Board of Directors Meetings 2010

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    Meetings before February 17th, 2012, were done by the non-formal board or non-formal steering committee. Meetings on and after that date, were done by the Board of Directors as official body of TDF.

    Minutes 2010-12-11

    Voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2010-12-11-1244397.mp3

    Attending: Sophie, Charles, Christoph, Florian, Italo, Jesús, Michael, Olivier, Thorsten


    Support models and how to organise this on an international basis

    • The question / request was not understood. The author of this item did not participate in the call, therefore this topic has been skipped.

    Bylaws State of Affairs

    • Concerns has been expressed by Thorsten (also on mailing list steering-discuss):
      • The first issue is an explicit list of unacceptable behavior (e.g. racism, xenophobia, ... political intolerance). Thorsten talked about cultural differences of community members, and the kind of discussions between developers within other open-source projects. To meet their needs, he proposed a positive formulation of this issue instead of the "negative list".
      • The second issue is, that these changes had been introduced lately. Thus, other members did not have the chance to take part in this discussion. But, the bylaws have been announced to be valid, due to passing the date for providing feedback.
      • ==> Questions: How to (and if) to update the bylaws?
    • Charles: Agrees mostly, but the question is about the process that has been discussed in advance with the other community members.
    • Alternatives how to handle this have been discussed:
      • adapt the bylaws since it is only a minor change (assumption: the SC should validate the bylaws anyway, so a small change might be acceptable) --> might be unaccepted from the process point-of-view of an "inclusive community"
      • announce the small change on the mailing list steering-discuss and wait for major objections
      • keep the bylaws as they are and update them once the legal entity is in place (assumption: some updates might be required then anyways) --> this would lead to unaccepted bylaws that are documented officially
      • same as before, but collecting some more issues people might find over the time --> this would "invalidate" the bylaws as they are
    • Todo for Charles: Charles proposed to take this item and work out a solution. He will inform / discuss this issue with the community on the steering-discuss mailing list. (Note: Mail has been sent and is available here).
    • Finally, many thanks to David Nelson for making the bylaws perfect language wise (and more).

    3.3 release status (incl. question on icons)

    • Michael and Thorsten provided the status of the 3.3 release...
      • Release not expected to be done before next year
      • BrOffice translation issues had to be fixed
      • Greatly reduced size of the Windows installer although avoiding separate language packs
      • New RC build to be expected in the middle of the next week
    • Olivier: Discussion on extension that might not be required by everyone and may cause a problem for large deployments of the software, having impact on the support costs. Michael and Olivier discussed the root cause for the request and will continue to do that within an issue.
    • Bernhard: Bernhard raised a question concerning LibO icons design: include them in the product (minor modifications still possible), or to include more colored ODF icons (without or with modified badges)?
      • Adding the icons to the release candidates is technically "zero risk". The worst case is to forget an icon, but this has to be identified e.g. via testing (Michael, Thorsten).
      • The icons are generally accepted; the SC is in favor of adding the "LibreOffice" icons than adding modified ODF icons (which would be an alternative). Even, if the new icons are just used for one or two releases.
      • Adding the icons should be done as fast as possible - further tweaking might be done within the next release candidate(s). Thus, Thorsten asked for a first set by Monday morning (if possible).
      • The final release is expected to be done in January - so there is some (but not that much) time for tweaking.

    FOSDEM DevRoom, CfP and booth

    • Florian provided some status:
      • Todo for all: Reminder to send proposals --> our TDF internal due date is 2010-12-20
      • Offical FOSDEM due date to send in all proposals is 2011-01-10
      • Cor applied for a booth --> feedback on availability expected within the next few days
      • More information at: Marketing/Events/Fosdem2011
    • Proposal by Charles: Track on history of LibreOffice (Charles, Florian, ...)
    • Florian: Unfortunately, there is no funding available for the speakers --> OOo funding does not apply for LibreOffice

    Public Discussion

    Minutes 2010-12-02

    voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2010-12-02-1229364.mp3

    Minutes 2010-11-28

    voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2010-11-28-1220444.mp3

    Attending: Florian, Chris, Andre, Thorsten, Charles


    Status update from OOoKWV congress, University speech and LinuxDay Dornbirn

    Florian
    latest PR activities - linux days austria, OOoKWV, university event
    Florian
    people are waiting for final release, generally do support us, but want to see if we can hold to our promises
    Florian
    Austria - once final release is out, people will try & convert
    Florian
    general public reception was very very well
    Andre
    Munich - people are aware of LibO, most of them are with us. We got very positive feedback

    3.3 Release status

    Thorsten
    rc1 end of upcoming week, hopefully. final release depends on OOo releasing - we definitely want the latest fixes.
    Andre
    wait for the xmas holidays, so people can test between the years properly
    Chris
    own mime type icons - there's a real chance to have placeholder mimetype icons - but with the rc timeline, does it make sense to start now?
    Thorsten
    yes, do that, we could put that into post-rc1, or, if that is a problem, ship an update in early January

    Structure of the native language websites

    Charles
    as the former lead of the NLC, I'd like to say that one of the differences of yesterday and today - there's no reason that there's a separate structure for NL - we wanted to nurture community at the very beginning with OOo, which was totally absent - but this created walled gardens, lots of problems (much of that due to Collab idiosyncrasies). In as much as my reaction was that we don't want to be downstream translaters of whatever comes from upstream English. We can have mailing lists, websites, whatever - but let's not build silos again (this is in reference to the website list discussion - that someone said "here's the english content, now you gonna translate it").
    Florian
    give structure, infrastructure, point people to content they can start with. Of course, this is all voluntary. We have all infrastructure we need now, now we need content!
    Florian
    will contact cloph, ask him about status, provide summary by next week, were we stand, whether we can go live, or need more content. We need something *before* going live, i.e. early December

    Status of the Silverstripe website

    Charles
    as I understand cloph - website ready, we now need content

    Status of the mailing lists and when to set-up new ones

    Florian
    started some 15-20 new mailing lists, some have been received very well, some are nearly dead. Question: should we set up lists for the last ~20 langs? or rather on demand? (agreement is on-demand)

    Community Bylaws status and next step (validation or alternatives)

    Charles
    still have to enter results of latest discussion re. simplified chairman election - otherwise almost done
    Florian
    a few comments:
      • BoD - limitation on terms - pros & cons - two terms, then pass one, then start over - good: new faces. bad: after two years, all the active people leave
      • Andre: just because you're not on BoD does not mean you have to stop contributing ;)
      • Thorsten: stagger board re-election - encourage a few people to step down after one year
      • chair person: need that for legal reasons - not necessarily be one of the board members - is that role legally required, or can we have a secretary. I don't see the need to have one single person to represent the whole foundation.
      • charles: the real power rests within the board of directors/board of trustees. the BoD can have officers - the chairman is nothing else as the queen in england, or president in germany. what we need is someone to serve as a representative - someone running the daily tasks, an officer, the chairman is something else. there might be instances, depending on the legal structure, where you may need a president
      • a paragraph stating that it's recommended for the ESC and BoD to have one meeting per year - what I'd like to see is a regular virtual meeting, at least once per month. and maybe an in-person meeting annually
    David Nelson
    will the community be able to influence the by-laws, other than commenting on the mailing list?
    Charles
    unless there's no hard veto on the list, we assume all is well
    Thorsten
    agreed. if you're not happy, please speak up on the list, constructive criticism is always appreciated

    Follow-up on the charter or guidelines with local associations

    Charles
    guidelines between local associations and TDF. Needed to setup the basis of any collaboration. Italo suggests the BoD to setup an association committee, as a communication channel to the local associations. Local assoc & businesses - so we need two sorts of guidelines. for the latter: e.g. ian lynch. for the former: french assoc - press release, happy to be with us, but still serve OOo users etc. - they asked how to work with TDF, send money, send representatives, what about insurance etc. So all these minutiae need to be properly clarified.
    David
    Friends of OpenDocument Inc (an Australia-based not-for-profit association) has offered to produce printed copies of LibreOffice documentation manuals, with profits from book sales going to the TDF (Details of the offer are here) This offer was relayed by Jean Hollis Weber during the documentation conference call. Reactions from the SC?
    David
    we had the doc conf call today, and jean suggested this idea
    Thorsten
    great idea, unfortunately we don't have a quorum today
    Andre
    only question is whether we permit the usage of the trademark
    David
    will type up detailed proposition & post to SC list in the next days
    David
    community bylaws - where is that foundation to be based?
    Charles
    we're in the process of making a decision. not in the US, that's pretty much decided. other than that, we're still researching our options.
    David
    I'd like to have a written update, to the list, people need a kick, to get up and comment - as this is closing soon. Is surprised that there was not more feedback.
    Chris
    that needs time, and experience. many people are not so much into this. with names, or colors, ~everybody has a gut feeling - but this is a much more abstract topic. Agrees that waking up people could be good. Proposal: charles writes mail to list, announcing deadline of one week
    David
    notion that things are a bit vague - the end is still pretty vague, seems to need a bit more definitive ways of appointing people, such that there can be no controversial things in the future.
    Charles
    need to work on chairman election specifics

    Minutes 2010-11-12

    voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2010-11-12-1193838.mp3

    Minutes 2010-11-03

    voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2010-11-03-1178287.mp3

    Version Numbering Scheme for LibreOffice:

    (as requested by Sebastian Spaeth via mail)

    We are not going back to 1.0, and whatever we choose in the future, LibreOffice's first stable release will bear the 3.3 number.

    Copyright Assignment

    update on Copyright Assignment - need for more discussion or dedicated workgroup?

    There's a debate on the list, many of us have a strong opinion against Copyright assignments, some of us don't have a strong opinion on it. There seems to be perhaps some interpersonal issues at stake. One of the solution would be to setup an optional CA, but only after we are properly established as a foundation. It is just suggested that whatever we'll choose, we will wait until our proper establishment of the foundation and revisit the issue. Michael Meeks to discuss the issue further with Andrea Pescetti.

    Update on LibO 3.3 development and localization process (pootle, localizations for LibO 3.3):

    We are still not in feature freeze, some issues (esp. On Windows, branding) need to be tackled, Pootle is being successfully tested. It seems likely that once the issues are being tackled we will have an RC1 next week.Christoph raised the point of the artwork for the final release.

    Update on website (availability of Silverstripe)

    Server finally arrived, Silverstripe not yet available but will be next week, hopefully people will be able to work on the website by Monday.

    update on bylaws draft for membership / structure

    Thorsten updated us about his vision of the member and what a member should do or can do (one member-one vote principle).Charles explained the drafting work on the bylaws and how some of these details are difficult to draft as it depends on the country of the foundation. Charles will incorporate the first comments and highlight the strong points of the bylaws for the public.

    clarify rules for local documentfoundation / libreoffice domains and sites

    Advised rule: allow people to localize content, advise them to do it on our site, be flexible but be strict when it comes to representation of TDF. Statements, donations, bank accounts, mailing lists, etc. cannot mean or intend to represent TDF unless they come from the original source (us) or are authorized on a case by case basis.

    Minutes 2010-10-27

    voice recording (MP3): File:Talkyoo-537138-2010-10-27-1166256.mp3

    Attending: Thorsten, André, Sophie, Charles, Florian, Christoph, Italo, Michael Meeks, Olivier (joined some minutes later)

    missing SC-Member Caolan, Thorsten as his deputy was in the call
    + some pepople just listening (open to speak for the last 15 Minutes)

    Update on: discussion about community structure started (how to define members?) - see membership discussion summary

    • discussion has been summarized by André (see summary at the wiki)
    • skeleton and remarks from the wiki should be used to make a more formal text for the bylaws
    • task for Charles: write a more formal and concrete draft for the bylaw's member section for further discussion / approval by the SC
    • some more discussion on the questions raised at the mailing list
      • we envision to have some hundred members for the start maybe >1000 later
      • in general, rules that work for 100s will also work for 1000 members
      • decision about membership (application and rules) should be done by a democratic decision of a committee which has been appointed / convened based on merit
      • to discuss the structure for members would be the next step
        • e.g. how would the board of the foundation be elected
        • do we want each member to have a vote - flat structures - or
        • do we want to have a more cathedral like model (as in OOo with projects, project leads ... that then elect the board)
        • -> we favor flat structures instead of complex multilevel structures
    • task for Thorsten: come up with a draft for such structures

    Website: decision on CMS to use see Website/Evaluation of CMS Platforms

    • discussion about the need of the decision (only static, not easy to handle website at the moment, but having users asking for more content and volunteers willing to contribute content at the same time)
    • current choices as discussed at the website-list: Silverstripe and Drupal
      • both solutions have pro's and con's, both have teams that could setup a site
      • Silverstripe seems to be the solution that might be easier to setup, while Drupal is far more advanced and flexible
    • vote if to start with Silverstripe or Drupal
      result: 6 for Silverstripe vs. 2 for Drupal -> 2/3rd majority for Silverstripe
      reason to vote for Silverstripe was in most cases that a fast go-live is expected and that there are people to do administration and take care about content
      reason to vote for Drupal was the higher flexibility (and therefore better long-term solution) as well as having several people with good knowledge about drupal
    • suggestion is that the website team should do some more planning, what we need regarding website, additional services, and see how this can be achieved with drupal. We see the need of a more sophisticated CMS in the future.
    • task for Florian: trigger the website list to setup Silverstripe and coordinate server access, dns ...

    Decision on where to have public SC discussions

    • the SC members need a place to have public discussion (within the SC) and make decisions. This discussions should be public to have better transparency
    • suggestion is to have a public list for SC-members
    • question: should this be a SC-only list or open for messages from everyone?
    • -> answer: list should be open for everyone to post messages, but wider community should be asked to use other lists for larger discussion. If this cannot be achieved, we still can switch the list to be moderated (but this is not the preferred way)
    • task for Florian: setup mailing list for SC-discussions
      note: already done, list is steering-discuss@documentfoundation.org

    Review and prioritize a list of next steps, discuss where to make this public

    • we need to have a public list of items the SC will focus on within the next time
    • task for André: prepare a list, coordinate with Christoph / Cor and publish the item list at the wiki by Sunday

    Update on development status / 3.3 schedule

    • brief update given by Michael
      • we are on track for 3.3 - still some items to do, bugs to fix etc, but no major problems
      • code freeze and stable branch for 3.3 planned for the end of the week
      • still need to work on translation, André will coordinate with Pert Mladek how to get more translation fixes next week

    open discussion call has been opened for other people to ask questions and comment

    • problems with the size of the (windows) download packages due to the number of localizations
      • we currently have >50 localizations in the windows multilang installer
      • localizations are not the only problem for the size - we will work on reducing the package size, but likely not significantly for 3.3
    • "LibreOffice" was announced as a placeholder name - is there still the option to change the name?
      • we had it as placeholder in case Oracle would join us and we could use "OpenOffice.org"
      • as Oracle did not join but the name "LibreOffice" should be kept (in general it was perceived quite well and is already known)
      • the branding (artwork, logos ...) are not fixed yet, we should focus on improvements there

    Minutes 2010-10-20

    Attending: Andre, Charles, Christoph, Cor (a bit later), Florian, Italo, Jesús, Sophie, Thorsten

    Update on: Get discussion about community structure started (how to define members?)

    • Discussion on community structure has been started on the mailing list --> initial replies seem to express broad acceptance
    • Details:
      • Some people asked for more restricted membership (comparison: several 100 members instead of several 1000)
      • Some people asked how "entities" would become members
    • Decision: Run it further
    • André will provide a summary (most likely 2010-10-24)

    Website: should we open a "LibreOffice" website having more product-focus as soon as cms is available

    Question: do we want to have developer / user sites seperated or joint as at OOo?

    Discussion:

    • General: People ask for more information about LibreOffice (the "product")
    • Decision: Separate "user-centered" LibreOffice website will be made available as soon as CMS is available
      • Document Foundation website will be run in parallel
      • Experience with previous websites show confusion of the technical / non-technical descriptions of the software --> aim for better separation of e.g. user content and developer content
    • Christoph will announce this decision on the website list

    Discuss results of the talk between Cor and Martin and consequences for OOo Council members

    • See " OOo council minutes, item 2010-10-14#1 --> "Now that many members of the community council support the Document Foundation: how do find the best way to go on?"
    • Summary:
      • just a difficult situation
      • Oracle won't join the Document Foundation at the moment
      • conflict of interest still seen (by non-TDF team members) for people serving in roles for both the OpenOffice.org community and the Document Foundation
    • Short discussion how to enable contributions across different code bases

    Availability of marketing material

    • Branding information and first graphics material is available in the Wiki
    • Demand for presentation template --> Cedric already shared is own one on the mailing list, Christoph will work on a template with the more recent branding elements
    • Demand by users and presenters for a generic TDF/LibO presentation
      • Christoph will ask on the marketing mailing list for "overall" topics of interest
      • Italo already works on such a presentation --> content will be enhanced based on the community feedback and then be made available

    Communication issues

    • people ask for ODF compatibility --> should be communicated, Cor was even on the recent ODF plugfest and gave a LibreOffice talk
    • Pretty much information at the moment on the mailing lists --> hard to keep track when working on the TDF items, so if there is something urgent for other TDF members, then ...
      • Proposal by Cor: TDF members should ping other members via mail
      • Proposal by André: Adding the items to the phone call agenda

    Minutes 2010-10-14

    Attending: Leif, Andre, Sophie, Michael, Caolan, Italo, Thorsten, Guy, Kendy

    • What info about SC should be public?
      • minutes of the meeting, but edited for confidential items
      • agenda of the meeting, but edited for confidential items
      • if we have closed agenda items, that should be listed as "not visible"
      • how to handle minutes: we first send it to the non-public - send draft minutes, if no objections comes within 24 hours, then publish
    • beta2:
      • trigger some lists, to download & test next time
      • kendy: automate more, have more builds, and then upload the "automatic build" to the mirrors
      • beta2 is difficult to install on debian, a bug when you enter a caption, it crashes (fixed in git already)
      • patches which need translation come in until end of October, then we freeze, and translations can settle
      • Michael: instead doing a release every 3 months, we do updates when we have a new bugfix/translation fix
      • Andre: yes, but only if the processes are more automated
      • Leif: for feature releases, the 3 month release plan was actually good - easier to plan for, for translators, QA etc.
      • Leif: bugfix release can be every month - but feature releases should be planned
      • Patching on win32 - can do, but only if we don't have langpacks
      • Leif: we should define quality levels - what does it take to have a patch included?
      • Michael: We will come with dev roadmap by end of October, that also covers things like that
      • Leif: another bug - no dicts on linux
      • Thorsten: Rene has LibO debian packages in experimental
    • website infrastructure:
      • http://de.pumbaa.ooodev.org:7780/ is a silverstripe test install
      • Leif: we should, as a steering committee, make a decision on the CMS
      • Andre: this discussion happens on the website list already - any CMS is better than none - we can have a prototype in 2 days
      • steering committee asks website list for a decision on which CMS to use - within one week, otherwise we will pick.
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