank Mr. Phipps for writing an excellent piece inviting the community to participate in the development of a renewed OSI. I truly hope that those who read it take seriously the welcoming message it presents. (I was also pleased to see the content published on opensource.com, which I believe was one of many appropriate platforms for this appeal).
I am now preparing for talks in August (CONSEGI) and September (BRIC Summit at OWF) and looking forward to building stronger connections between the OSI and the public sector. Perhaps this is overdue. There have been several shocking policy reversals in the areas of software patents: Germany now seems to be permit them outright, and New Zealand is apparently being heavily lobbied to do the same, a reversal of what had been presumed to be an anti-SWPAT pledge. We need to do a better job explaining how SWPAT limits the benefits of open source software.
In other news, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the Bilski case. It was very bad news for Bilski himself, but it was not really great news for open source, either, as there was no significant reduction in the threats that SWPAT represent to the open source community. Some who have analyzed the case have complained that many companies who claim to be pro-Open Source did little to nothing to argue against SWPAT in their filings before the court. What a shame and a missed opportunity!
Finally, I would also again like to recognize Ms. Sharma's work publishing minutes, collecting agendas, and generally ensuring that Board meetings will be productive.
Secretary's Report:
Ms. Sharma reports:
- The following minutes have to be reviewed by the Board for approval.
- June 2, 2010 – Meeting minutes for June 2, 2010 board meeting.
- The following approved minutes have been posted on opensource.org.
- May 5, 2010 – Meeting minutes for May 5, 2010 board meeting.
- Ms. Sharma has initiated inquiry into OSI address update on Guidestar. She will report back to the board when update is completed. Ms. Sharma will touch base with Mr. Radcliffe to find out where he thinks the problem is.
Treasurer's Report:
- Tax Matters: We are still waiting to hear from the IRS about the rebate of taxes paid before the reports were straightened out. Our accountant will call them this week and try to find out what's up with the refund and whether we should pay the penalty now or wait until the dust settles. The State Franchise Tax Board notified us of a date typo on our 2009 Report to the State. It has been corrected.
- Reported Bank Balances as of June 30th 2010, Flow of Funds Into Bank Accounts, Flow of Funds Out of Bank Accounts, and Total payments from all accounts.
- The new bank account has been setup. To add an additional signer, we will get a new signature card signed by both signers and a copy of each person's driver's license together with the usual information. Our accountant has the blank signature card and will mail to Andy Oliver this week. However, we need to confirm his current address to mail the card. Also, the board needs to approve adding an additional signer in the next meeting and should be in the minutes of this BOD meeting.
- Reported receipt of postal mail: No new mail received in June, aside from donation check.
Open Issues:
a) Network for Good account information update as per Martin's request
b) PayPal account reinstatement – follow-up in progress by Ms. Cooper
c) Update personal info of new Board Members on OSI wiki by Ms. Sharma
d) Reimbursements for Raleigh face-to-face: In progress. Should be done this month.
General Counsel's Report:
No formal report submitted to the board. Mr. Radcliffe had earlier sent out a link to the board on his take on Open Core.
Committee Reports
(Listed in alphabetical order)
Education Committee (Ms. Sharma)
The education committee held its first monthly meeting earlier this month. Topics discussed included ideas for promoting open source education initiatives, leveraging opensource.org to highlight education initiatives by various professors in universities, updating opensource.org to highlight our activities, creating an education resources area on-line, maintaining an education activities calendar, re-activating our education mailing list and recruiting more educators to participate. Action items include setting up opensource.org/education, initiating our 30-day plan for wiki.flosscc/education content, recommend templates and categories for education material, prepare blogpost about upcoming education wiki, and setting up mailing list for workgroup. Participants included Ms. Sharma, Dr. Kon and Dr. Wasserman. The meeting log can be found on the OSI wiki.
Dr. Wasserman mentioned that Microsoft has approached him to be a judge for the ImagineCup (www.imaginecup.com), their software competition using Microsoft technologies. The competition had 300,000 participants this year, a funding of $3 million dollars and is being held in Warsaw this week. Discussion ensued of funded efforts by proprietary companies to seed their technologies among students and youth. In comparison, open source software adoption by students and youth is mostly grass-roots with little organized effort. Open source companies can do more. The OSI can help. Ms. Sharma mentioned that there are similar open source programs e.g Code for America, Crisis Commons but more needs to be done in an organized way.
License Committee (Mr. Nelson)
No report submitted to the board.
Legal Affairs Committee (Ms. Cooper)
No report submitted to the board.
Ms. Sharma inquired if follow-up on Mozilla's new license should be done via this committee instead of license-discuss. Mr. Tiemann suggested discussion on this when Ms. Cooper and Mr. Nelson are available.
Membership-Governance Committee (Mr. Phipps)
Mr. Phipps reports that he has been blogging about why OSI is still relevant and important on several forums. He has emphasized that the OSI is complimentary to FSF. He has received a steady set of requests for volunteers to help on website design as well as interest to design the OSI membership program. Brad Kuhn and Richard Fontana have expressed an interest. Also, international volunteers from places such as Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) have contacted Simon with interest in affiliation. Simon will send out a picture of OSI governance to the board (top-down picture where the BOD will act as facilitators to the working groups and these working groups will represent the open source community). There are 3 dimensions to this conversation – the first group of direct website volunteers, the second group of global advocacy groups to build an affiliate structure for OSI as well as to gain international support for open source, and a third group who are interested in helping with governance. Mr. Phipps would also like to have a meeting at OWF on discussing governance for OSI with a diverse audience.
Policy and Economic Development Committee (Mr. Tiemann)
Refer to President's report. Mr. Tiemann would like to formalize the workings of this committee to get more open source community members to participate. Mr. Phipps will refer other interested volunteers to participate in this activity.
Administrative Committees
Communications Committee (Mr. Michlmayr)
Dr. Michlmayr reports –
After the last board meeting, Mr Tiemann responded to the outstanding questions regarding the use of our logo and trademarks. The OSI Board responded to the majority of inquiries and questions addressed to it since the last Board meeting. Finally, the news section on opensource.org was continuously populated with fresh news.
IT Infrastructure Committee (Ms. Sharma)
Ms. Sharma reports that she is currently researching outage of and restoring ideas.opensource.org.
New Projects / Outreach Committee (Ms. Sharma)
Ms. Sharma hopes that presence at OSCON by individual OSI members will help get more people involved in OSI activities especially education and advocacy efforts.
Old Business
Logistics for OSI face-to-face meeting at OWF (Ms. Sharma, Mr. Michlmayr)
Ms. Sharma and Mr. Michlmayr have been finalizing details for the meeting venue. Thanks for Mr. Michlmayr for organizing the space. Mr. Roberto Di Cosmo of INRIA has kindly offered this meeting space for OSI to conduct its meetings over the October 2-3, 2010 weekend. Details about the logistics can be found on the OSI wiki.
Agenda for OSI face-to-face meeting at OWF (Ms. Sharma)
Ms. Sharma has set up a document on the OSI wiki for adding agenda items for discussion at our face-to-face meeting. Board members are requested to add any topics for discussion to this document that can be found on the OSI wiki.
New Business
Mr. Phipps suggested we talk about how Groklaw treats the OSI.
Mr. Tiemann asks Mr. Phipps about how much effort should the OSI put in on improving public opinion (such as Groklaw). Mr. Phipps says undoing old articles and opinions is a waste of time. The OSI should instead focus on accomplishments this year.
Should the OSI develop a consensus on Open Core, or leave it to individual board members to blog their differing opinions?
Mr. Phipps suggests that the OSI may want to have a position statement on Open Core which can be promoted at conferences later this year. Mr. Tiemann and Ms. Sharma support the idea. Mr. Tiemann suggested for e.g. Apple and OSX which has a lot of BSD Unix code can be used as an example. Both Mr. Phipps and Mr. Radcliffe have written publicly on the topic but it is a tricky subject and has to be presented well. Open Core is not Open Source. Mr. Phipps would like to use clear examples to highlight and clarify what products are "Open Core" vs. "Open Source". Mr. Phipps would like to put together a fairly closely worded article on opensource.org defining Open Core, Open Source. Dr. Wasserman mentioned distinction between variants on open source using examples. Examples could include Android which is mostly open source, premium offerings (which are more than the free, open source versions), shared source, dual licensing and then open core. Mr. Phipps mentioned SugarCRM as an example.
Action Item: Mr. Phipps will draft an initial position statement on Open Source vs. Open Core which will be reviewed by the board before publication.
Korea's Ministry of Knowledge "Open Source Software World Challenge 2010"
Mr. Tiemann would like to know more about this contest. This could be a good opportunity for the OSI to participate and get involved in. Ms. Sharma will find out more from her contacts in Korea.
Motions for consideration by the board
Approval of Minutes
Mr. Tiemann moved that we approve the minutes for June 2, 2010. Ms. Sharma seconded. The minutes were approved with general consent.
Next Board Meeting
The next OSI BOD meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, August 4, 2010 at 8AM PDT.
Many board members are on vacation in the first week of August so it may be rescheduled to the following week. Ms. Sharma will follow-up on the board mailing list.
Ms. Sharma moved to adjourn the meeting. Mr. Tiemann seconded. Meeting Adjourned at 09:26 AM PDT.