Board of Directors Meetings
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For meetings of the Membership Committee, please see TDF/Membership Committee Meetings
What it's about
Discussions of the Board of Directors take place on public mailing lists. Once every two weeks, for those interested, we host a conference call on the phone, to discuss ongoing topics and recent activities directly. Everyone interested is invited to join, all callers can speak. 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.
Reaching the board outside regular meetings
You can always reach the board privately by mailing to infodocumentfoundation.org, or (preferrably, since we're default-open) publicly by mailing to the board-discuss
documentfoundation.org public mailing list. If TDF officers can't make a call, or for ad-hoc meeting needs of TDF members, please ping one of the TDF administrators on the #tdf-infra IRC:// IRC channel.
Some important notes
- Although being public, these calls are not to be considered as official press statements for journalists. Journalists are invited to join, but for media Q & A, there will be separate sessions where official statements by TDF representatives are made.
- Every call will be recorded and made available as uncut audio file to the public afterwards. If you join, you agree that you will be recorded.
- We do not charge a fee for joining the calls. However, normal phone costs apply. Please check your provider for more details.
How to prepare yourself
- Most topics we will discuss have been raised on our main mailing lists already, especially discuss and marketing. Please have a look at them, to stay up to date on recent activities.
- Join our IRC channel #documentfoundation IRC:// during the call, so in case we post links or texts, you are in the loop.
Next Call
Date and Time
The TDF BoD calls will take place every other Monday, 1800-1900 Berlin time all season, starting February 21, 2022.
Important Notes
- Contracts and obligations with third parties have to be approved by two BoD seat holders, amongst them the BoD chair, and in case (s)he cannot, the BoD deputy chair. Alternatively, a warrant can be issued by one of these.
- Decisions need a quorum of 1/2 of the participating or represented BoD seat holders. If decisions are tied, the vote of the BoD chair (or his representative), and if not available, the vote of the BoD deputy chair (or his representative) are decisive.
- People coming late or leaving early need to be mentioned in the minutes
Dial-in Details
The calls take place via Jitsi at https://jitsi.documentfoundation.org/TDFBoard
Archives
- For our meetings in 2022, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2022
- For our meetings in 2021, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2021
- For our meetings in 2020, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2020
- For our meetings in 2019, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2019
- For our meetings in 2018, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2018
- For our meetings in 2017, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2017
- For our meetings in 2016, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2016
- For our meetings in 2015, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2015
- For our meetings in 2014, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2014
- For our meetings in 2013, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2013
- For our meetings in 2012, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2012
- For our meetings in 2011, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2011
- For our meetings in 2010, see TDF/BoD Meetings/2010
Minutes 2023-03-06
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2023-03-06
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2023-03-06
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Thorsten Behrens
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board Members - Thorsten, Paolo, Gabor, Cor, Emiliano, Laszlo Board Deputy Members - Gabriel Membership Committee Members - Marina, Gustavo, Gabriele, Uwe Membership Committee Substitute Members - Shinji Community - Andreas Team - Florian, Sophie, Stephan, Guilhem, Stéphane, Olivier
Representation: Gabriel for Ayhan
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 or represented in the call.
The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in the foundations articles, or other requirements regarding form and invitation, time limits, and for the topics discussed in this meeting.
The meeting is quorate and invitation happened in time. From now on, motions can be passed with the agreement of a simple majority of those remaining present. The majority threshold is currently 4.
Recurring item: Publication of previous board minutes
* board-discuss * tdf-members * wiki page for minutes * wiki page for decisions * private minutes to the MC
Any updates regarding director affiliations and substantial interests:
* no changes, current affiliations see election page: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/2021-board/candidates.html * Gabor and Thorsten notify the board of trustees of allotropia's partnership with Collabora, through which they now fund part of our development work
Would any of the directors present need to declare an interest, for any of the listed agenda items?
* 1. * 2. * 3. * 4. * 5. Thorsten, Cor, Gabor * 6. * 7. * 8. * 9.
The public meeting commences at 17:04 UTC / 18:04 Berlin time.
AGENDA:
Public Part
1. Answering questions from the community (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to askquestions to the board and about TDF
* Community members ask for travel refunds, but we have no budget - what to do? (Sophie) * Let's carry-over previous year's budget? (Thorsten) * Should be between 20-40k €, can look up exact number (Florian) * No objections
* any further questions? (Thorsten) * working for next edition of Latam (Gustavo) * started to work on agenda * question about the budget * need time to decide things * when is decision to be taken wrt budget * this month? * Sophie answered patially * when does the event happen? (Cor) * ~ Aug in Guadaljara (Gustavo) * may change * need guarantee to run event * very likely to find the money (Thorsten) * AI: to decide in March * run vote on this * follow up on initial email * have to run the budget before
2. Status Report: Organize next in-person BoD meeting (Gabor Kelemen, Florian Effenberger, 5 mins)
Proposal: Gabor would like to organize the next in-person BoDmeeting to make progress on various legal/budget/etc. issues sometime between April-June in Budapest. Invite interested MC members as well, as they have expressed motivation to help; alsofor a bit of transparency. Location would be Budapest, one or the other co-working space.
Questions to discuss: what would be some potentially importanttopics and their deadlines? We can then choose an exact date a bit before those.
Potential result: timely resolution of urgent, important issues where external factors put us into time pressure.
Status from last call: Gabor setup a poll with Florian (with weekends that work locally)
* poll is set up (Florian) * happy to share with MC as well * Gabor to quickly cross-check if all poll dates are ok * will look soonly in possible venues (Gabor)
3. Discuss: Discuss formalizing board fiduciary duties (Paolo Vecchi, 5 mins)
Board members have fiduciary duties towards the foundation.
This document is a draft, how directors would ideally act in the discharge of their roles and duties:
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/f/1235729 Public link to documents: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/FZKYSkyPZZfty5L
This documents contains more info and examples that TDF might consider adopting:
https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/f/1069321
The discussion, progress and results should be shared in public.
* rediscuss properly to implement (Paolo) * new members must understand what fiduciary duties are and follow them * recent events pushed me to promote them again * folder shared w all elements present * standardize set of fiduciary duties * issues w links shared (Cor) * seems to be fixed (Paolo) * board aware of WIP * time to implement it * perhaps take example wrt to other foundation * provide active participation of the staff in board meetings to improve * transparency, accountability and improve trust. * good to consider, as TDF is growing and formalizing things (Thorsten) * had the last, and this board working on a number of policies, also with support from MC (Thorsten) * but: offensive that board members should somehow not be aware of their fiduciary duties * rejects the notion this is the case - also expectations and processes are part of the (in particular new board) onboarding procedures (Thorsten) * for the proposal: probably not all people found time to check * and relative to other important _and_ urgent things - this is now 2nd tier * lets review & discuss, if necessary internally * all directors, please do have a look to these docs in the folder * Some didn't notice that we are having a governance review (Paolo) * the the board did not discuss a vote that went from a CoC and communication review to a full governance review * board members seem not to have realise that there has been a massive change of scope * Interviewer from contracting company stated fiduciary duties is a normal thing and every board should have them clearly defined but we don't. * glad to see that Paolo sees benefit in the communication review process now (Thorsten)
The public meeting ends at 17:26 UTC / 18:26 Berlin time
Private Part
MC remains in the meeting
4. Vote, Discuss: Discussion and budget for developer roles (Florian Effenberger, 5 mins)
Reason for privacy: HR topics
Florian to update the board on recent progress, possibly decide on concrete hirings
5. Status Report, Discuss: Improve tendering process (tdf-board, 10 mins)
Reason for privacy: legal topics
6. Status Report, Discuss: TDF 2023 Budget Planning (tdf-board, 15 mins)
Reason for privacy: legal & tax topics
Update on budget, new items, continue planning from FOSDEM in-person meeting
7. Status Report: Leftover Brussels items (Florian Effenberger, Thorsten Behrens, 5 mins)
Reason for privacy: legal topics
8. Vote: Next steps legal ToDo items (Paolo Vecchi, 5 mins)
Reason for privacy: legal topics
9. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: if there is time left, and anything is popping up after sending the agenda
The private meeting ends at 19:06 UTC / 20:06 Berlin time.
Thorsten Behrens (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2023-02-20
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2023-02-20
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2023-02-20
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Thorsten Behrens
Keeper of the minutes: Florian Effenberger
In the meeting:
Board Members - Thorsten, Ayhan, Cor, Gabor, Paolo, Laszlo, Emiliano Board Deputy Members - Gabriel Membership Committee Members - Marina, Uwe, Gabriele (from 17:15 UTC/18:15 Berlin time on) Membership Committee Substitute Members - Shinji Community - Deirdre, Andreas Team - Olivier, Florian, Sophie
Representation: None
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 or represented in the call.
The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in the foundations articles, or other requirements regarding form and invitation, time limits, and for the topics discussed in this meeting.
The meeting is quorate and invitation happened in time. From now on, motions can be passed with the agreement of a simple majority of those remaining present. The majority threshold is currently 4.
Recurring item: Publication of previous board minutes
* board-discuss * tdf-members * wiki page for minutes * wiki page for decisions * private minutes to the MC
Any updates regarding director affiliations?
* no changes, current affiliations see election page: https://elections.documentfoundation.org/2021-board/candidates.html
Would any of the directors present need to declare an interest, for any of the listed agenda items?
* 1. * 2. * 3. * 4. * 5. * 6. Thorsten, Gábor, Cor * 7.
The public meeting commences at 17:03 UTC / 18:03 Berlin time.
AGENDA:
Public Part
1. Answering questions from the community (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
* Any progress on Gabor's proposal wrt. tendering, discussed in Brussels? (Olivier) * work in progress, some discussions, updates probably as early as next week (Florian)
2. Vote, Discuss: Review & final decision FSF AB seat (tdf-board, 10 mins)
* serious accusations around RMS & treatment of women * March 2021: situation deteriorates, RMS returns to board: https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1373905399707955202 * previous decision: suspend AB seat, until RMS/FSF situation clarifies * our blog:
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2021/03/25/statement-on-rms-and-fsf/
* number of organisations issue similar statements: * sfconservancy/outreachy: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/23/outreachy-fsf/ * Drupal: similarly anodyne statement like TDF - https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/statement-from-drupal-association-board-regarding-the-free-software-foundation-fsf * EFF: https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/03/statement-re-election-richard-stallman-fsf-board
Discuss: reinstate, or permanently remove FSF?
* Quick summary of situation, reference to blogpost, key people at FSF seems not to have changed - defer decision or make temporary suspension a permanent one? (Florian) * no significant change, the previous people are still around * actually change at FSF, new election, suggest to keep temporary suspension a bit longer (Paolo) * When is election due? (Thorsten) * around March (Paolo) * shelve until April then? (Thorsten) * want actual positive change to happen, let's see before taking any decision (Paolo) * Anyone not happy with shelving this until April? (Thorsten) * no one raises hand
3. Discuss: Next in-person BoD meeting (Gabor Kelemen, 5 mins)
Proposal: Gabor would like to organize the next in-person BoD meeting to make progress on various legal/budget/etc. issues sometime between April-June in Budapest. Invite interested MC members as well, as they have expressed motivation to help; also for a bit of transparency. Location would be Budapest, one or the other co-working space.
Questions to discuss: what would be some potentially important topics and their deadlines? We can then choose an exact date a bit before those.
Potential result: timely resolution of urgent, important issues where external factors put us into time pressure.
* Have another in-person meeting similar as in Berlin (Gabor) * happy to organize this in Budapest * depends on how urgent are tasks to solve and what are hard deadlines * 2nd half of April, mid-May * coworking space can host us * invite interested MC members, showed interest in Brussels and help us with our problems
- Gabriele Ponzo joins 17:15 UTC/18:15 Berlin time -
* should prepare meeting upfront, have information in time (Cor) * loves to have a meeting, want to see positive and fast progress on various issues working on, before setting a date (Paolo) * set tentative date, easier to solve controversial issues in person (Thorsten) * lets run a Nextcloud poll (Florian) * lets not block on external deadlines, rather make sure everyone can join (Florian) * AI Gabor setup a poll with Florian (with weekends that work locally)
4. Discuss: Improving boards minuting (Florian Effenberger, Thorsten Behrens, 10 mins)
Suggesting a set of steps that we can make here: 1- create audio recording 2- possibly have them in written form by making use of 'speach to text' techn. 3- someone creates proper minutes from 1(+2); minutes give a broad summary of statements, and clear AI's/conclusions/decisions. 4- these should be available in the week after a meeting and to be approved in the next meeting.
* want to improve minutes, costs time, struggle for everyone (Cor) * clearly state various positions of directors and involved people * in the old days of TDF, had recorded phone calls (Thorsten) * not necessary to publish the recording, but supports after-meeting work for minuting * What about private part of the call that touches confidential topics? (Marina) * can't put that into cloud services for transcript * something running on our own servers? (Cor) * concerned to have not much on the private part, and therefore not improve the current situation (Marina) * idea is to have entire call recorded (Thorsten) * minuting is work, needs to be given time - work is the same whether automated transcription or not (Uwe) * agrees that minuting needs time (Gabriele) * heard of Cabolo, never saw it in practice, no idea about cost * suggest to have records as well as minutes (Paolo) * people might not feel comfortable to join a recorded call (Thorsten) * less topics and especially less controversial topics in the past (Florian) * back then, about one hour for post-production of a one hour meeting * time well spent, localization, involve community (which is a problem these days) etc. * turn into e-mail vote to record meetings (Thorsten) * need to ask Guilhem for the technical details (Florian)
5. Status Report: Move board-discuss & tdf-members to Discourse (Florian Effenberger, Thorsten Behrens, 5 mins)
* Status of the migration Florian asked Guilhem: "have an up to date migration test at https://communitytest.documentfoundation.org/c/board-discuss which is ready for review. for the final migration i'll need to know how to populate subscribers and their preferences, as per Sophie's questions on https://redmine.documentfoundation.org/issues/3567#note-20 (for pt-br)"
The public meeting ends at 17:38 UTC / 18:38 Berlin time.
6. Status Report, Discuss: Improve tendering process (tdf-board, 20 mins)
Reason for privacy: legal topics
7. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: if there is time left, and anything is popping up after sending the agenda
The private meeting ends at 18:12 UTC / 19:12 Berlin time.
Thorsten Behrens (Session chair)
Florian Effenberger (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2023-01-23
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2023-01-23
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2023-01-23
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Thorsten Behrens
Keeper of the minutes: Florian Effenberger
In the meeting:
Board Members - Thorsten Behrens, Gábor Kelemen, Ayhan Yalçinsoy, Cor Nouws, Paolo Vecchi, László Nemeth, Emiliano Vavassori (from 17:25 UTC/18:25 Berlin) Board Deputy Members - Gabriel Masei Membership Committee Members - Gabriele Ponzo, Marina Latini Membership Committee Substitute Members - Community - Michael Weghorn, Krystof, Andreas Team - Florian Effenberger, Sophie Gautier, Xisco Fauli, Hossein Nourikah
Representation: None
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 or represented in the call.
The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in the foundations articles, or other requirements regarding form and invitation, time limits, and for the topics discussed in this meeting.
The meeting is quorate and invitation happened in time. From now on, motions can be passed with the agreement of a simple majority of those remaining present. The majority threshold is currently 4.
Any updates regarding director affiliations?
- no changes, current affiliations see election page:
https://elections.documentfoundation.org/2021-board/candidates.html
Would any of the directors present need to declare an interest, for any of the listed agenda items?
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
-> none registered.
The public meeting commences at 17:03 UTC / 18:03 Berlin time.
- AGENDA:
- Public Part
1. Answering questions from the community (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
* no questions brought up
2. Status Report: Strategy 2022 Items - Status (Thorsten Behrens, Cor Nouws, Gabriel Masei, Gábor Kelemen, 5 mins)
Regular reporting about status of the Strategic items in https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/f/1129829
* not much development on this recently * AI: will setup a poll to get people in a room for brainstorming on items (Cor) * but it's important to make progress here, let's have that on the agenda for the FOSDEM in-person meeting (Thorsten)
3. Discuss, Vote: Decide on BZ request from Ilmari (Gábor Kelemen, 10 mins)
* TDF relies on BugZilla for it's daily operations (Thorsten) * no major upgrade in a long time, many good features stuck (Thorsten) * goal: sort remaining issues to be able to release new version (Thorsten) * decide today or should we fold this into budget decisions? (Thorsten) * good proposal, need those updates (Gábor) * undermaintained open source upstream project * AI: collect all the bits, then send off vote e-mail (Gábor)
4. Status Report: Updating CoC policy (Cor Nouws, 5 mins)
* status update & next steps * getting each other up to date, started last year during LibOCon * important topic, should be shared between board, CoC group and perhaps also MC (Thorsten) * CoC team not informed, should have done so before putting it in agenda (Marina) * new CoC team had initial meeting after putting in place current CoC policy * discussing how to handle communication of CoC team on a technical level, will discuss with Guilhem when he's back from vacation * CoC folder shared with corporate addresses - should be changed * want to review policy, can't be done in a rush * current version allows us Outreachy participation * very interested in the topic, happy to be included (Thorsten) * maybe discuss at FOSDEM? * Sage Sharp and Karen Sandler can give feedback, after the Outreachy program (Sophie) * needs some work and feedback from CoC committee * let's use face time at FOSDEM, perhaps meet with Karen there? (Thorsten)
5. Status Report: Hiring TDF developers (Florian Effenberger, 5 mins)
* next steps & progress * roles open until February 10 (Florian) * got good number of applications, scheduling interviews * had first interview actually today - thanks to Gabriel, Emiliano, Hossein, Ilmari, Mike * expecting more applications close to the deadline * good to have FOSDEM, for a last-minute push * we do have a number of strong candidates
The public meeting ends at 17:20 UTC / 18:20 Berlin time.
- Private Part
6. Discuss: Plan FOSDEM in-person agenda (tdf-board, 20 mins)
7. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: if there is time left, and anything is popping up after sending the agenda
The private meeting ends at 18:46 UTC / 19:46 Berlin time.
Thorsten Behrens (Session chair) Florian Effenberger (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2023-01-09
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2023-01-09
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2023-01-09
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Thorsten Behrens
Keeper of the minutes: Florian Effenberger
In the meeting:
Board Members - Thorsten, Cor, Paolo, Gabor, Laszlo, Emiliano (from 17:11 UTC/18:11 Berlin on) Board Deputy Members - Gabriel Membership Committee Members - Marina Membership Committee Substitute Members - Community - Jessy Team - Florian, Ilmari, Sophie
Representation: Gabriel for Ayhan
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 or represented in the call.
The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in the foundations articles, or other requirements regarding form and invitation, time limits, and for the topics discussed in this meeting.
The meeting is quorate and invitation happened in time. From now on, motions can be passed with the agreement of a simple majority of those remaining present. The majority threshold is currently 4.
Any updates regarding director affiliations?
- no changes, current affiliations see election page:
https://elections.documentfoundation.org/2021-board/candidates.html
Would any of the directors present need to declare an interest, for any of the listed agenda items?
- 1. #
- 2. #
- 3. Thorsten, Cor
- 4. #
The public meeting commences at 17:03 UTC / 18:03 Berlin time.
AGENDA:
Public Part
1. Answering questions from the community (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
- When will we have final decision for Bugzilla proposal? (Ilmari)
* long-awaited Bugzilla 6 * had quiet period, no discussion since last call (Thorsten) * not in oversight area, but happy to help (Cor) * happy to help, can drive this (Gabor)
- Offer fine as is, or decrease scope? (Ilmari)
* might need some finessing wrt non-important bits for TDF (Thorsten) * importance of Bugzilla, if fairly balanced, no problem at all (Cor)
- Final decision for WollMux adoption proposal? (Marina)
* previous board decision, no opposition nor concerns on board-discuss (Thorsten) * fine by me (Cor)
Emiliano joins the meeting at 17:11 UTC/18:11 Berlin
- Budget proposal deadline? (Marina)
* as early as possible (Thorsten) * first budget draft approx. end of next week (Florian) * some proposals missing anyways, Christmas period (Thorsten) * also let us know if budgets can be dissolved or lowered (Florian)
2. Discuss, Vote: Join ALTER EU (Thorsten Behrens, 5 mins)
The ALTER EU coalition, with over 200 members, many of which are FOSS projects. Membership is free, and is related to approving the 10 objectives of the coalition.
- Any further information needed? (Thorsten)
* Nobody
- Vote on the above
* 6 approvals, 1 abstain -> motion approved * AI Thorsten: follow-up with Italo
The public meeting ends at 17:18 UTC / 18:18 Berlin time.
Private Part
3. Discuss: Legal working group setup (tdf-board, 45 mins)
Continue discussion from last board call
4. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: if there is time left, and anything is popping up after sending the agenda
The private meeting ends at 18:17 UTC / 19:17 Berlin time.
Thorsten Behrens (Session chair)
Florian Effenberger (Keeper of the minutes)