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The Document Foundation would like to especially thank talkyoo for their generous sponsoring of our phone conferencing system. Thanks a lot, folks!

What it's about

Discussions of the Board of Directors take place on public mailing lists. Once in a week, for those interested, we host a conference call on the phone and IRC, to discuss ongoing topics and recent activities directly. Everyone interested is invited to join. The conference calls are open for everyone to join, following our approach to transparency and openness. Phone conferences with public participations Marketing/ConfCalls are available for marketing, and will be available for other projects soon.

At the end of the call, we will have a five to ten minutes public discussion, where all participants can speak.

Some important notes

How to prepare yourself

Next Call

Date and Time

The TDF BoD calls will take place every 2nd Wednesday at 1500 UTC, starting on April 4th, 2012, and are scheduled to run for one hour.
For every other week, i.e. on those Wednesdays when no calls are scheduled, we reserve the time slot for ad-hoc calls if they are needed. For urgent matters, ad-hoc calls can of course take place also on other days.

Important Notes

Agenda

Not all items might fit into each specific call, so the order should be in priority. The name in brackets shows who added that item, not who is in charge.

A. Who is keeper of the minutes?
B. Who is the session chair?
C. Who is in the call? Please give name and official role, if any
D. Is any BoD seat holder or deputy representing any BoD seat holder? (Only one representation per participant)
E. Is one of the BoD chair or BoD chair deputy in the call or represented? => If not, no quorum
F. Do we have at least 1/2 of the BoD, counting in representing deputies, in the call? => If not, no quorum
G. How many eligible voters, including represented ones, are in the call, so how many do we need for a quorum?
H. Verify correct invitation plus quorum and state that in the minutes
I. Have the decisions from the previous call been added to the appropriate wiki page already?
J. Have the minutes from the previous call been published already?
K. Have the minutes from the previous call been added to the internal WebDAV already?

public part:

  1. Hackfest from 23th to 25th November?
  2. LibreOffice Conference plannings
  3. from the list of open Tasks
    1. warrants for certain tasks
    2. capital stock investment
    3. insurances
    4. travel reimbursal policy
    5. organizing stamps
    6. putting advisory board and ESC on website
    7. point to statutes instead of ByLaws on membership application and renewal page
  4. admin weekend

L. Ask again who is still in the call, to find missing participants

private part:

  1. nothing yet

Official BoD decisions should be added to the appropriate wiki page afterwards.

Dial-in Details

Phone Numbers

Dial-in numbers for countries outside Germany can be found at http://www.talkyoo.net/main/telefonkonferenz_internationale_rufnummern

Dial-in numbers inside Germany are:

In case you want to use the Skype dial-in, be advised that it has limited capacity, so we strongly recommend using either SkypeOut or a regular phone to reach the above numbers.

Presentation Slides

To watch presentation slides during the conference call, please open http://www.talkyoo.net/show and enter

  1. the room number
  2. if necessary, the room PIN (otherwise leave the field blank)
  3. your first name
  4. your last name

Room

Meeting minutes of the Board of Directors after Foundation incorporation

Minutes 2012-05-16

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-05-16-2027466.mp3

Minutes 2012-05-02

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-05-02-2004650.mp3

Minutes 2012-04-18

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-04-18-1983745.mp3

Minutes 2012-04-04

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-04-04-1963944.mp3

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting
Call Minutes

Date: Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
Location: Phone conference room

Keeper of the minutes: Bjoern Michaelsen (Board of Directors Deputy)
Session chair: Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board)

Attending: Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board), Italo Vignoli (Board of Directors), Andreas Mantke (Board of Directors Deputy), Thorsten Behrens (Deputy Chairman of the Board), Caolan McNamara (Board of Directors), Michael Meeks (Board of Directors arriving 15:06UTC), Björn Michaelsen (Board of Directors Deputy), Charles H. Schulz (Board of Directors arriving 15:09UTC)


Representation: Björn Michaelsen is representing Olivier Hallot, as confirmed on the public mailing list.

Chairman of the Board and Deputy Chairman are in the call. One of them is required to be present or represented for having a quorate call.

The Board of Directors at time of the call consists of 7 seat holders without deputies.
In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4.
A total of 7 Board of Directors members are attending the call, one of them being represented by a deputy.

The invitation to the call has been in time, fulfilling all formal requirements.

The call is quorate.

From now on, a quorum can be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.


1. Voting on RRPproxy contract: http://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg02230.html

In order to be able to organize our domain names more professionally, we came across RRPproxy. They are from the same corporation as DomainDiscount24 (Key-Systems), but targetted at professionals. Benefits are that they offer direct APIs and gateways, something which could ease the administration a lot.

The agreements are available at

https://www.rrpproxy.net/downloads/en/agreement.en.pdf
and
https://www.rrpproxy.net/downloads/en/nda.en.pdf
and
https://www.rrpproxy.net/downloads/en/tac.pdf

We have to pay a minimum account balance of 100 USD, but since domain renewals are due soon, that money would be used in time.

Request: Next to taking over the DomainDiscount24 contract, sign a contract with RRPproxy.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


2. Discussing the open tasks

Capital stock investment:

Travel refund policy: No progess so far (Thorsten)

Rules of procedure and Community bylaws: No progress so far, TBD next week (Charles)

Draft thank you message to donors: Michael will work on that

Work on documentfoundation.org website:

Check existing sites on trademark usage: Everyone.


3. Decide on whether TDF should join the OSI

Request: Charles requests TDF to join the OSI (http://www.opensource.org)

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


4. Decide on the funding for a table/booth at the US South East Linux Fest

Request: Italo requests 200 USD funding for a table/booth at the US South East Linux fest via SPI budget

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


5. Vote on the final draft of TDF Certification

Discussion: Italo will ask for an email vote after final changes.


Meeting minutes approved:

Björn Michaelsen, Keeper of the minutes
Florian Effenberger, Session chair

Minutes 2012-03-21

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-03-21-1943570.mp3

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting
Call Minutes

Date: Wednesday, March 21st 2012
Location: Phone conference room

Keeper of the minutes: Charles-H. Schulz (Board of Directors)
Session chair: Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board)

Attending: Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board), Thorsten Behrens (Deputy Chairman of the Board), Olivier Hallot (Board of Directors), Charles Schulz (Board of Directors), Michael Meeks (Board of Directors), Italo Vignoli (Board of Directors), Björn Michaelsen (Board of Directors Deputy), Andreas Mantke (Board of Directors Deputy)

Representation: None. No representative represents more than one person.

Chairman of the Board and Deputy Chairman are in the call. One of them is required to be present or represented for having a quorate call.

The Board of Directors at time of the call consists of 7 seat holders without deputies.
In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4.
A total of 6 Board of Directors members are attending the call.

The call is quorate.

From now on, a quorum can be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.


1. Vote on infrastructure replacement

Florian requests budget for replacing two old servers, plus buying one additional including a Gbit port, plus buying additional IPs. 5.450 € is the amount for infrastructure costs currently planned in for the rest of the year. Florian suggests 1.672 € to be spent extra for servers.

Request: Replacement of two machines (one will then be cheaper and one will then be more expensive compared to now).

Result of vote: 6 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


In addition, an extra machine for the download system based on MirrorBrain is needed. Michael suggests we could have a sponsored machine. In case we could not have that, 108 € per month and 149 € one time fee for a new machine would be needed.

Request: Try to get sponsoring, otherwise buy an additional machine.

Result of vote: 6 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


In addition, a new set of IP addresses for one specific server is needed. In case no sponsor is found, it would cost 26,20 € per month.

Request: Try to get sponsoring, otherwise buy additional IP ddresses.

Result of vote: 6 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


2. Making the budget public

The budget draft shall be made public. Only the identity of the AB members and their specific donations will not be disclosed. BoD agreed unanimously.


3. Cash Account for TDF (Björn)

The money currently hold on our behalf by FrODeV shall be transferred to a proper account belonging to TDF, and then the capital stock of 50.000 € will be transferred to a savings account. We must check the statutes to make sure we can do that. BoD has agreed to deposit the 50.000 € of the capital stock to a regular savings account. Björn, Andreas, Thorsten and Florian are working on that.


4. Approval of sponsoring for hackfest

A t-shirt manufacturer proposes to offer 5 shirts at a value of 20 € each for the hackfest. They require a mention in the blog entry we will write for the hackfest. BoD unanimously agrees to this.


5. Approval of travel refund

No formal vote on this took place, but the decision was made to pay through SPI the various travel refund requests.


6. TDF certification

Italo outlined the upcoming certification process and certification announcements. The first certified members ought to be ready by April, but we will have to raise comments on this. Italo to send out in document on this in the coming days.


Meeting minutes approved:

Charles Schulz, Keeper of the minutes
Florian Effenberger, Session chair

Minutes 2012-03-07

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-03-07-1921359.mp3

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting
Call Minutes

Date: Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
Location: Phone conference room

Keeper of the minutes: Italo Vignoli (Board of Directors)
Session chair: Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board)

Attending: Andreas Mantke (Board of Directors Deputy), Björn Michaelsen (Board of Directors Deputy), Caolan McNamara (Board of Directors), Charles Schulz (Board of Directors), Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board), Italo Vignoli (Board of Directors), Olivier Hallot (Board of Directors), Thorsten Behrens (Deputy Chairman of the Board)

Representation: Björn Michaelsen is representing Michael Meeks, as confirmed on the public mailing list.

Chairman of the Board and Deputy Chairman are in the call. One of them is required to be present or represented for having a quorate call.

The Board of Directors at time of the call consists of 7 seat holders without deputies.
In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4.
A total of 7 Board of Directors members are attending the call, one of them being represented by a deputy.

The invitation to the call has been in time, fulfilling all formal requirements.

The call is quorate.

From now on, a quorum can be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.


1. Switching Hetzner contract from FrODeV to TDF for server hosting

Request: Florian requests to switch the server hosting contract with Hetzner from FrODeV to TDF.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


2. Switching DomainDiscount24 contract from FrODeV to TDF for domain hosting

Request: Florian requests to switch the domain hosting contract with DomainDiscount24 from FrODeV to TDF.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


3. CAcert Organization Validation

Request: Florian requests TDF to become a CAcert Validated Organization, with the relationship managed by Florian and Thorsten and the certificates issued by Florian.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


4. Adding Intel to the Advisory Board

Request: Florian requests to add Intel Corporation to the Advisory Board.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


5. Adding Lionel Elie Mamane (independent), Marcus Mohrhardt (independent) and Stephan Bergman (RedHat) to the ESC

Request: Thorsten requests to add Lionel Elie Mamane (independent), Marcus Mohrhardt (independent) and Stephan Bergman (RedHat) to the ESC.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


6. Approval of a 1000 Euro travel bursary for HackFest participants

Request: Thorsten requests to approve of a 1000 Euro travel bursary for the Hamburg HackFest participants. The Hamburg Hackfest will happen on April 13 and 14. It has to be checked if this reimbursement is compatible with the German tax law, payments will only occur if so.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.


7. Next LibreOffice Conference in Berlin

Discussion: Next LibreOffice Conference will be in Berlin. Charles has volunteered to help the local team. Florian suggests to remember that TDF might not be able to invest money in the conference in 2012. It might also be useful to give a look at the timeline done in the past by John.


8. Investment of TDF capital money

Discussion: Bjoern reports about possible investments for TDF capital money. Today, it looks like you get better conditions with a regular bank account (money available) than by blocking the money for a number of years.


9. Budget draft

Discussion: Florian asks BoD members to have a look at the draft of the budget, in order to share opinions and make the budget public as soon as possible.


10. Access to TDF bank account

Discussion: Florian suggests to have a vote on the mailing list about the access to TDF bank account, so this decision is transferred to the mailing list.


Meeting minutes approved:

Italo Vignoli, Keeper of the minutes
Florian Effenberger, Session chair

Minutes 2012-02-22

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-02-22-1900133.mp3

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting
Call Minutes

Date: Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
Location: Phone conference room

Keeper of the minutes: Andreas Mantke (Board of Directors Deputy)
Session chair: Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board)

Attending: Andreas Mantke (Board of Directors Deputy), Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board), Thorsten Behrens (Deputy Chairman of the Board), Olivier Hallot (Board of Directors), Charles Schulz (Board of Directors), Michael Meeks (Board of Directors), Italo Vignoli (Board of Directors), Björn Michaelsen (Board of Directors Deputy), Simon Phipps (Membership Committee), Norbert Thiebaud (Membership Committee)

Representation: None. No representative represents more than one person.

Chairman of the Board and Deputy Chairman are in the call. One of them is required to be present or represented for having a quorate call.

The Board of Directors at time of the call consists of 7 seat holders without deputies. In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4.

A total of 6 Board of Directors members are attending the call.

The invitation to the call has been in time, fulfilling all formal requirements.

The call is quorate.

From now on, a quorum can be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.

1. Regular meetings of the Board of Directors

Request: Florian requests that the Board of Directors will meet every two weeks on Wednesday via phone, beginning today, at 1600 UTC. The agenda will be available at the appropriate wiki page. All members of the Board of Directors and everyone interested is invited to join the calls.

Result of vote: 6 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted and counts as invitation to future calls.

2. Accounting

Discussion: Thorsten will take care of the accounting for TDF. He will get in touch with Thomas Krumbein from the German association to discuss the transfer of the bank accounts, which are hold in trust for TDF.

3. Registered office

Discussion: The registered office of the Document Foundation will be in Zimmerstr. 69, 10117 Berlin, Germany. Florian has send out the signed contract today.

4. Investment of the capital stock

Discussion: Björn will send a request for an investment proposal to different banks in Germany, preferably with environmental-friendly options.

5. Budget

Discussion: Florian will update the budget. It will be made public as soon as it is in a stable draft.

6. EU fundings

Discussion: Charles and Florian will evaluate options for fundings of the European Union, to support the efforts of The Document Foundation.

7. Thank you letter to authorities

Discussion: Florian will draft a thank you letter for the authorities and send the draft to the list for approval.

8. VAT number

Discussion: Thorsten will evaluate whether we need a VAT number.

9. Travel refund policy

Discussion: Although TDF currently has no funds for travel refund, a policy is needed. Italo will work on a draft, and Thorsten will evaluate this from a fiscal point of view.

10. Rules of procedure ("Geschäftsordnung") and Community Bylaws ("Community-Satzung")

Discussion: Charles has created a draft for both, which TDF needs in addition to the statutes, and will send a draft to the mailing list.

11. CAcert Organization Assurance

Discussion: Thorsten and Florian are working on this tasks.

12. Official letterhead

Discussion: Thorsten will create an official letterhead for TDF.

13. Bank account warrant

Discussion: Only a handful of bank warrants should be issued, out of practical reasons. Florian proposed to give such a warrant to the four German-speaking members of the Board of Directors, being Thorsten, Florian, Björn and Andreas. All other members should be regularly updated with bank statements. Voting on this item has been postponed to the next call.

14. Chart of the decision workflow

Discussion: Andreas will work on a graphical explanation of the TDF decision workflow soon, after CeBIT.

15. Representative for the trademarks

In the meantime, Caolan McNamara has joined the call at 16:11 UTC.
A total of 7 Board of Directors members are now attending the call.
The call is still quorate.

From now on, a quorum can still be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.

Request: Michael Schinagl should serve as TDF's official representative for the trademark office.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.

16. Donation confirmation

Discussion: Thorsten will work on a donation confirmation for donors in accordance with fiscal requirements.

17. English translation of the statutes

Discussion: Thorsten and others have been working on a translation of the German statutes into a non-binding English version. He asked for feedback from natives speakers to improve the draft.

18. Membership at the German head association of foundations ("Bundesverband deutscher Stiftungen")

Request: The Document Foundation will become a member of the German head association of foundations ("Bundesverband deutscher Stiftungen"). Costs are 150 EUR per year.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.

19. Phone and fax line

Request: The Document Foundation will order a phone and fax line from sipgate, with a price of 20 EUR per month.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.

20. Creating the Advisory Board

Request: The Advisory Board will be created with the following members: Google, SUSE, Red Hat, Freies Office Deutschland e.V., Software in the Public Interest and the Free Software Foundation.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.

21. Engineering Steering Committee

Request: The Engeneering Steering Committee will be created with the following members: Andras Timar (localization), Michael Meeks and Petr Mladek of Novell, Caolan McNamara and David Tardon of RedHat, Björn Michaelsen of Canonical, Michael Natterer of Lanedo, Rene Engelhard of Debian, the independent contributors Norbert Thiebaud and Rainer Bielefeld (QA).

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.

22. Hosting for Freies Office Deutschland e.V.

Request: TDF will host the infrastructure of the German nonprofit Freies Office Deutschland e.V. free of charge. Domain names have to be paid directly by the nonprofit.

Result of vote: 7 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Decision: The request has been accepted.

Meeting minutes approved:

Andreas Mantke, Keeper of the minutes
Florian Effenberger, Session chair

Meeting minutes of the BoD before Foundation incorporation

Minutes 2012-02-08

Attending: Florian Effenberger (BoD Chair), Björn Michaelsen (BoD Deputy), Charles Schulz (BoD), Thorsten Behrens (BoD Chair Deputy), Simon Phipps (MC), Andreas Mantke (BoD Deputy), Olivier Hallot (BoD)

Attending from 17.23 CET on: Michael Meeks (BoD)

Keeper of the minutes: Andreas Mantke
Session chair: Florian Effenberger

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-02-08-1877496.mp3


2) LibOCon voting: should start this week
There was no objection to start the vote at the end of the week or at the beginning of the next week. Thorsten and Florian will work on setting up the voting tool. Only members of the foundation can vote and the vote will last one week. 3) CeBIT attendance: missing coordinator
It should be asked on the marketing-mailinglist for a coordinator of the different action items for the CeBIT 2012, thus e.g. all stuff get done and will arrive the booth in time. All agreed, that next time we need a volunteer for this coordination work, before we vote for the participation in a similar event.

4) Marketing conference call in February
Florian informed that he will open up the doodle survey for another two days and then decide about the most appropriate date. Thus people who want to participate should vote in the next two days.

5) Translation of German statutes into English
Thorsten is working on this and creating a first draft.

6) Private AB meeting this month: Please check draft on internal list
Florian reminded all BoD members to look on the draft, if the have any objections or comments. Florian wants to send out the mail in the next days.

7) CAcert organization certification
We will accept a proposal for an organisation certification of The Document Foundation.

8) choosing SIP provider
We will choose a SIP provider, that provides a phone and a fax number in Berlin with forwarding.

9) Foundation legal stuff

9.1) Caolans written acceptance of role still missing
Florian will write a PM to Caolan about this topic to get his acceptance of the role.

9.2) Money investment plan
Andreas will look at this in collaboration with Björn

9.3) Insurances
We need a liability and a D&O insurance. Florian will talk to this with an expert on Friday. If someone want to participate, he will set up a confcall. Andreas will have a look onto the site of stiftungen.org for additional information about this topic.

9.4) Community bylaws ("Community-Satzung")
Charles has already worked on this item. When he finished the draft he will put it on the public list for discussion and reviewing.

9.5) Internal rules ("Geschäftsordnung")
Charles and Florian will work on this item.

9.6) Tax advisor
This topic will be discussed in detail in a German call and then presented to the BoD.

9.7) Budget planning
Florian is working on this and will come back to BoD later.

Minutes 2012-01-25

Attending: Olivier, Florian, Michael, Andreas, Thorsten, Simon, Italo, Norbert, Caolan, Jesus

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-01-25-1854285.mp3

Minutes 2012-01-11

Attending: Michael, Caolan, Thorsten, Andreas, Olivier, Björn, Jesus, Charles
Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2012-01-11-1830659.mp3

Minutes 2011-12-14

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-12-14-1795330.mp3

Attending: Charles, Florian, Italo, Olivier, Thorsten, Andreas, Bjoern, Simon

Cebit
- Cebit participation would cost 3.000 euro, which have to be paid sometimes in January
- xBudget is unanimously approved by the Board of Directors

Minutes 2011-11-30

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-11-30-1774200.mp3

Attending: Florian, Christian, Thorsten, Alex, Italo, Olivier, Michael, Björn, Norbert, Evgeny, Leif, Andreas, Charles

Minutes 2011-11-16

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-11-16-1752514.mp3

Notes BoD confcall TDF 16 november 2011

Minutes 2011-10-29

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-10-29-1727654.mp3

Attending: Andre, Andreas, Bjoern, Thorsten, Florian, Olivier, Michael, Jesus

Web site needs updating:

AA:** send Drew's draft to Michael (Florian)

challenge page, and post for localisation (Michael)

travel budget etc. AA:** get the numbers from the conference (Charles) AA:** get details from FroDev (Florian) AA:** get details from SPI (Sophie)

that don't quite conform with the TM policy

previous decision not to have to manage exceptions

yet clearly affiliated

a success

AA:** proposal to vote on for next week (Thorsten)

AA:** create new poll for Board calls (Florian)

volunteer / moderator interest

Meeting minutes of the Steering Committee

Minutes 2011-10-19

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-10-19-1713406.mp3

Attending: Michael, Charles, Sophie, Andre, Thorsten

Minutes 2011-10-05

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-10-05-1692787.mp3

Attending: Sophie, Michael, Thorsten, Christoph, Italo

Minutes 2011-10-01

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-10-01-1687798.mp3


Attending: Charles, Olivier, Florian, Andre, Thorsten, Italo, (Sophie joined later)

Minutes 2011-09-21

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-09-21-1674232.mp3

Foundation. We sent a letter to the authorities. It is not a public letter and it outlines what we do and what we intend to do. We must hand out the community statutes over to the german authorities. The contents of this and the questions we received will be discussed in a special private call. There is the question on the elections of future BoD members who might want to be in the know of these discussions.

The lack of button and awareness of a donation page is critical as it now forces us to lower our budget expectations. Donations page should be redone, decided about in Paris pointing not just to FrODeV but to a list of NGOs.

The call for location for the next conference question has been postponed to another call.

TM policy could perhaps be clarified again in the sense of exceptions being kept in a limited number.

Minutes 2011-09-17

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-09-17-1668259.mp3

Attending: Michael, Olivier, Florian, Sophie, Thorsten, Italo, Chris Noack

Minutes 2011-09-07

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-09-07-1654503.mp3

Participants (SC members or SC deputies): André, Charles, Christoph, Florian, Italo, Michael, Olivier, Thorsten

Agenda:

  1. Who is taking notes? (recurring item)
  2. Foundation status update
  3. Hackfest report
  4. BoD elections
  5. API documentation is now online
  6. LibOCon 2012 CfP
  7. LibOCon status update
  8. Extension website status update

Discussion

1. Who is taking notes? (recurring item) --> Christoph

2. Foundation status update

3. Hackfest report

4. BoD elections

5. API documentation is now online

6. LibOCon 2012 CfP --> Discussion will be pushed to next meeting, added to next SC agenda

7. LibOCon status update

8. Extension website status update

9. Additional Topics

Next SC meeting is 2011-09-17

Minutes 2011-09-03

Skipped due the concurrent event Hackfest, Munich.

Minutes 2011-08-24

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-08-24-1635589.mp3

Minutes 2011-08-20

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-08-20-1630038.mp3

Participants

Charles, Florian, Italo, Olivier, Sophie, Thorsten

BoD Elections

TB is tweaking the voting software which should be ready soon, in order to start the process: gather candidates, allow some time for candidates to present themselves, and start the voting process in early October.

GSoC

TB suggests to route GSoC money through SPI, to spend the $2000 TDF gets for mentor travel, and spend the remaining $3000 for inviting students to Paris. The proposal has been approved by the Steering Committee with six +1 votes.

Foundation

Contract for the lawyer is ready, and the process is ready to start during the next couple of weeks. One of the german federal states has shown a strong political support, and this will prolly make the process quicker. It is impossible, though, to forecast the length of the process.

Minutes 2011-08-06

Voice recording (MP3): (none)

Attending

SC-Members and deputies: André, Thorsten, Christoph
non-SC members: Drew

Action Items

  1. who is taking notes?
    Christoph
  2. Review Agenda
    • no new topics on the agenda, listed items had been discussed in previous meeting
    • no urgent items / questions by the attendees
  3. AI "Discussion about our trademark policy and logo policy"
    • proposal has been sent to the sc-discuss mailing list by Florian
  4. AI "Acceptability of screenshots taken under Windows..."
    • proposal has been sent to the sc-discuss mailing list by Florian, slightly extended proposal by Christoph

No quorum reachable --> call has been adjourned, voting on the mentioned AIs on the sc-discuss mailing list

Minutes 2011-07-27

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-07-27-1599143.mp3

Attending:

SC-Members and deputies: Sophie, Italo, Thorsten, André, Michael, Leif
non-SC members: -


  1. who is taking notes?
    André
  2. review Agenda
    • we have no new topics on the agenda, listed items had been discussed in previous meeting,
    • AIs on Logo and TM policy as well as windows screenshots are in work
    • André will send the latest budget draft to SC members (supposed to be sent to German authorities)
  3. Thorsten suggests to review prio 0 work items
    • "Define legal entity" is in progress, currently slow due to vacation time in Germany
    • "define (and document) workflows for development and QA" is in progress.
      • Some discussion at the German QA weekend, where some restricitions of the freedesktop bugzilla have been identified. Rainer Bielefeld is now bugzilla admin for LibreOffice what should ease some of the problems
      • In general QA is working and processes are established but we need to check if we have good (enogh) documentation. André will check.
  4. Update on BoD elections
    • elections need to be shifted, as we missed the formal announcement
    • Simon Phipps will help with elections as "election secretary". This has been approved by SC and is documented but should be announced to the community. Thorsten will take care.
  5. other topics
    1. Leif mentioned that there are still discussions about our support for MS XML file formats which should be addressed by a formal statement
      • we already have a OOXM Q&A page for that
    2. Italo asks for git commit statistics from last three months
      • Michael will provide raw data to Italo

Minutes 2011-07-23

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-07-23-1593455.mp3

1. Update on Foundation: Vacation time in Germany, so things might progress slowly now. Anyway, the general judgement is that the foundation proposal is good, although the membership concept is considered innovative and this makes it difficult to foresee the timing for the response of the authorities. Our lawyer will be back from vacation in early August, and he will immediately file the document to the authorities. Estimated timing for feedback is September, although we don't have enough information to be more accurate than that.

2. Elections: Michael and Friedrich have been working on the software. We don't see any reason for not sticking to the approved schedule.

3. Advisory Board: Olivier will write a letter to several companies to attract them to TDF Advisory Board, going through SPI for invoicing and settlement. Charles will help with the letter.

4. Logo: Discussion about the need of having a logo for entities different from TDF official sources, in order to distinguish it from the official logo with the tagline. There is indeed a grey area when a TDF team or member is working on a project targeted to the development of the project, the brand or the software, which is not an official project. In this case, common sense should be used, based on the principle that the person requesting a permit to use the logo is well know at TDF level. As far as local groups requesting the use of TDF logo, the situation should be negotiated on a per case basis. Therefore, there is no need to change the policy, with the exception of an additional sentence that explains how to behave correctly when the policy is not covering exactly the specific case. Florian will be drafting a sentence to summarize the position.

5. Screenshot Issue: David Nelson has proposed a different wording for clearing the situation about using screeshots not only taken on Linux but also on Windows and MacOS. Agreement on starting a thread on the mailing list to approve the proposed wording, with the objective of facilitating new contributors without forcing them to install Linux or buy a Mac. Florian will be drafting the message to start the thread.

Minutes 2011-07-13

Attending: SC members and deputies: Sophie, Charles, André, Florian, Italo; non-SC members: David Nelson, Simon Phipps, Drew Jensen
Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-07-13-1580437.mp3

  1. Who is taking notes
    Charles
    1. decision making process with teams and SC:
    The SC members have clarified that the community work is done based on the principle of subsidiarity: teams make decisions in their own areas of competency. Whenever there's a conflict in a decision making process or there's a legal question it should be taken to the SC/BoD.
    1. Screenshots on Windows:
    It is noted that several members of the SC acknowledge the existence of a legal risk to display screenshots of LibreOffice on Windows, but the risk is deemed low, therefore, while screenshots on GNU/Linux should be the default ones, screenshots on Windows are also possible. A formal vote by the SC will validate this decision.

Minutes 2011-07-09

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-07-09-1574994.mp3

Attending:

SC-Members and deputies: Sophie, Charles, Andre, Florian, Italo, Olivier, Michael (as Thorsten's deputy)
non-SC members: Mike


  1. who is taking notes?
    André
  2. approve BOD elections schedule
    • Schedule has been approved by all attending SC-members in consensus
    • MC will take care about the process and prepare elections
  3. how to document SC/BOD decisions
    • André suggested that each formal decision of the SC (and in future BoD) should be recorded at a dedicated wiki-page.
    • André will start this page and record today's decisions there
    • Suggestions was approved with consensus from all attending SC-members
  4. other urgent issues
    • Christoph told about the request for a decsions on windows screenshots (see sttering discuss mailing list)
    • as there seems to be an outcome at the documentation team, Christoph will take care that a summary of this is sent to the sc-discuss list. SC will then discuss this in the next meeting (Wed. 11/07/13)
  5. foundation status updates
    • Update from Florian about current status of statutes:
      • an almost stable draft for the legal statutes has been provided to the SC members
      • as the draft is currently in German, Thorsten provided a diff between our bylaws and the statutes to the SC members(most diffs are just for formal legal reasons, some are controversal and in conflict with current bylaws - see below)
      • draft is not public jet, as we have recommendations to discuss the draft with German authorities first
      • the statutes should be sent to the German authorities after review by the SC (this is to get a first answer, not the official act of establishen the foundation yet)
      • we have the ideas of meritocracy and membership in the statutes. So allmost all the rights and duties of the communty members from the bylaws are then legally binding.
    • We need to share more information about the BoD member's duties and work before we start with the BoD elections. Florian will blog about this duties and possible legal implications, given his experience as board member at the German FrODeV association an SC-member.
    • there are three controversal changes in the statutes (compared to our bylaws)
    1. the Chair Person has been removed
      • a "Chair Person" or "President" who represents the foundation is in conflict with German law and had to be removed
      • the supervisory function of the CP (The Chairperson can intervene in dispute resolution and can take part in overseeing the process for nominations and elections of candidates for the BoD.) has been moved to the MC. The MC takes over the roles of the president, for impeachment / solemn address. The MC represents the foundation in court, against the board. The MC members are voted in by the members directly.
    2. the number of BoD members was reduced to 5
      • a number of 9 Board members (plus 9 deputies) was considered to high, given the current number of TDF members. It was seen as risc, that the foundation would become incapable of acting, if some BoD members and deputies become inactive for a certain time frame.
    3. time of service for BoD members was extended to 2 years
      • this was for practical reasons and reduce admistrative work (election process takes >2 months and involves several people and we additional have elections for the MC)
    • after discussion the issues deeply, SC members came to following decisions:
      • The Chair Person will not be mentioned in the statutes and will be removed from the Bylaws. Instead we will have a Chair person of the MC who takes the role of the CH.
      • The BoD will have 7 members. The BoD will have additional 3 deputy members who will replace a leaving BoD member. All 10 members will be elected at the same time for one year. Those with highest number of votes will become BoD mebers, others will become deputies.
      • both desicisions were taken with consensus
    • other tasks and information
      • the budged draft needs to be reviewd / changed. André will take care.
      • for the formal act of establishing the foundation we need a list of actual members of TDF, BoD and MC (this needs to include postal address). MC (Andre) will take care to collect this information.
      • although we have recommendation not to publish the statutes right now, we should do this before we call for BoD member applications. Florian / André will take car to publish the statutes 1st of August

Minutes 2011-06-29

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-06-29-1560845.mp3

Minutes 2011-06-25

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-06-25-1554803.mp3

Attending: Thorsten, Charles, Chris, Andre, Florian, Italo, Olivier, Sophie

  1. Foundation status update
    • struggling with setting up, legal statutes still not done, still waiting for final version, might run into the situation, that we need to find someone new to work on them - but we cannot afford further delay. Got promised current draft by Tuesday, no idea how far along they are, we should invest money to further that, no idea how much (between 1-2k EUR), Thomas says: might not make sense at all - head association - pay someone, or if that does not make sense, have one of the SC people excempt from other duties & work on that full time (to brief another lawyer). Thorsten, Flo, Andre or Thomas.
    • Vote: approve money for legal process (few thousand EUR). Capped at 3k. Andre: lower amount of money, can be spent on the next 2 weeks. Majority is for option one (recoding as approved: 3k EUR max).
    • appoint someone to work on this: three things, getting the statutes, getting in touch with the head association, summing this up, make recommendation (either do it ourselves, or contract a lawyer). Proposal: Florian, Andre & Thorsten team up. By Friday have a decision.
    • Florian, Andre & Thorsten approved by unanimous consent.
  2. Budget:
    • Floeff: we're pretty much self sustaining, donations cover current costs. Charles volunteers to help Thorsten with drafting a proposal budget plan
  3. Letter of intent: consensus to send it out as-is. Flo will send it out by next week
  4. Certification status update:
    • feedback so far is positive, a few disagreements on articles that are out; but maybe due to insufficient explanations (the document is a draft currently). we have to make clear, this is not about end user certification (and we don't even think about end user certs). a lot of money available in the EU, for end user certification. they call it life long learning - this is completely different from a certification that asserts a business. the ECDL is already in place, we can find local agreements with the organisations providing ECDL - but that's all we can do. we'll never go into end user certification. Users should be supported by the community
    • we probably need to make it more public as it is at the moment. we'll prolly have an article about that in italy. feeling was very positive. the journalist thinks this could be a new business model for FLOSS
    • general notion: we have time, there's no pressure. Italo solicits feedback from the developer community - seems not many of them read the steering list.
  5. new agenda item from Charles: working with local NGOs:
    • drafting agreements, committees, etc. : there'll be a need to start talking with several NGOs we're working with us: e.g. Frodev, la mouette, plio, softcatala. we need to talk to them what they want, la mouette has a list of questions & answers. things like logo, representations, acting on our behalf, revenue sharing etc etc. That needs to be taking care of, we'd need to have that setup by September / October. At the conference, make a number of statements about this.
    • Floeff: finds the distinction between association & foundation - who's allowed to use the brand, sharing revenue - very important, wearing his FroDeV hat.
    • Charles will work with Davide, Sophie and Andre on a proposal
    • Andre further suggests that maybe certification and working with NGOs can be combined.
  6. Update on Work items:
    • Andre removed things that were done, consolidated them etc.
    • he will send updated list today.
    • important work items still open:
      • setting up entity
      • discussion about copyright assignment (official position)
  7. new agenda item from Andre: question from steering discuss - should the membership committee publish the list of newly accepted members?
    • left to the MC to decide.
  8. new agenda item - Danishka from Sri Lanka asks for permission to use trademark
    • postpone decision to the next meeting

Minutes 2011-06-15

Attending: Andre, Charles, Italo, Thorsten

Minutes 2011-05-22

Attending: Sophie, Charles, Olivier, Thorsten

Minutes 2011-05-12

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-05-12-1492250.mp3

Attending: Florian, Thorsten, Andre, Italo

  1. who is taking notes? (recurring item)
  2. Review TDF Work Items status (recurring item)
    • noone found time yet
  3. Quick summary from last marketing confcall
    • build a better network of the marketeers - who's in charge, who can speak, who can present at conferences - make it all more effective
    • announcement model of the future
  4. Foundation status update
    • discussion with one German federarl state - very interesting, offering support in terms of cheap rooms, political support etc
    • problem: noone on-site from the core members
    • city of munich - talked to them, offering to establish in Bavaria then - waiting for feedback, and whether/how they would help
    • clear up details at LinuxTag, where many people are available in person
  5. Status on 3.4, beta5 and new announcement model
    • decided to have beta5 instead of rc1, builds made available to testers before announcement, currently syncing mirrors, hopefully done tonight/tomorrow morning
    • needed to explain time-based releases, quality, and reasons - there were geographies where people were rather critical about the current status
    • announcement to l10n, projects
    • italo will then announce on the announce list, and blog about it - also explaining the development process
    • also explain the target users of all of our releases - who should use what, e.g. a beta, an rc, a .0 version etc.
    • we need to be transparent, explain the process - which is different from OOo, and must be - it's different, but not worse.
    • Italo/Thorsten will sync on the announcement time
  6. Pootle server migration (again)
    • migrated away from the brazil server
    • vm-solution - some performance issues
    • offer to use fsf-hu vm
    • rimas working on migration
    • hopefully better/faster than the interim solution
  7. Situation in Brazil
    • domain will point to the official documentation website by tomorrow. Main website: pending
    • need more info on what *is* going on currently in brazil
    • TDF: let's stay out of the line of fire
    • all assets (trademark, domains) should be managed by TDF - to keep them independent from individuals
    • complaints about membership committee - problem was, that there was no clear verification possible, for the contribution
    • encourage people to contribute through official TDF channels - makes it much easier to verify contribution for membership applications

Minutes 2011-05-06

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-05-06-1483340.mp3

Minutes 2011-04-30

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-04-30-1473097.mp3

Minutes 2011-04-21

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-04-21-1462577.mp3

Attending: Sophie, Thorsten, Italo, Florian, Andre, Michael (for Caolan)

Minutes 2011-04-15

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-04-15-1453642.mp3

Minutes 2011-04-06

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-04-06-1438151.mp3

Minutes 2011-03-26

Attending:: Italo, Charles, Sophie, Olivier

Minutes 2011-03-16

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-03-16-1403977.mp3

Attending: Florian, Charles, Thorsten, Sophie, Christoph, Andre

Minutes 2011-02-28

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-02-28-1376237.mp3
Attending: Sophie, Florian, Michael, Thorsten, Charles, Italo Attending non SC Members: Christoph Noack, David Nelson

bylaws being translated and then being adapted for the german foundation. We're also studying in detail the exact sort of foundation and its location.

membership request form to be put online (should be ready next week). MC is important for the setting of the foundation itself, elections of the BoD of the foundations, etc...

based websites, we need a proposal (on the wiki, etc.) written by David Nelson

revenue splits among various online stores.

Minutes 2011-02-15

Voice recording (MP3): not available

Attending: Florian, Michael Meeks, Charles, Thorsten, Christoph Noack, André

Who is taking notes? (recurring item)

André

Status on Membership Committee

Problems with the wiki

Status of ESC announcement

Status update on foundation


Minutes 2011-01-27

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-01-27-1318351.mp3


Minutes 2011-01-21

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-01-21-1307264.mp3

Attending: Sophie, Olivier, André, Florian, Michael (as Thorsten's deputy), Charles, Italo Attending non SC-Members: Christoph Noack, David Nelson, Daniel Stoni


Who is taking notes? (recurring item)

André

move past call notes to TDF/Steering Committee Meetings 2010?

short update on 3.3 release (Thorsten, Florian)

short update Membership Committee status (André, Sophie)

upcoming events

connecting external services to TDF domain (see David's request; André)

status update on the TM Policy & Use of the logo questions (Charles)

ToDo for Christoph: trigger creation of free version of the loge (without TDF tag line)

skipped items

Review TDF Work Items status

Minutes 2011-01-13

Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2011-01-13-1292638.mp3


Attending: Sophie, André, Caolan, Charles, Christoph, Florian, Michael, Olivier, Thorsten, David Nelson

Who is taking notes?

André


Trademark policy (Michael Meeks)


Forming the membership committee (Michael Meeks)


Situation regarding the Community Bylaws


Future management of the libreoffice.org website

At the moment we work with Silverstripe for our production website and efforts should be focused on it. We may reconsider this, but all decisions regarding Drupal will be delayed for at least 6 months. The discussion about implementing Drupal must not hinder the work on our current production website.


Communication about the OOXML export feature


Reviewing TDF Work Items status (added by Christoph)


other items during discussion

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