September 9, 2015 Board Meeting Minutes

Quorum

Quorum reached and meeting called to order at 15:07 UTC.

Attendees

Board Members

  • Allison
  • Deb: 15:22 UTC
  • Mike
  • Patrick
  • Paul: 15:54 UTC
  • Richard
  • Simon
  • Tony
  • Zack

Guests

  • None

Expected, but Not Present

  • Bruno

Sent Regrets

  • Leslie

Officer Reports

  • Motion to approve minutes (Patrick)
  • Treasurer’s report (Mike), see Appendix A

Board Topics

  • None

Communications Topics

  • None

Legal Topics

  • See License Committee Report below
    • Recommendation: Legacy approval of TOPPERS License as twice amended, but is this really a ‘legacy’ license and if not does that have implications for the recommendation?
      • Questions were raised about the “Lagacy” catagorization/stnading of this license.
      • Main changes seem to be realted to an updated translation.
      • In line with other translations, we should request an official translation inline with other licenses based on language translations
      • OSI will follow up with license steward .
    • Recommendation: Legacy approval of eCos License v2.0
      • This license has been reviewed by FSF and recognized/approved. The OSI should defer to their judgement as the GPL owner.
      • Related recommendation: Adopt and publish policy statement on legitimacy of permissive exceptions to OSI-approved licenses as proposed by Luis Villa last year.
  • Should the OSI include in their evaluations the status of the lciense, i.e. is it in use?
    • Some concern was expressed about how such an approach might cultivate use of non-OSI approved licenses.
    • Ideally licenses submitted should be those actually under consideration for actual software.
    • Is there merit to putting unused licenses on probation?
    • MOTION: (see below)
  • Further discussion of license review tools?
    • Work continues on identification and assessment of possible tools.
    • There was agreement that such a tool would still be valuable.
    • Is this an opporuntity for an intern.
      • Patrick will ask for interest among interns and refere to Allison/Paul.
  • Discussion was held over status of NASA license and how to further consideration and/or a decision.
    • RIchard will post a discussion starter on License-Discuss
    • RIchard will reach out to the NASA License steward as well
  • Discussions were raised regarding the status / review of the licenses from the Provence of Quebec
    • Richard will review and follow up.

Infrastructure Topics

  • Migration of the wiki to SSL currently blocked on xwiki (info only)

Membership Topics

  • Application for Affiliate Membership from:
    • Kaiyuanshe (kaiyuanshe.github.io), see appendix
  • New interest from Chinese organization, submitted yesterday.
    • We will need to seek translations.
    • Tony offered to have students review.
      • Allison to send Tony email of what needs to be translated.

Incubator/Project Topics

Snowdrift (http://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Projects/Snowdrift.coop+sponsorship+proposal)

The proposal is for fiscal sponsorship of the Snowdrift.coop prototype stage with any future relation post-prototype to be determined later. Aaron Wolf would be happy to clarify any questions about their fit for the (c)(3) scope. Snowdrift is not, at this time asking for fiscal sponsorship that would involve passing funds to any third-party projects; the scope is for only funding the development and research around our own prototype.

TLDR Legal (http://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Projects/TLDR+Legal)

Kevin Wang met with multiple Board Directors at OSCON and would like to formalize our relationship. The Board needs to document and communicate that.

  • Kevin has been given editing rights to the dev-www site to suggest integration points and language.
  • OSI would like to have license steward comment on TLDR’s interpretation as well as have a say/response in the summary.
  • Should the steward be the ultimate authority (intent vs. interpretation).
  • Posting will be seen as enforcement.
  • How will we manage language as well as ongoing relationship with TLDR Legal.
  • If license interpretation is viewed inaccurate by license steward, then the OSI will remove link. 
  • Discussions were raised about the fundamental design and vision of the site and some feel that the site is misleading.
  • Labels used might not be accurate, or may lead to ambiguity, mis-interpretation, there might also be an agenda to direct interpretation in some cases by some people.
  • It was suggested that not offering support might push this to a rouge effort (that does not benefit from our participation).
  • Primary concerns from those expressing doubt is ensuring quality and willingness to work with authorities.
  • The board affirmed the value of this effort to help the broader open source community gain an introductory understanding of licenses, and even adopt licenses in their work. 
  • Patrick and Allison to contact Kevin to discuss the above and TLDR’s ongoing process/practices.

Public Policy Working Group Project Page

Response has been good with limited outreach so far, we’ve a half dozen emails from volunteers interested in joining the effort.  Will update the wiki and schedule a first call for group by Sept 15.

Review of Timeline

  • Planning Timeline
    • Seem to be on target
    • Looking for ideas around member participation
    • Hope is that improved website (other communications under development will faciliate greater participation
    • Funding goals could be met, however this year’s goal might be “breaking even.”
    • Expect that funding goals are always included in annual milestones.

Next Board Meeting

The next OSI board meeting is scheduled for October 14th, 2015

Meeting adjourned at 16:43 UTC

Motions

  • Motion (Richard): Motion to approve the eCos license in the “legacy approval” category.
    Second (Simon).
    Discussion:     See Above
    Vote:     8 Yes; 0 No; 0 Abstain. 
  • Motion (Richard): Motion to approve the eCos license in the “legacy approval” category.
    Second (Simon).
    Discussion:     See Above
    Vote:     8 Yes; 0 No; 0 Abstain. 
  • Motion (Allison): Motion to approve incubation proposal from Snowdrift.coop.
    Second (Simon).
    Discussion:     See Above
    Vote:     9 Yes; 0 No; 0 Abstain.

Appendix A – Treasurer’s Report

For the Month Ending August 31, 2015

Total Assets at Beginning of Period: $73,833.73

Income or Sources of Funds:

  • Contributions: $ 5323.90
  • Memberships: $ 480.00 (12 x $40)
  • Open Hatch: Received $273.86 paid 278.45
  • Interest: $ 1.41

Total Income or Sources of Funds: $5800.72

Expenses or Uses of Funds for Operations:

  • Payroll $ 9035.92
  • Professional $ 785.72
  • Bank Fees $ 95.00
  • Software $ 0
  • Postage, Shipping $ 502.50 (annual P. O. Box rent paid)
  • Conferences/Conv $ 3056.00
  • Working Groups, Project
  • Meetings $ 685.00
  • Website Hosting $ 65.00
  • Paypal $ 19.83

Total Expenses or Uses of Funds for Operations: $14244.97

Payroll Liabilities increase ie cash out $344.78 – 582.38 $ 237.60

Total Assets at End of Period $65627.08

Major Contributions 2015: $122,500

  • Corporate Sponsor $ 2500 invoiced 1/29/15 received 3/3/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $ 25000 unsolicited received 3/6/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $ 20000 invoiced10/29/14 received 1/20/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $ 20000 invoiced1/20/15 received 4/6/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $25000 invoiced 6/16/15 received 7/24/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $ 5000 Invoiced 6/3/15 Received in 8/28/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $ last invoiced 6/6/2014 received 7/1/14
  • Corporate Sponsor $ 4000 Invoiced 9/7/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $ 20000 invoiced 1/26/15 paid 5/15/15
  • Corporate Sponsor $ 1000 invoiced 4/10/15 paid 4/10/15

    Additional open sponsorship requests to Microsoft ($20,000) & NGINX ($2,500)

Appendix B – Team Reports

Communications Team

  • August newsletter sent.
  • Initiated new promotion: hosting webinars (demonstrations) on Affiliate and Supporter projects/software. Goals are to promote WG & Incubators, as well as provide platform for awareness of affiliate initiatives.
  • Would like to create monthly “Twitterview” with OSI Board Director or community member.

Membership Team

Infrastructure Team

  • Technical migration/implementation complete with prod and dev instances running.
  • Minor technical issues still open which affects ability to remotely administer the site, specific to design & content development.
  • Please feel free to review and comment on current state of dev environment (look and feel, content, branding, messaging, etc.)

Legal Team

Incubator/Projects Team