OSI Board Meeting Minutes, Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Quorum

Quorum reached and meeting called to order at 15:04 UTC.

Attendees

Board Members

  1. Ms. Deborah Bryant, Director
  2. Mr. Karl Fogel, Director
  3. Mr. Harshad Gune, Director (joined 15:39 UTC; on IRC)
  4. Mr. Jim Jagielski, Director
  5. Mr. Martin Michlmayr, Secretary
  6. Mr. Simon Phipps, President
  7. Mr. Tony Wasserman, Director (until 16:00 UTC)

Guests

None.

Expected, but Not Present

  1. Mr. Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel
  2. Mr. Luis Villa, Director

Sent Regrets

  1. Mr. Fabio Kon, Director
  2. Mr. Mike Milinkovich, Director
  3. Ms. Alolita Sharma, Treasurer

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 approved the May, June and July meeting minutes by email after the board call.

Officer Reports

President’s Report (Mr. Phipps)

Mr. Phipps reports:

We’ve now two of our three Membership categories launched, with good reports and good uptake for both. We now need to focus on delivery to the existing Membership categories and on devising the third – Corporate – category. Many thanks to the Board members and volunteers who made the Individual Membership launch successful at OSCON.

Secretary’s Report (Mr. Michlmayr)

  • The following minutes have to be reviewed by the Board for approval:
    • May 2, 2012
    • June 6, 2012
    • July 3, 2012
  • The following approved minutes have been posted to opensource.org:
    • April 4, 2012

Treasurer’s Report (Ms. Sharma)

No report submitted.

General Counsel’s Report (Mr. Radcliffe)

No report submitted.

Mr. Phipps has heard neither from the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA) nor the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) regarding the trademark agreement. He will follow up with them.

Committee Reports

(Listed in alphabetical order)

Education Committee (Mr. Wasserman)

Mr. Wasserman followed up with Roberto Galoppini from SourceForge regarding the central repository for FOSS and they are interested in working with us. Mr. Phipps suggested that Black Duck might be interested too. Mr. Wasserman agreed to write a proposal with more details. This proposal can be used to request funding to start this effort.

License Committee (Mr. Villa)

  • Responded to Timothy Dieter regarding AROS license submission.

Membership-Governance Committee (Mr. Phipps)

New Affiliates applicants:

  1. Friends of OpenDocument
  2. NZOSS
  3. Ubuntu Oregon (pending)
  4. Tiki Software Community Association (TikiWiki)
  5. Open Source Sweden

The board agreed to accept these applications.

Mr. Phipps proposed the following motion:

  • a) Wind up the current Membership and and Governance Committee with thanks and congratulations.
  • b) Form a new Membership Committee populated by the directors responsible for the three membership classes and any other director who wish to participate. Participation is open to all members of OSI.
  • c) The membership committee will have a steering committee consisting of only the board members. This steering committee will discuss business that is not appropriate for public discussion.

Mr. Fogel seconded. Motion passed.

Mr. Wasserman shared his impressions of the membership launch at OSCON. The keynote message was good and the sessions went well. We gained about 150 new members from 3000 OSCON attendees, which is a fantastic sign-up rate of 5-6%. While we made a good start, we still have a long way to go. We have to think about ways to get more members, including reaching out to key influences.

Mr. Fogel would like to set a membership goal for the year. Mr. Wasserman remarked that you have to spend money to make money. If we set a membership goal, we should also define a budget. Mr. Phipps noted that we raised about 6000 USD and asked which percentage we should spend on publicizing the membership program. Mr. Fogel added that approximately 3000 USD were used to implement the membership system. The Membership Committee agreed to develop a budget which they will present to the board in the September meeting.

Several board members received feedback at OSCON that $40 is high for the membership program. People were expecting something in the $20-30 range. Mr. Michlmayr remarked that there are two options: we can either make it cheaper, or we can provide more benefits, such as discounts. Other membership programs, such as the one from the Linux Foundation, are much more expensive but they also offer significant benefits. Mr. Phipps added that he had some conversations with companies at OSCON about benefits for OSI members.

Policy and Economic Development Committee (Ms. Bryant)

Ms. Bryant reports:

  • Met with Alolita Sharma met during OSCON to discuss the committee’s historic activities and potential future
  • Met with Danese Cooper to gain further insight on the work group’s past activities.
  • Our recommendation is to recharter and focus on enabling collaboration and creating a set of self-serve resources
  • Near term actions – once the working group is ratified by the board – are envisioned to include:
    • Inventory of OSI-related assets of value to governments in this area (catalog on OSI site)
    • List of organizations maintaining info on OSS public policy (start a public wiki)
    • Launch of EconPolicy discussion list.
  • We plan to post a proposed charter in August for action in the September meeting.

Administrative Committees

Communications Committee (Mr. Phipps)

Mr. Phipps reports:

There was extensive press coverage of the Individual Membership launch, including several video features (FLOSS Weekly, O’Reilly, Nixie Pixel).

The web site is due a revamp. We have many pages that are of historical interest only, and the look & feel is both dated and unhelpful. This is beyond the scope of the Communications Committee, which is about content rather than design. Mr. Phipps would like to request Board action.

The board discussed whether it would make sense to create a Web Site working group which will only exist until the web site is redesigned. Mr. Jagielski suggested that the mission of the Trademark Committee could be extended to cover branding as well. As the chair of this committee, he would be happy to oversee the redesign of the web site.

Mr. Phipps moved to recharter the Trademark Committee as the Trademark and Branding Committee. He’s requesting Mr. Jagielski to submit a charter for this committee in time for the next board meeting. Mr. Jagielski seconded. Motion passed.

IT Infrastructure Committee (Mr. Fogel)

Mr. Fogel reports:

  • Cleared out unused Drupal accounts; set new policy to only give accounts to those who need them.
  • Recommend that directors involved in membership work sign up to membership-monitor list, to see outgoing receipts etc.
  • Various membership system questions.
  • Paying for RIMU hosting ourselves, using an OSI account.

Mr. Fogel moved that we offer Joe Murray a retainer of 500 USD/month for CiviCRM/Drupal support until the end of the year. Mr. Phipps seconded. Motion passed.

Old Business

Review of Action Items

  • Ms. Bryant: propose charter for Policy and Economic Development Committee by August. Status: will be done by September.
  • Mr. Jagielski: update OSI logo from TM to (R)
  • Mr. Jagielski: update other trademark pages and trademark contact pages
  • Mr. Fogel/Infra: create list for trademark committee.
  • Mr. Fogel/Infra: mailing list for collaboration space.
  • Mr. Fogel/Infra: wiki-like functionality for collaboration space.
  • Mr. Fogel/Infra: look into Google Voice to provide phone number for OSI
  • Mr. Fogel: unify contact page
  • Mr. Villa: check if we can use office facilities in SF for November f2f.
  • Mr. Villa: produce Code of Conduct for forums.
  • Mr. Phipps: find out if we can put postcard in OSCON delegate bag. Status: done.
  • Mr. Wasserman and Mr. Kon: create paper form to sign up as personal member (for OSCON). Status: done.
  • Mr. Wasserman and Mr. Kon: finalize design of postcard for OSCON. Status: done.
  • Mr. Wasserman and Mr. Phipps: Work on slides for OSCON. Status: done.
  • Mr. Wasserman: draft Messaging / Talking Points / Market Segmentation document. Status: done. Document will be discussed in September meeting.
  • Unassigned: create privacy statement for membership program.
  • Everyone: Sign up for booth duty at OSCON. Status: done.

New Business

  • Debrief about FISL: Ms. Bryant attended FISL to represent OSI. She planned to have a keynote with Bruno Souza. Unfortunately, Bruno couldn’t make it to FISL. The individual membership drive didn’t work well, partly because FISL hadn’t translated the membership information to Portuguese. However, Ms. Bryant attended some meetings related to an international cooperative agreement which OSI has been asked to join.

Action Items

  • Mr. Jagielski: write charter for Trademark and Branding committee.
  • Mr. Wasserman: write proposal regarding central FOSS repository.
  • Membership Committee: create budget for membership outreach.

Next Board Meeting

The next OSI BOD meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, September 5, 2012.

Meeting adjourned at 16:55 UTC.