Minutes for Meeting of April 29th, 2010

Next Meeting

• May 13th, 2010

Attendance

• Brian Cameron
• Diego Escalante
• Jorge Castro (late)
• Paul Cutler
• Rosanna Yuen
• Srinivasa Ragavan
• Stormy Peters

Regrets

• Vincent Untz

Missing

• Germán Póo-Caamaño

Recurring Items

• Review past action items.
• Did each person with action items send their status reports to the board list before the meeting?
• Approve and make sure that minutes of last meeting were published to foundation-announce and foundation-list.
• Make sure to start up the gobby server for better note taking.
• Update foundation.gnome.org website.

New Items

• Now that we are using the new Intel teleconferencing system, the GNOME Foundation private wiki needs to be updated with the new dial-in information.
  • ACTION: Srini to update the GNOME Foundation private Wiki with new Intel dial-in information.
• Stormy's bonus.
  • The board started the review process on April 28th and plans to come to a decision by the next board meeting.
  • ACTION: Everyone to review Stormy's report and provide feedback on Stormy's bonus.
• Transfering the guadec.org domain to the GNOME Foundation.
  • The GNOME Foundation is happy to report that this has been completed. Thanks to the sysadmin team for doing the needful.
  • The GNOME Foundation still needs to acquire SSL a certificate for guadec.org in order to support managing registration for GUADEC.
  • ACTION: Paul will follow up with Germán to ensure the SSL certificate for guadec.org is acquired.

• LiMo

  • ACTION: Stormy has been talking to LiMo about how we can work together. Waiting on LiMo at this point.

• The board is discussing the possibility of using a service like Orbitz to pre-purchase tickets for some travel subsidy requests. Stormy has been having ongoing discussions with Orbitz to find out if arrangements can be made.
  • ACTION: Stormy to finish following up with Orbitz to find out if the GNOME Foundation can pre-purchase travel tickets.

• GnuCash automation.

  • Paul already has an action item to work with Germán to find a solution for GnuCash automation.

  • ACTION: Rosanna will send emails about the state of GnuCash automation to Paul so that he is in the loop about the state of affairs.

• Ronaldo Padula (Loja Geek Depto Comercial) made a request to the GNOME Foundation to make an exclusive relationship to sell GNOME-branded merchandise in Brazil.
  • The board agreed that it is not desirable to set up an exclusive relationship, though the board would be interested in a non-exclusive one.
  • ACTION: Diego will respond to Ronaldo Padula to let him know that the GNOME Foundation is interested in negotiating merchandising agreements, but only if they are non-exclusive.
• Putting together a team to hire a sysadmin.
  • ACTION: Paul will follow up with Vincent and see if he needs help putting together a team to hire a sysadmin.
• Annual Report.
  • No update. Paul needs to follow-up with the authors and to ensure the work gets done by the end of June.
  • Need to make sure that Annual Reports get sent to all advisory board members.
  • ACTION: Paul will lead putting together the GNOME Annual Report.
• Nokia Mobile Donation.

  • Nokia has generously provided the GNOME Foundation with $50,000 to be spent on encouraging more GNOME Mobile applications on Maemo 6 and MeeGo.

  • The GNOME Foundation thanks Nokia for this generous donation.
  • The board discussed the idea of running a program similar to Google Summer of Code, but open to all developers and not just students.
  • ACTION: Stormy will discuss the opportunity to fund Mobile projects on the GNOME mobile mailing list to determine the best way to coordinate and make use of these resources.
• Board Performance.
  • Diego is leading a 360° review process for the GNOME Foundation board members work over the past 2 months.
  • ACTION: Everyone who has been asked to fill out the survey should fill it out no later than Wednesday the 5th.
  • ACTION: Stormy will provide Diego with information about the results from the survey that each board member was responsible for filling out.
• Events.
  • The Python Bindings and GSettings hackfests went really well.

    • http://live.gnome.org/Hackfests/Python2010

    • http://live.gnome.org/Hackfests/GSettings2010

  • The first ever Texas Linux Fest went well and GNOME was represented with a booth. This was a good opportunity for the GNOME Project to show off the GNOME desktop and meet Linux enthusiasts with questions about GNOME. The exhibit hall was a bit modest, but usually had good traffic throughout the day. Most of the attendees were relatively familiar with GNOME and we didn't get a lot of questions, but quite a few people came by to say that they loved GNOME and were using it on their desktop.
    • Much thanks to Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier, Brandon Tomlinson from Ubuntu, and Ken Starks who helped to manage and run the GNOME booth.
    • ACTION: Paul to follow up with Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier to get feedback about how well the event happened.
  • GNOME Marketing Hackfest.
    • Thanks to Agustín Benito Bethencourt, Ignacio Correas, Alberto Capella and Stormy for all the help with organizing the event.
  • GNOME Usability.
    • Need to determine when the next GNOME Usability event will happen.
    • ACTION: Brian will follow up with the GNOME Usability community to determine a schedule for upcoming Usability hackfests.
• Stormy informed the board that she and Germán have been going through the budget in fine detail and they are going to send out an updated summary soon. After close review, it looks like the GNOME Foundation has a larger surplus than we had planned.
  • Stormy highlighted that $20,000 is needed to fund the GNOME Women's Outreach Program, and suggested that some of this surplus could go towards that, and perhaps also to running additional hackfests.
• The GNOME Foundation IRC meeting planned for Saturday the 24th did not happen. Need to reschedule.
  • ACTION: Paul will reschedule the GNOME Foundation IRC meeting.

Completed Actions

• Diego - Will organize a press release for giving $60 to OSUOSL.
• Germán - Tracking the transfer of the guadec.org domain to the GNOME Foundation.
• Jorge - Will work with Ubuntu volunteers to find people to run the Texas Linux Fest booth.
• Rosanna - Will pay $60 to OSUOSL.
• Rosanna - Will check who received the 2008 Annual Report and send an email to board-list letting everybody know who received them.
• Stormy - To confirm having the advisory board meeting on the Tuesday before the conference with the advisory board and confirm.
• Stormy - Send an email to the FOSS Nigeria organizers and let them know that the GNOME Foundation will likely not send anyone.

Status of Action Items

• Brian - Get information about what should be in an "Employee Handbook". Draft approved by board. Now under review by the GNOME legal team.
• Brian - Develop trademark usage forms for common use cases. James Vasile from legal is working with Brian on this.
• Brian - Will track progress of GNOME.Asia event organization.
• Diego - Taken over from Stormy. Will work with Gil Forcada from guifi.net and gnome-marketing to define the best way for organizations like guifi.net to participate in the GNOME community. Not many replies from the community. Diego will draft something more concrete for gnome-marketing and ask for comments.
• Diego - Will lead the board member review process: pick a date, send reminders and coordinate with Stormy the missing members surveys.
• Diego - Will help Stormy to organize the Zaragoza event.
• Diego - Will follow up with Loja Geek Depto Comercial and let them know we do not do exclusive arrangements.
• Germán - Will do the needful to make the bid for GUADEC public.
• Germán - Regarding the Accessibility contract from Adalucia, Check if Emergy and/or Yaco can attend at least one day at Zaragoza. If not possible, Stormy may have a meeting with them in Seville.
• Jorge - Will send an email seeking hackfest sponsorships from the advisory board.
• Jorge - Taken over from Lucas - Work to ensure that Foundation members sign the GNOME Code of Conduct, and make it a requirement that new Foundation members need to sign this. Lucas completed a draft currently under review, tarted discussion on foundation list, got a lot comments and feedback, and summarized the discussion points. The board seems to be still interested in proposing Code of Conduct as an official guideline for Foundation members as a way have a more clear message about the values of the GNOME community.
• Jorge - Check records of organizations with existing contracts to use the GNOME trademark. Taken over from Vincent. Look at the archives in 2005 and try to determine which companies can use the GNOME trademark. Know what kind of contracts we had with them.

• Paul - Will send an email to the foundation-list and the gnucash list seeking someone to take over the GnuCash automation. Taken over from Behdad.

• Paul - When we reach the Friends of GNOME goal, put a thank you banner up there instead. Save the ruler for the next set of goals. Next time we should consider counting badges, or number of subscribers so it is not always just measuring money.
• Paul - Will provide the board update in a week to the Board with a list of articles and percentage completed for the Annual Report.

• Paul/Germán - Automate the process of entering PayPal information into GnuCash. Taken over from Behdad.

• Rosanna - Research the GNOME Guidestar website and update if necessary. Rosanna sent an update about the status of Guidestar, but work is still needed. Need to find someone to keep the website up-to-date.
• Srini - Follow up with potential sponsors for the co-located summit in 2011.
• Stormy - To schedule a meeting with companies that do consulting work with GNOME to start discussions on how we can help (how can we work together). Sent email. Got a couple of positive responses. Will follow up with others and schedule a meeting.
• Stormy - To follow up with the Advisory Board about acquiring a second machine. Email sent, but no response yet.
• Stormy - Set up a Euro bank account.
• Vincent - Update the blog and planet to highlight that people are expected to sign and follow the GNOME Code of Conduct. Waiting for Jorge's action on Code of Conduct.
• Vincent - Follow-up with Intel to determine what to do about copyright assignment for clutter. Waiting for an official update from Intel. Ongoing
• Vincent - Follow up with Michael Meeks and Bradley Kuhn to see if there is an interest in defining a policy the release team can follow to know whether a project with a copyright assignment requirement can be accepted or not. What sorts of copyright assignments are acceptable? Status: Bradley is working on an updated draft.
• Vincent - Create a Philosophy page on the GNOME Wiki.
• Vincent - Announce that the new Code of Conduct is approved
• Vincent - Will ping Bradley Kuhn to see if he can lead the team to interview sysadmin candidates.

New Action Items

• Brian - Will follow up with the GNOME Usability community to determine a schedule for upcoming Usability hackfests.
• Diego - Will respond to Ronaldo Padula (Loja Geek Depto Comercial) to let him know that the GNOME Foundation is interested in negotiating merchandising agreements, but only if they are non-exclusive.
• Paul - Will follow up with Germán to ensure the SSL certificate for guadec.org is acquired.
• Paul - Will follow up with Vincent and see if he needs help putting together a team to hire a sysadmin.
• Paul - Will lead putting together the GNOME Annual Report.
• Paul - To follow up with Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier to get feedback about how well the event happened.
• Paul - Will reschedule the GNOME Foundation IRC meeting.

• Rosanna - Will send emails about the state of GnuCash automation to Paul so that he is in the loop about the state of affairs.

• Srini - To update the GNOME Foundation private Wiki with new Intel dial-in information.

• Stormy - To follow up with LiMo.

• Stormy - To finish following up with Orbitz to find out if the GNOME Foundation can pre-purchase travel tickets.
• Stormy - Will discuss the opportunity to fund Mobile projects on the GNOME mobile mailing list to determine the best way to coordinate and make use of these resources.
• Stormy - Will provide Diego with information about the results from the survey that each board member was responsible for filling out.
• Everyone - To review Stormy's report and provide feedback on Stormy's bonus.
• Everyone - Everyone who has been asked to fill out the survey should fill it out no later than Wednesday the 5th.

Discussed on the Mailing List

• Someone tried to cash a fake check that looked like it came from the GNOME Foundation. All is ok but we are following up with our bank to make sure our accounts are as secure as possible.
• Anne Østergaard informed the board that "as decided during a DKUUG Board Meeting on Sunday the 18th of April is a pleasure for The DKUUG Board of Directors to hand over the domain guadec.org to the GNOME Foundation." The transfer should happen soon.
• Germán again proposed the idea of using a service like Orbitz to pre-purchase tickets in order to save money and streamline the travel subsidy process.
• Germán provided a waterfall budget from October, 2009 to March, 2010 for the board to review.
• Germán proposed improving the GNOME Foundation membership application process to be more careful about reviewing people's contributions.
• Ronaldo Padula (Loja Geek Depto Comercial) asked the board if it would be possible for him to have an exclusive arrangement to sell GNOME merchandise in Brazil. Diego responded and let Ronaldo know that the GNOME Foundation is interested in negotiating agreements to sell GNOME merchandise but is not interested in an exclusive arrangement.
• Jonh Wendell proposed that the GNOME Foundation pay $580 (US$) to cover travel expenses for ENSOL, a big FLOSS event that happens in northeast Brazil. The board approved the amount, but told Jonh to inform people needing travel subsidy to follow the normal travel subsidy request process.
• The GNOME.Asia organizers provided a rough budget for the upcoming GNOME.Asia/COSCUP colocated event. Rough expected costs for GNOME.Asia are $28,800 (US$) including $5,800 (US$) for travel. The GNOME.Asia organizers asked the board if it is acceptable to proceed with these plans and the board approved.
• Brian explained that he has been talking with David Maxwell from Coverity about the idea of setting up a build server with Coverity to provide more code coverage and analysis information about GNOME. Brian has touched base with Frédéric Peters, Iago Toral Quiroga, API, and John Carr about this. However, the fact that Coverity is not free software is an issue and there is a suggestion that perhaps GNOME should use the clang free software static analysis tool indead. If there are volunteers interested in helping to set up a build machine with Coverity or clang please let the GNOME Foundation know.
• Diego started the 360° review process for the board. All board members provided a status update for the past 2 months and each board member completed a survey on each board member's progress in this time period.
• One Texas Instruments Zoom2 device was sent to Zach Frey and Zach confirmed that he received the unit. Providing the Zoom2 to Zach was approved at the previous meeting. There was also discussion about how to provide the other Zoom2 unit to Marcus Bauer when Steve Sakoman is finished with it.
• Stormy provided an update of her experience at the Collaboration Summit to the board.