OSI Board Meeting Minutes, Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Quorum

Quorum reached and meeting called to order at 15:02 UTC.

Attendees

Board Members

  1. Ms. Deborah Bryant, Director
  2. Mr. Karl Fogel, Director
  3. Mr. Harshad Gune, Director (on IRC)
  4. Mr. Jim Jagielski, Director
  5. Mr. Fabio Kon, Director
  6. Mr. Martin Michlmayr, President and Secretary
  7. Mr. Simon Phipps, Director
  8. Ms. Alolita Sharma, Treasurer
  9. Mr. Luis Villa, Director
  10. Mr. Tony Wasserman, Director

Guests and Observers

  1. Ms. Danese Cooper, Board Observer
  2. Mr. Russell Nelson, Board Observer
  3. Mr. Andrew Oliver, Board Observer

Expected, but Not Present

  1. Mr. Ken Coar, Board Observer
  2. Ms. Nnenna Nwakanma, Board Observer
  3. Mr. Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel

Sent Regrets

  1. Mr. Mike Milinkovich, Director

Agenda

  1. Minutes Review and Approval
  2. Officer Reports
  3. Committee Reports
  4. Old Business
  5. New Business
  6. Action items
  7. Next Board Meeting

Minutes Review and Approval

The Board reviewed the minutes of the April meetings. Mr. Fogel moved that the Board approve the minutes. Ms. Sharma seconded. Minutes approved by general consent.

Officer Reports

President’s Report (Mr. Michlmayr)

No report submitted.

Secretary’s Report (Mr. Michlmayr)

  • The following minutes have to be reviewed by the Board for approval:
    • April 4, 2012
  • The following approved minutes have been posted to opensource.org:
    • March 7, 2012
    • March 16, 2012

Treasurer’s Report (Ms. Sharma)

Ms. Sharma reported that there has been little activity. She will provide a detailed report at the upcoming face-to-face meeting.

Ms. Sharma asked all board members to update their addresses since they are needed for the tax return.

Ms. Sharma remarked that she would have a meeting with the accountant later that week.

General Counsel’s Report (Mr. Radcliffe)

No report submitted.

Committee Reports

(Listed in alphabetical order)

Education Committee (Mr. Kon)

Mr. Kon reports:

  • The Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology is preparing a new Public Policy for Software in Brazil. The previous version had no mention of FLOSS at all. Mr. Kon, together with representatives from several open source groups and companies, wrote a 10-page report to the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology about the strategic importance of open source to the Brazilian society in general and to development of the software industry in Brazil, in particular. The document concludes with a suggested list of concrete actions that the Brazilian government could take to promote education about FLOSS and to foster innovation with regards to the development of FLOSS by individuals, universities, and private companies in Brazil.
  • The University of São Paulo last week organized its first FLOSS Week with a series of lectures, workshops, and courses about FLOSS and related topics. The activities were carried out in 3 different campus of the University and were transmitted live over the USP IPTV.

Mr. Wasserman noted that he submitted a proposal to Open World Forum (OWF) to hold a Competence Center summit at OWF in October.

License Committee (Mr. Fogel)

Mr. Fogel reports:

  • Updated our license list and some individual license pages, in response to Jilayne Lovejoy’s massive spreadsheet of questions and bug reports from SPDX.
  • Drafted proposed new primary licenses landing page: Much discussion and followup editing about how that page should look.
  • CeCILL 2.1 submission still in process; not exactly clear whose court the ball is in, although Simon last expressed some concerns that they have not responded to yet.

No report submitted.

Membership-Governance Committee (Mr. Phipps)

Mr. Phipps reported that in the past month:

  • Wikimedia Foundation has accepted our invitation to become an Affiliate. We’re still discussing if and how OSI may use their logo.
  • We have received requests from The Document Foundation, Outercurve Foundation and OSADL to become Affiliates.

Mr. Phipps is ready to post the summary document explaining the Affiliate scheme as a web page following today’s meeting.

The personal membership scheme is next. It would be great if we could announce it at OSCON. We can work on action items during our face-to-face meeting in Chicago. Mr. Phipps noted that we need a membership management system. Mr. Wasserman looked at some software and can discuss the various options at the face-to-face meeting. Mr. Fogel thinks that we should hire a technical consultant to set up a management system for us.

Mr. Phipps moved that we accept requests from Document Foundation, Outercurve Foundation and OSADL to join as affiliates. Mr. Fogel seconded. Motion accepted.

Policy and Economic Development Committee

No report submitted.

Administrative Committees

Communications Committee (Mr. Phipps)

Mr. Phipps reports:

  • OSI provided a quote to a release by FSFE and other concerning the UK Open Standards Consultation and it was referenced on the home page.
  • Work in progress on an input document for that consultation.

IT Infrastructure Committee (Mr. Oliver)

Mr. Fogel reports:

  • Yet another Redmine maintenance fix.
  • Martin Michlmayr has started discussion of migration of OSI main site from Brian’s server to our own.
  • Simon Phipps is following up with Geoffrey Noakes about Symantec/Verisign donating a certificate to OSI “and members”.

New Projects / Outreach Committee (Ms. Sharma)

No report submitted.

Old Business

Review of Action Items

  • Mr. Fogel to respond to SPDX issues spreadsheet from Jilayne Lovejoy. Status: Done.
  • Mr. Kon and Mr. Wasserman: work on article on open source for ACM SIGSOFT/SIGPLAN.
  • Mr. Michlmayr: work on a plan to migrate www.opensource.org to our hosted server.
  • Mr. Michlmayr: import old mailing list archives.
  • Mr. Michlmayr: investigate whether OSI email contact address is working. Status: we had some issues with out incoming email but these have been resolved with the help of Patrick French.
  • Mr. Phipps, Ms. Bryant: write down criteria for OSI Affiliates and publish on web site.
  • Mr. Wasserman: write blog article about results of membership survey. Status: Done.

New Business

Booth at OSCON

The board dicussed plans for a booth at OSCON. Many OSI board members will attend OSCON and we can recruit additional volunteers to staff the booth.

Ms. Bryant proposed to request a non-profit booth at OSCON. Mr. Phipps seconded. Motion passed.

Mr. Oliver remarked that OSCON is a great opportunity to deplete our current stock of t-shirts. Mr. Wasserman suggested that we should think about a new design. Mr. Oliver added that if we do a new order, we should use a direct fulfilment company rather than keep a large stock of t-shirts ourselves.

Symantec Trust Service’s offer to OSI

Mr. Phipps proposed that we accept Symantec’s offer for a wildcard SSL certification for opensource.org. We don’t commit to any further relationship and are free of any strings (we don’t have to put their logo on our web site, although they would appreciate it). They will will renew the gift every two years. Ms. Bryant seconded. Motion passed.

Change to trademark policy as described by Mr. Nelson

History behind Open Standards effort?

The minutes and other notes seem to indicate it was completed but not really externally vetted. Mr. Nelson said that it was approved in June 2006 and that we went to OSCON in 2006 with postcards about it. There was some pushback from various people involved in standards and little support from the community.

Mr. Phipps noted that standards have traditionally been outside of our core mission. We put a take into the ground with the OSR but we didn’t rally around it.

Mr. Jagielski remarked that he looked at the June 6 2006 minutes and cannot see that it has been approved. Ms. Cooper observed that we voted on wording for the postcards for OSCON. There were mixed reviews, so we agreed to table it and never made a formal vote. Nevertheless, the OSR has been on our web site for more than five years, so this could be seen as de facto agreement.

Mr. Michlmayr proposed that we accept it as de facto approved for now since it has been our web site for more than five years. If someone thinks we should vote on it, they can propose a motion for the next meeting.

Next Board Meeting

The next OSI BOD meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 6, 2012. The board will also contact a face-to-face meeting in Chicago on May 19-20.

Meeting adjourned at 16:13 UTC.