TDF/BoD Meetings/2021
Minutes 2021-12-17
The Document Foundation
Formal Board of Directors Meeting 2021-12-17
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-12-17
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Cor Nouws, Thorsten Behrens, Emiliano Vavassori, Michael Meeks Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann, Shinji Enoki Community - Jan Holešovský Team - Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger, Guilhem Moulin
Representation: Nicolas for Franklin, Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences 13:02 Berlin time.
Public Part
0. Invitation and quorum (Lothar, 2 minutes)
+ invitation sent Tue, 30 Nov 2021 16:01:33 +0100 + deadline as per § 9 I: two weeks + confirming this (Thorsten)
1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF + any questions? (Lothar) + everything running fine w/ BoD elections? + majority in MC in favor to go on with current results (Uwe) + no challenge until now + board-elect to be invited for meeting in January, when challenging phase is over (Lothar) + everything fine with MC software? (Lothar) + working with Marco (Uwe) + not much time for testing, elections took quite some time + budgeting fine (Uwe) + have some reserve, want to pay for further features
Public meeting ends at 13:09 Berlin time.
Agenda items of Private Part
2. Discussion: 2022 budget (all, 30 minutes)
Rationale: The primary agenda item for this formal meeting is the discussion of the first draft of our 2022 budget, that we will finalize and approve early next year. Documents will be provided in time before the meeting via Nextcloud, the link will be shared in a separate e-mail later on.
3. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (owner of the item, all 20min)
Rationale: if there is popping up an item after sending the agenda
Private meeting ends at 13:57 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-12-03
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-12-03
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-12-03
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Thorsten Behrens, Emiliano Vavassori, Michael Meeks, Cor Nouws Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi, Nicolas Christener Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Shinji Enoki, Uwe Altmann Community - Jan Holešovský, Aron Budea Team - Florian Effenberger, Stephan Ficht, Sophie Gautier
Representation: Nicolas for Franklin, Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences 13:02 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
+ great sessions for presentation of BoD candidates (Kendy)
+ Sophie thought perhaps these could be organized for running board too twice per year
+ something like FOSDEM / LibOCon - an hour of questions
+ why not use Q&A as part of public part? (Kendy)
+ feedback is 10 minutes is not enough for harder questions
+ perhaps more time can be dedicated
+ should discuss with the MC (Sophie)
+ good that they organize it
+ important to get in touch with the community
+ action to clarify with the MC (Lothar)
+ at LibOCon - we have a session like this before closing.
+ perhaps should get a more prominent place
+ point - probably one hour is too short (Emiliano)
+ MC organised - two hours; perhaps that's enough to start discussing but difficult
+ good to have discussion in different timezones - to get different members of the community to speak
+ love two hour calls - but would like to read a transcript (Michael)
+ agreed by speakers.
+ bring these ideas to the MC (Lothar)
+ Emiliano volunteered to do this.
+ sessions were recorded (Kendy)
+ two of them - one of them somehow failed; transcript might be good too
+ might be worth considering interleaving it with FOSDEM & LibOCon
+ seemed like people were more open asking hard Q's when it was a bit more anonymous - rather than at LibOCon
+ which is good.
AI Emiliano: Contact MC to propose a much more detailed plan for these meetings
2. Information&Plan: Suggestion of an "attic" status of LOOL repository, input from subgroup, ESC inquiry (Thorsten, Emiliano, all 10min)
Rationale: Status/Follow on of the action item, timeline for decision making on that
+ should be sth on the board-discuss list (Lothar)
+ have a proposal ready? (Thorsten)
+ more or less, we worked on that (Emiliano)
+ something to discuss with more people; that's fine
+ if we want to can publish the draft
+ strongly suggest we do that (Thorsten)
+ where I stand, I'm happy with state of the draft
+ would like to hear input.
+ hopefully can turn around by E-mail vote
+ more or less the same plan (Emiliano)
+ will go to board-discuss list asking for feedback
+ if no major things to change will go through voting
+ can be done on discuss, or members list (Emiliano)
+ perhaps members is better?
+ topic was discussed in public in the past stick there (Florian)
+ discussion & agenda items in public
+ default to public
+ agree (Thorsten)
+ default is that, if need for privacy - keep it on BoD list
+ don't think there is anything problematic there
+ lets get it out & get it moving?
+ who should send it?
+ Thorsten do it tonight unless Emiliano beats him to it
+ will it start a big discussion mid-election? (Michael)
+ if there is a danger of controversy postpone by a week? (Thorsten)
+ all candidates may take part in that (Lothar)
+ during elections - may be people who have already voted (Thorsten)
+ depending on how it goes may reflect.
+ will publish on the 14th after election closes (Emiliano)
+ Thorsten take care of this (Lothar)
3. Information&Plan: Scheduling dates of BoD meetings until end of term (Lothar, all 5min)
Rationale: Planing for end of year and until next board term, FOSDEM schedule
+ more/longer meetings at FOSDEM? (Lothar)
+ not scheduled yet, but should do - wait until election is over (Florian)
+ lets give people a bit of planning time
+ usually scheduled dates - Dec 17th, invitation is out
+ this is the official meeting of the year
+ next is Dec 31st - can skip that
+ next is Jan 14th
+ next is Jan 28th - handle this with FOSDEM
+ prefer scheduling longer meetings with gaps (Thorsten)
+ new board being seated not too far from then
+ get FOSDEM meetings closer to Feb when new board is seated
+ then we cna have 28th
+ FOSDEM is Feb 5-6th (Emiliano)
+ keep either Jan 28th or 14th
+ if cancelling Dec 31st, have Jan 7th and 21st? (Kendy)
+ Kendy meant to shift the complete schedule in Jan one week before, so that FOSDEM is in the normal biweekly rythm, but that is not possible for me, I cannot guarantee to be available at the 7th of January (Lothar)
+ not possible for me but ok for others? (Lothar)
+ We meet Dec 17th, take Jan 14th, Jan 28th (Lothar)
+ Feb 11th also scheduled - last one - for handover
+ support that
+ suggest not having a FOSDEM meeting (Thorsten)
+ instead look for mid-Feb, new board on Feb 18th - Friday
+ could have something around that weekend.
+ new board already who can decide things with old board around
+ up-side: new board can already decide & find the rhythm
+ one meeting not two or three
+ fine not to have same time as FOSDEM when people are blocked (Florian)
+ fine until the 14th Jan
+ define schedule of BoD meetings Dec 17th (Lothar)
4. Budget
Rationale: Preparation of formal meeting on December 17 + preliminary version next week (Florian)
Public meeting ends at 13:22 Berlin time.
Private Part
5. Bug bounty (Florian)
Rationale: Last-minute item to talk about the planned bug bounty. Reason why in private: Legal/contractual bits.
Private meeting ends at 13:55 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-11-19
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-11-19
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-11-19
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Florian Effenberger
In the meeting:
Board - Thorsten Behrens, Lothar Becker, Michael Meeks, Cor Nouws Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann Community - Michael Weghorn, Jan Holesovsky Team - Florian Effenberger, Sophie Gautier, Guilhem Moulin
Representation: Paolo for Emiliano, Nicolas for Franklin
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences 13:03 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 5 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
+ Any questions? (Lothar)
+ no questions
2. Information: European institution sponsored bug bounty (Paolo, all 5 min Paolo)
Rationale: An European institution, to be named if we agree with the project, would like to sponsor a bug bounty for both LibreOffice desktop and On-Line
+ what is behind the bug-bounty itself? (Lothar)
+ is it search for or fixing bugs?
+ been in contact with several European institutions (Paolo)
+ helping them to create policies to promote & develop FLOSS
+ quite known in this network.
+ finally after pushing so hard: this institution has a growing
interest in LibreOffice.
+ an opportunity to organize a bug-bounty on LibreOffice Desktop
+ which allow us to find more bugs.
+ and hopefully more potential developers - which may provide fixes
+ everything sponsored by this institution.
+ now we agreed on what to do
+ initially wanted to add LOOL - but then the situation has been explained
+ like to organize things before the end of the year
+ since we don't know yet what we do with it.
+ so everything is focused on the desktop version
+ through board & TDF staff - have a team that can look after this opportunity.
+ questions - every bug - not just security? (Lothar)
+ all types of bugs yes (Paolo)
+ what is paid? (Lothar)
+ the bounties - and the org. that manages the bounties (Paolo)
+ little reaction to requests for feedback to the board.
+ more info. when have a team confirming TDF is willing to participate.
+ have all the info required.
+ have this great opportunity - need feedback & support from volunteer
+ thanks for putting this together & reasonable scope (Michael)
+ if security focused - Caolan should be involved with this
+ if more generic - then Xisco is a good guy
+ concerned it stays under umbrella of TDF (Paolo)
+ so stays inside that - for benefit of TDF & LibreOffice
+ no problem with this (Michael)
+ good to get Italo & Mike from Marketing involved too (Paolo)
+ also Sophie to promote it in France.
+ great idea - will reach out & get them in the loop (Florian)
+ think it's a good initiative.
+ think it's great (Paolo)
+ don't have time & skills, stopped developing 15 years ago.
+ would be nice for someone on the team to get control
on the platform
+ will pass those contacts on.
+ there is an intermediary that does payments etc.? (Michael)
+ yes, main contact is institution - cnx. made to bounty org (Paolo)
+ got what you need? (Lothar)
+ need confirmation from the board (Paolo)
+ supportive (Michael, Thorsten)
+ consensus from BoD to go ahead.
AI: Florian: bring this to next week's team call
+ will write to them - Florian will take control to organize it (Paolo)
+ a good thing to get it done somehow (Cor)
+ usual comment (Thorsten)
+ good to get this done but:
+ struggle is normally to get bugs fixed
+ great to get funding for not just finding but fixing.
+ agree (Paolo)
+ participated with several institutions
+ which provide funds for development
+ this one could be a starting-point, as they did for Jitsi
+ could organize a Hackathon
+ should develop something for LibreOffice
+ getting more people involved
+ other ways - can organize somehow - to get direct funding for TDF to be spent in development.
+ have developers inside TDF to deal with un-touched bugs.
+ a good oppo to do that as well.
+ agree (Thorsten)
+ OpenSSL - started with a security review, and developed into EU putting some money on the table.
+ shouldn't stop with this.
+ is there anything they want in exchange? (Kendy)
+ absolutely nothing (Paolo)
+ benefit getting - from my effort, getting more aware of where they should invest money
+ been part of meetings - where with this institution, trying to find a way to fund more projects.
+ positive side to work Paolo & others are doing in the institutions
+ for them - want to help foundations & institutions that invest in Open Source.
+ understand it is crucial for technologial & digital sovereignty.
3. Information&Plan: Suggestion of an "attic" status of LOOL repository, input from subgroup, ESC inquiry (Thorsten, Emiliano, all 10min)
Rationale: Status/Follow on of the action item, timeline for decision making on that
+ unclear if possible to discuss without Emiliano (Lothar)
+ postponed from the last board call.
+ any news? when we get input from the sub-group
+ have been discussing with infra / Christian / Guilhem (Thorsten)
+ think we're almost there
+ don't feel comfortable proposing it without Emiliano signing off on it.
+ can't speak for Emiliano
+ waiting too long - suggest go to board-discuss
+ and propose / vote it there.
+ can postpone one more time if Lothar thinks it is necessary.
+ wondering if a simple E-mail for board to see status (Paolo)
+ to understand the directino it is taking.
+ what discussing; seems to be consensus (Thorsten)
+ will propose something like an 'Attic'
+ where retired, no-longer-updated, unmaintained projects can be relegated to
+ and some pre-requisites to get them out of the Attic
+ so not there permanently - if renewed interest, a proposal on that, can get re-activated
+ talked to Guilhem on how best to do that
+ a separate R/O git repo - where it is reasonably easy to get it out
+ think it's fair not pushing forward without Emiliano.
+ proposal is confirm current status - keep as R/O? (Paolo)
+ or allow people to play around see some bugs to fix?
+ it's neither (Thorsten)
+ lets wait for the proposal
Public meeting ends at 13:21 Berlin time.
Private Part
4. Discuss & further steps: Follow up discussion on legal consultation with an attorney (Emiliano, all 15min)
Rationale: Discuss some of the indications out of consultation Reason why in private: discuss on legal matters regarding TDF
5. Status: CoI policy text (Legal Subgroup, all 15min)
Rationale: Discussion about Status of the CoI policy text version and further steps Reason why in private: Discussion of preliminary text version/alternative
6. Inform: Communications about contracts (Emiliano, all 10min)
Rationale: Discuss contractual regulations Reason why in private: contracting is by default confidential
Private meeting ends at 14:03 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Florian Effenberger (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-11-05
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-11-05
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-11-05
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Emiliano Vavassori, Thorsten Behrens, Michael Meeks, Cor Nouws Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi, Nicolas Christener Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Community - Michael Weghorn Team - Stephan Ficht, Sophie Gautier, Ilmari Lauhakangas
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences 13:03 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF + any Q'? (Lothar)
2. Information: Short report on an invitation to be present as TDF in a meeting of a digital ministry about their shift to open source (Thorsten, Lothar 5min)
Rationale: Share information about learned status and role of LibreOffice in this project/environment and a planed additional 1:1 meeting as follow on of the last year's meeting
+ in Germany different levels of initiatives to bring government to open source (Lothar)
+ one initiative from federal state
+ decision in the state government in favor of open source
+ for office sw
+ cloud based products (Thorsten)
+ C'bora on the cloud side, client side is LibreOffice
+ VIS document management system integration, seems working
+ rolled out in ~100 places, going soon in one ministery
+ special solutions choosen because can be modulized (Lothar)
+ using standard file formats, ODF
+ very intereting meeting scheduled next monday
+ some questions from federal state
+ should be a contact with the ecosystem to improve the core
+ will hint to whole ecosystem for doing such things
+ have to be in contact w. ecosystem companies
+ discussing technical stuff on monday (Thorsten)
+ political will to try things
+ generally very encouraging development
+ what devices to use? (Nicolas)
+ usual client hardware (Lothar)
+ their service provider is trying to support all kinds of H/W across Germany
+ are open to new ways of working
+ 25k computers published on joinup (Paolo)
+ interesting project
3. Status: AI from board meeting 08th of October: conducting a proposal with a change from the "temporal freeze" to an "attic"-status of the LOOL repository (Emiliano, Thorsten, all 10min)
Rationale: Status of the action item, timeline for decision making on that
+ idea was to have a frame (Lothar)
+ what actual status?
+ not the first project to do it (Thorsten)
+ taking pages out of other project's books
+ brainstorming around naming: is 'attic' or 'freezer' good?
+ kicking around thoughts there; not yet ready to vote on etc.
+ a fair summary - trying to define details (Emiliano)
+ exchanged understandings
+ perhaps ready in a short time
+ when to bring it on the Agenda (Lothar)
AI: bring proposal to next BoD call (Thorsten, Emiliano)
+ Attic is not necessarily the definitive state of the project (Emiliano)
+ possibility that it is revived within some boundaries
+ brought into the normal flow of working in TDF there
+ is implied here - Apache has this (Thorsten)
+ defined gating criteria to get out of the attic again
+ needs to be critical mass, and very likely an active community around the project
Public meeting ends at 13:26 Berlin time.
Private Part
4. Discuss & further steps: New answers from law firm, resume and follow on with items, timeline (all 10min)
Rationale: Discussion on understanding and consequences for app-store offerings and bizz entity, what from the advice should be and can be shared Reason why in private: Discussion about legal text from law firm for aspects of offering alternatives and organizational items
5. Discuss: CoI policy
Rationale: Discussing and understanding a version of the policy,defining where to ask legal advice and how to do that Reason why in private: preliminary wordings of a legal text for rules of procedure
Private meeting ends at 14:00 Berlin time
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-10-22
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-10-22
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-10-22
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Emiliano Vavassori, Lothar Becker, Thorsten Behrens, Cor Nouws, Michael Meeks Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Team - Florian Effenberger, Stephan Ficht, Guilhem Moulin Community - Jan Holesovsky
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences 13:03 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
+ need one official meeting (Lothar)
+ haven't it yet (Florian)
+ usually during conf
+ two weeks to invite
+ Friday, December 17 - for budget planning
+ every one fine? (Lothar)
+ agreed
Public meeting ends at 13:05 Berlin time.
Private Part
2. Discuss & further steps: Conflict of interest policy for the board as part of the Rules of Procedures (legal subgroup, all 45min)
Rationale: Discussing and understanding a version of the policy, defining where to ask legal advice and how to do that Reason why in private: preliminary wordings of a legal text for rules of procedure, before legal advice
3. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (owner of the item, all 5min)
Rationale: if there is popping up an item after sending the agenda – no item popped up –
Private meeting ends at 14:02 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-10-08
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-10-08
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-10-08
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Emiliano Vavassori, Lothar Becker, Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann Team - Florian Effenberger, Stephan Ficht, Sophie Gautier, Italo Vignoli Community - Jan Holešovský
Representation: Paolo for Daniel, Nicolas for Franklin (Franklin asks for email votes)
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences 13:04 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
+ any questions? (Lothar) + get the email on mission/vision item (Uwe) + interesting mail from Emiliano (Kendy) + can the board share details? - CoI policy + something specific about it? (Emiliano) + discussing the need for a CoI policy in general + a proposal for a month - we are discussing it + not broad consensus on it, but is consensus on a written policy + written in mail: see it as a starting point + not the definitive version TDF should have. + makes sense to have it - others outside the board have worked on & checked it is there it is ready - lets start from there. + still some ongoing discussion? (Kendy) + point is - sorry not followed all the mails (Emiliano) + been very busy + replies to Simon were terribly late, that's why. + did not follow the last developments. + are ongoing discussions (Paolo) + some directors think we should start with this policy + expect a vote soon on it if no full consensus. + for something as far reaching as this (Thorsten) + would serve the board well to try to reach consensus + building that is laborious & sometimes frustrating + for the best of TDF would be something everyone can get behind + lots of interests represented on the board, best place to reach consensus is there + otherwise things/conflict tend to spill out into the community + given the lack of understanding of the text (Michael) + deeply concerning to see it pushed to a vote prematurely + happy to hear from Thorsten (Kendy) + ideal is reaching consensus - love it.
2. Ideas, Discuss & Plan: Collect ideas and follow-ons, procedure and decision about the temporary freeze of the online-source-repo (Lothar, Florian, all 10 minutes)
Rationale: Reflect experience about freeze and potential contributors, collect alternative ideas, plan the way to overcome the status for "temporary" and find a final decision also for clear communications * [DECISION] LibreOffice Online - repository and translations https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/gVuesWC6ZI0MUequqiqJ3nrc * [DECISION] LibreOffice Online freeze-related topics https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/4bCUE2Lh2ffa-M8da8zEfPF7 * [DECISION] LibreOffice Online information in the release notes https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/Re7H9rGAUUc1ToGpjlVboXrz
+ situation is now that we have decided temporary freeze (Lothar) + decide how to go on now + would you share the idea? (Paolo) + temporary freeze is a problem (Lothar) + proposal - clearly say; not shutdown repo itself - have source code for whomsoever it can be to help + clearly say - we are not for the moment - making binaries of it. + like the basic idea (Emiliano) + if the case - start of dicussion, open-source code + clearly state: not security inspected, not for production, no binaries at all + a motivation to contribute to the core source? (Lothar) + to get new contributors to engage them into the core? + to attract people who can play on use it etc. (Paolo) + overtly hostile act, creates a competing project (Michael) + serious danger of making TDF look silly + Marco's talk is of taking code from outside the project to do this. + do I still feel (Emiliano) + now have fixes in security + having a version not maintained actively a threat + create competing SW product puts me in complicated position + don't think it's necessary + how do you do it? take our code and call it "LibreOffice Online"? + use the LibreOffice brand to drive this fork? (Michael) + no active activity from TDF on this side (Emiliano) + that is what it was, no active contributions to it from TDF / others + experimental, not product ready, unsecure + provided without any warranty + not to be marketed as a product, ready for production + if someone really wants to have a platform - send them to COOL + surprised - seen presentation from Marco (Paolo) + said code has been forked, looking at the code + each file - says 'this is part of the LibreOffice project' + a moment in time - LOOL was hosted by TDF + the vast majority of contribution came from Collabora - always clear + having left the code for a year + a huge amount of difference + don't see major issues. + here are the warnings & limits. + the repo that has always been there - for LOOL + don't seen it as a hostile act. + there are only bad options here for TDF (Thorsten) + alienating large contributors a bad thing + having un-clarity is bad as a message + not having any community developing on that a problem. + not sure what to do really + what other projects do: + if: not maintained, not production ready, no security updates + they move that into an 'attic' + still there's a repo - etc. - you can re-open it if there is renewed interest. + clearly TDF can provide the storage space - still there, open-source + but not actively maintained. + no issue with putting it in an attic (Emiliano). + attic - positive framing (Michael) + I see few benefits of lending the LibreOffice brand to this for TDF, and many risks. + will be recused from voting on it + have an attic, and/or sync from Collabora? (Nicolas) + which do you have in mind? + like Thorsten said - nothing to steal (Lothar) + just what is there, to mention / have a look do something etc. + not maintained as product / project etc. + be aware of security issues. + open a one year old code-base, not maintained, if people work on it & we have a fork + think we don't have to back-port from Collabora (Emiliano) + appreciate statement from Nicolas + send it to the attic + an experimental project - just play with it + we're not going anywhere with that code. + write it in a sentence & discuss by E-mail (Lothar)
AI: + try to knock something up with Emiliano (Thorsten) - agreed (Emiliano)
3. Discuss&Plan: Setting a rough timeline about the business entity decision between the presented alternatives (Lothar, Florian, all 10 minutes)
Rationale: Clarifying status, what to do, what could be a time table to have a decision in doing or not
+ want to give first my view (Lothar) + think to finish with legal advisor & write up a synopsis on it + finish discussion wether we want or not business entity + do we need a business entity? (Paolo) + follow up call with legal advisor is next week thursday Oct 14th (Florian) + define timeline (Lothar) + initial proposals are from a year back (Florian)
4. Discuss: Adding LibreOffice Technology logo to COOL (Lothar, Michael, Italo all 10 minutes)
Rationale: Discussion around "granting" policy for LibreOffice Technology logo and linking each other via websites
+ pleased to be part of the LibreOffice community + LibreOffice Technology help->about dialog ... link to the logo + also link to a C'bra hosted page about LibreOffice Technology + and reviewed with Italo and the Marketing team. + absolutely this is the intention (Italo) + to have ecosystem companies & members in general + who are generally contributing in some way + either individually (professionally), or as an org. to use the LibreOffice Technology concept + and if possible the LibreOffice Ecosystem logo in some area + not clearly defined - don't see quite where to use it. + think the idea that explains it & links back to the whitepaper on the LibreOffice website / synopsis + is the right approach + putting in place additional elements to strength use of logos + hopefully other ecosystem partners will use it (Lothar) + do we need a license / granting. + decided in the past to let the marketing team to do it (Michael) + add to the page where the logos will be hosted (Italo) + a couple of paragraphs - Marketing team is responsible. + of course, if not used according to good common sense + then TDF will enforce it. + logos are a property of TDF + if you want to use it talk to Marketing (Italo) + patch to TM license to make this fly? (Michael) + push to license page + if shipped in software - will need Grandfathering clauses (Michael) + but because it's online - can pull it down immediately. + what is grandfathering? (Nicolas) + gives a smooth transition out of refusal of permission (Michael) + curious if board people are ok with this? (Michael) + Lothar ok, Paolo - just fine, Thorsten, Emiliano too.
Public meeting ends at 13:38 Berlin time.
Private Part
5. Discuss: legal advisor questions (Florian, all 5 minutes)
Rationale: Discussion about the answered questions and decision on the next steps, what from the advice should be and can be shared (MC inquiry for it) Reason why in private: Discussion about a legal text
6. Discuss: Problem statement about the app store offering and what to inquire for a solution (Cor, all, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Decide on the problem statement and a subgroup/persons what to do for it Reason why in private: not already published (financial) informations will come up, confidentiality about preliminary ideas needed also with respect to the app store hoster
7. Last-minute: CoI policy
Private meeting ends at 14:02 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-09-10
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-09-10
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-09-10
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Franklin Weng
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Franklin Weng, Emiliano Vavassori, Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Dennis Roczek, Shinji Enoki Team - Sophie Gautier, Guilhem Moulin, Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger Community - Jan Holešovský
Representation: Franklin to represent Lothar, Paolo to represent Cor
Deputy Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences at 13:04 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
+ any questions? (Franklin)
2. Inform: LibOCon status update (team, 5 minutes)
Rationale: Get information about status of conference
* have weekly sync calls in the team * schedule: no changes, deadline end of this week, current version at https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2021/09/01/libreoffice-conference-2021/ * sponsors: Collabora, allotropia, LPI, possibly a fourth one coming up; videos to be recorded early next week * conferencing system: * streaming to YouTube: in progress * streaming to a website: in progress * video playback: working * idea is to have "non-interactive" attendees/listeners via website or YouTube, interaction then via Jitsi * moderators to coordinate questions from IRC, Matrix, Telegram * feedback from FOSDEM and DebConf factored in, we reached out to them * talks * template has been sent * prerecorded talks get sent in slowly * upload of slides during and after LibOCon, via Pretalxs * recording: via both dedicated hardware that's in place now, and via YouTube as backup * test session planned for next week, for streaming/recording/moderation * t-shirt to be shipped to board, MC, team, speakers, sponsors; available in store for attendees * Matrix rooms, bridges to IRC, bridged to Telegram: will be created * Hybrid conference in Hamburg: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/DE/Hybrid-LibOCon2021 * so far 114 attendees registered (for virtual LibOCon) * conference app in progress
+ some updates? (Franklin) + deadline for schedule changes end of this week (Florian) + conference recording this week + infrastructure working well + got advise from other conferences + slides provided after LibOCon + test streaming recording scheduled next week + merch has been sent + hybrid conf in Hamburg + opportunity to meet (Thorsten) + what is the streaming system? (Thorsten) + a hack - a headless Chromium - send 1 to youtube and another elsewhere + converting streams too + tests of peertube live? (Paolo) + privacy solved by streaming on our website (Florian) + not looked at peertube + can look at having a stream to my peertube server (Paolo) + asked about streaming to telegram (Dennis) + more streams - more brittle (Guilhem) + more to test + system now solves privacy concern + can someone in the community bridge it themselves? + no problem (Guilhem)
3. Discuss: LibOCon internal meetings on September 27 (Florian, 5 minutes)
Rationale: Plan joint meeting with board, MC and team on September 27
* Monday, September 27, 1200-1500 Berlin time (1000-1300 UTC) * proposal to have 90 minutes joint meeting, followed by 90 minutes board meeting * marketing plan situation (Italo) * certification (Italo) * Tuesday, September 28, 1200-1500 Berlin time (1000-1300 UTC) * board-only meeting
+ collecting items for the agenda (Florian) + next steps marketing plan
Public meeting ends at 13:19 Berlin time.
Private Part
4. Discuss: legal advisor questions (Thorsten, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Discussion about the answered questions and decision on the next steps Reason why in private: Discussion about a legal text
5. Discuss: Possible transfer of domain names (Thorsten, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Decide on whether we want to continue keeping a number of domains reserved for the business entity Reason why in private: Don't encourage domain squatters in case we decide to relinquish
6. Last-minute addition: Discussion around an internal policy document: process (Emiliano, 5 minutes)
Rationale: Discussion around policy document and next steps in the process Reason why in private: The proposed item is private, because it will possibly regulate the functioning of the Board only and the document is not yet approved by the board
7. Last-minute addition: Discussion: Windows 11 app store (Paolo, 10 minutes)
Rationale: Italo's e-mail from August 27 at 09:27CET, discussion about status and next steps Reason why in private: Private as part of new potential strategies to be evaluated
Private meeting ends at 13:59 Berlin time.
Franklin Weng (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-08-27
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-08-27
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-08-27
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Franklin Weng (left earlier), Cor Nouws, Emiliano Vavassori, Thorsten Behrens (joined later) Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Marina Latini Membership Committee Deputies - Team - Stephan Ficht, Sophie Gautier, Florian Effenberger, Italo Vignoli, Guilhem Moulin Community - Mike Schinagl
Representation: Nicolas for Michael, Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:01 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF. + any questions? (Lothar)
2. Inform: 1 month to LibOCon 2021 - Status (Florian/Team, all 5min)
Rationale: Get information about status and where help from board is needed
Conference: Thursday, September 23-Saturday, September 25
Schedule: https://events.documentfoundation.org/libocon2021/schedule/
Internal meetings:
Monday, September 27, 1200-1500 Berlin time, board+MC+team Tuesday, September 28, 1200-1500 Berlin time, board only
+ all looks quite well so far (Florian)
+ schedule ist public
+ meetigs are scheduled Sept 26 and 27
+ sponsorship is going well
+ merch, recording prepared
+ some tech questions (Italo)
+ hybrid conf in Hamburg (Lothar)
+ perhaps can do it to go to Hamburg
- we have Collabora, allotropia, LPI and maybe CarboneIO as sponsors - schedule is finalized and published - speakers are invited to upload their talks - waiting for LPI logo to send the template to speakers - merchandise at Freewear shop is online - Freewear has the list of T-shirt to be sent out for Board, speakers and team (25 in total) - registration form is online, communication about it done on all channels - we have currently 7 volunteers for moderation - material for videos recording has been ordered and sent - sponsors will also have private rooms, provided by TDF, managed by sponsors
What is left for now: - we have to decide how we proceed for YouTube - we have to organize the training session for moderators - we have to test the streaming and recording - Italo will do a blog post summarizing the info - finalizing agenda for the internal meetings - app for conference is working in progress, will be done for the conference
3. Plan: How to handle next pre-scheduled board meeting at 10th of September (Lothar, all 5 min)
Rationale: Lothar will be not available from 1st to 16th of September (incl) + Lothar will not be able to participate + suggests to have the meeting + fine for Franklin -> meeting will take place on September 10 + Cor might not make it either
Public meeting ends at 13:09 Berlin time.
Private Part
Marina Latini and Mike Schinagl stay in the call
4. Discussion, Q&A: Conflict of Interest Policy for MC and Board (Marina, all 25 minutes)
Rationale: Board information about MC CoI policy text, status of legal proofread, adaption to the board Reason why in private: Discussion about a legal text
Marina Latini and Michael Schinagl leave the call
5. Inform: Status 2nd round legal advisor questions (Florian, Lothar, all 5min)
Rationale: Florian delivered statements, what/when is next Reason why in private: Confidential items for advice, preliminary discussion of offerings
Private meeting ends at 14:01 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-07-30
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-07-30
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-07-30
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Thorsten Behrens, Lothar Becker, Emiliano Vavassori, Cor Nouws, Franklin Weng Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann, Shinji Enoki Team - Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger, Sophie Gautier, Guilhem Moulin Community -
Representation: Nicolas for Michael, Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:02 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF.
* no feedback on tenders received:
* autoupdater: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2021/msg00187.html
* dynamic diagram: https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/2021/msg00186.html
+ any questions? (Lothar)
+ had two tenders, happy about feedback (Florian)
+ both are fine and in a good state
+ publication likely next week (Florian)
2. Discuss&Plan: LibOCon 2021 - Status update and further planing of the meeting schedule (Florian, all 10min)
Rationale: get information about status and talk proposals, to fix concrete date and time for the usual (joined) body meetings
* conference: Thursday, September 23 - Saturday, September 25
* CfP ended, scheduling in progress
* sponsorship packages still available
* internal meetings: Monday, September 27 and Tuesday, September 28, 12:00-15:00 Berlin time (10:00-13:00 UTC)
* Which meetings to have? board, board+MC, board+MC+team? -> needs scheduling for the two days
* proposal: Monday joint (BoD+MC+team) meetings, Tuesday then board-only
+ anything needed from BoD side? (Lothar)
+ Italo working on the schedule (Sophie)
+ logo contest finished and decided on the logo
+ block monday Sept 27 for joined meetings (Florian)
+ tuesday Sept 28 for BoD meeting only 12-15 Berlin time
+ will use Jitsi
+ funding Jitsi is work in progress
+ how about prerecording? (Thorsten)
+ plannings are going in this way (Florian)
+ strongly suggest prerecording (Thorsten)
+ define the procedure for the best outcome
+ provide necessary technical settings (Guilhem)
+ will offer videos on our website directly, no need for PeerTube (Florian)
+ hosting in EU for GDPR reasons (Paolo)
+ proposing BBB available if needed (Paolo)
Public meeting ends at 13:17 Berlin time.
Private Part
3. Discuss&Plan: 2nd round legal advice questions - (Florian, Lothar all 20min)
Rationale: Florian is finalizing the draft by Tuesday, then we can agree on the final version and next steps during Friday's call Reason why in private: Confidential items for advice, preliminary discussion of offerings
4. Information: Status of capital investment/wealth management (Stephan/Florian, Lothar, Thorsten, all 5 min)
Rationale: board information about status of cooperation with bank and its transactions Reason why in private: Preliminary informations about contracts and transactions
Private meeting ends at 13:41 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-07-16
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-07-16
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-07-16
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, Cor Nouws, Emiliano Vavassori Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi, Nicolas Christener Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann Team - Guilhem Moulin, Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger Community - Kendy (Jan Holesovsky)
Representation: Nicolas for Franklin, Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:02 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF.
* any questions? (Lothar)
* feedback on Next Decade Manifesto (Uwe)
* short statement not very appreciated
* says less than nothing on our community
* please leave as is (the longer version)
* got some contacts via FSFE (Nicolas)
* don't know them personally
* check costs then decide if to go on (Lothar)
* work in progress (Nicolas)
* inform Uwe (Lothar)
* low intensity discussion inside MC (Uwe)
* what about the tender? (Uwe)
* will proceed if no concerns (Florian)
Public meeting ends at 13:08 Berlin time.
Private Part
X. Last-minute: Proposal for MC tender (2 minutes, Florian)
2. Discuss&Plan: the legal advice meeting: Answers, Consequences and Follow up (Lothar, Florian, all 40min)
Rational: Sharing of understanding, Discussion about consequences, planing further actions on it reason why in private: confidential items for advice, preliminary discussion of offerings
Private meeting ends at 13:51 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-07-02
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-07-02
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-07-02
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Thorsten Behrens, Michael Meeks, Emiliano Vavassori, Cor Nouws Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Shinji Enoki Team - Sophie Gautier, Florian Effenberger, Italo Vignoli, Stephan Ficht Community -
Representation: Nicolas for Franklin (asks for e-mail votes), Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:03 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF. * any questions? (Lothar)
2. Discuss&Plan: Marketing Input to a draft update of trademark policies and certification process for approval (Florian, Italo, all 10min)
Rational: Italo asked for feedback and approval from the board, if there is a need we head over in private
* propose few changes to certification (Italo)
* proposal #1 creation of a basic certification and creation of online training for that
* for migration, based evaluation what they did for projects
* easy path to certification was missing
* receive increasing number of applications outside the project, with no specific activities
* provide course leading to basic certification, 39 à 25 minutes via video
* based on Udemi, also used by others
* fee for each training, to be handled via TDF business entity
* looking into how to handle payment, risk to exclude some participants
* TDF to limit direct access to migration professional and professional trainers to TDF members
* non-members have to attend basic certification, 12 months waiting time to proof projects, then can apply for professional certification
* people who contribute to the certification project itself will get a senior title, for differentiation and showing seniority
* encouragement to contribute to certification project
* no changes for developer certification, but propose a senior title for developers who contribute for certification
* will have a deeper look into (Lothar)
* idea is fine
* happy with the overall idea (Michael)
* connected to that, change in trademark handling
* seems a logical consequence of what just discussed (Lothar)
- AI Italo: need to consolidate feedback
* appreciate proposal (Emiliano)
* will only to qualify people to become trainer (Italo)
* then they can propose training to the outside world
- AI Italo: start email vote
* likely will abstain to avoid impression of CoI (Lothar) * but generally in favor
Public meeting ends at 13:18 Berlin time.
Private Part
X. Last-minute: law firm appointment
3. Discussion: App Store offering TDF and status and orga of the legal advice meeting (Lothar, Florian, all 40min)
Rational: Discussion about the need and sort of offerings in the app store beside the upcoming legal advice, orga of the call Reason why in private: Confidential items for advice, preliminary discussion of offerings
Private meeting ends at 14:00 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-06-04
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-06-04
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-06-04
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Cor Nouws, Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens, Emiliano Vavassori Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Team - Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger, Sophie Gautier, Guilhem Moulin Community -
Representation: Nicolas for Franklin [asks to have any votes done via e-mail], Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:03 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF.
* Quick update on new mentor (Florian)
* will start June 21
* someone already active in the community
* (video) interview to introduce currently prepared by Italo and Mike
* any questions? (Lothar)
* update dev mentor (Florian)
* starting date is June 21
* discussion on next decade manifesto is slowing down (Cor)
* should drive this process forward (Lothar)
* happy to see involvement from MC, members
* got stuck in 'hole' (Cor)
+ not convinced widening the input helps get us out
* remember two parts (Emiliano)
+ board part
+ and public part
+ need to review the latter to get it out there
+ vision part will need more work.
* get in touch with Uwe, bring it to community? (Lothar)
+ not consensus on community part.
+ not sure what the issue is (Michael)
+ Michael & Cor gave some feedback
+ no follow-up on it.
* How about combining this with a saturday meeting? (Lothar)
+ ask Uwe to come to our next one.
2. Discuss&Plan: (longer) Saturday meeting in June needed? (Lothar, Florian, all 5min)
Rationale: we agreed to have longer time slots for deeper discussions from time to time, planing the next one
* option 1: Saturday, June 12 -> no Nicolas, no Lothar
* option 2: Saturday, June 19 -> no Nicolas, ~Cor, no Lothar
* option 3: Saturday, June 26 -> no Michael, try this (Paolo)? ...
+ Berlin time 12->15:00
* option 4: Saturday, July 3 -> no Cor / Thorsten
* next decade manifesto to be an item!? (Lothar)
* widely agreed to have such a meeting (All)
* agreed for June 26, Berlin time 12->15:00
3. Discuss&Plan: internal meetings around LibOCon (Florian, all 10min)
Rationale: when and how do we do the usual meetings with all bodies around LiboCon * LibOCon is Thursday, September 23 to Saturday, September 25 * in-person meetings in the full group seem very unlikely * option 1: Saturday, September 18 * option 2: Saturday, October 2 * option 3: Monday, September 27 and Tuesday, September 28 * not plan for full in person meeting (Florian)
* planned: BoD-meeting, joined BoD+MC+team
* AI Florian: send invites for 27 and 28th, feedback in a week from now -> then finalizing it
Public meeting ends at 13:22 Berlin time.
Agenda items of Private Part
4. Inform&Plan: status and orga of the legal consultation for business entity as follow up (Lothar, Florian 10min)
Rationale: informing about status, defining participants, questions Reason why in private: confidential items for advice
5. Discuss&Plan: (status of and) further handling of LibreOffice licence agreements (Florian, all 15min)
Rationale: plan to further handle that after 01.07. Reason why in private: confidential informations about future licence policies and holders
Private meeting ends at 13:51 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-05-07
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-05-07
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-05-07
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Franklin Weng
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Franklin Weng, Thorsten Behrens, Michael Meeks, Emiliano Vavassori, Daniel Rodriguez (from 13:20 on) Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Shinji Enoki, Uwe Altmann Team - Florian Effenberger, Italo Vignoli, Stephan Ficht, Guilhem Moulin Community - Jan Holešovský
Representation: Nicolas for Lothar, Paolo for Cor
Deputy Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences at 13:04 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF.
+ any questions? (Franklin)
+ opinion from the board wrt marketing plan (Italo)
+ questions on the marketing plan, opinion from the board needed
1. use of the libreoffice technology term
+ this can also apply to licenses of the LibreOffice brand
2. use of other terms - that are in the plan
+ like LibreOffice Enterprise (not a product name, but rather a tag)
+ there's a document that explains how to use this terms
+ but the board never expressed a formal opinion
+ since we're now using it, wise to get a dedicated board opinion
+ not super urgent - but before announcing 7.2 in any case
+ should we have a TM license for LibreOffice Technology? (Michael)
+ don't think so - limits usage (Italo)
+ not a lawyer etc.
+ makes sense to extend TM guidelines (Michael, Thorsten)
+ can re-distribute the document (Italo)
+ have a formal agenda item - comment / approve / disapprove
it would help the team.
+ would help to have something ready to vote on
in terms of change to public TM guidelines (Michael)
+ https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/Policies/Trademark_Policy
+ think should find a way to encourage contributors to use the term (Italo)
+ come up with some rules there.
+ that is wider than the logo license.
+ like community members to use it.
+ happy to meet and try to come up with a draft (Michael)
+ look at the document and decide what to do next (Italo)
+ Dev-mentor query? (Kendy)
+ last time here asked; is that ongoing?
+ we have a final candidate (Florian)
+ formalities pending
+ should have a positive announcement in the next 1-2 weeks.
Public meeting ends at 13:15 Berlin time.
Private Part
X. Last-Minute: Quick update on two contracts (Florian, 5 minutes)
Daniel joins at 13:20
2. Inform: Quarterly Information of status of wealth management (Lothar, Florian, Stephan 10min)
Rationale: Informing about status, questions reason why in private: because of preliminary process informations about transactions
3. Discuss&Plan: (Status of and) further handling of LibreOffice Licence agreements (Florian, all 15min)
Rationale: Plan to further handle that after 01.07. reason why in private: because of confidential informations about future licence policies and holders
Private meeting ends at 13:43 Berlin time.
Franklin Weng (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-04-23
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-04-23
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-04-23
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Emiliano Vavassori, Thorsten Behrens, Lothar Becker, Michael Meeks, Cor Nouws, Franklin Weng Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann Team - Sophie Gautier, Florian Effenberger, Stephan Ficht, Guilhem Moulin Community - Simon Phipps
Representation: Paolo for Daniel
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:03 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF.
+ any questions? (Lothar)
+ sent new version of vision statement three weeks ago to all board members (Uwe) "Next decade manifesto: Result of the meeting 31.3." - 05.04.21, 10:16 Message-ID: <ae172a90-154e-6dc1-d929-4dd7e315e775@libreoffice.org>
+ up to now no response at all
+ did you get this mail?
+ email received (Thorsten)
+ just wanted to be sure that email arrived (Uwe)
+ email not received (Paolo)
+ waiting for decision from the board
+ got email an have to organize an answer (Lothar)
+ please send again to be sure to have the right one
2. Inform&Discuss: Status of annual filings and report (Florian, all 5min)
* Status and feedback so far, deadline for feedback, initializing or running vote on it
Rationale: We have filings and reports in public, so let's discuss in public first. We can move to private if needed.
* financial report finalized
* English activity report finalized
* German activity report in final proofreading/review (Florian)
* vote for approval sent to directors@
-> Please vote, it runs until tomorrow, 16:22 Berlin time (14:22 UTC)
* Florian to handle the filings then
+ doing the final bits and pieces (Florian)
+ finalizing the Annual Report
+ english version is finished already
3. Inform&Discuss: Status of FSF temporary suspension from the advisory
board (Lothar, Florian, all 5min) + the board has discussed the matter, and concluded that at this time no further action is warranted + the topic is to be reviewed again in about 6 weeks
4. Discuss: Business entity (Thorsten, Uwe, Lothar, Florian, all 15min)
* first meeting with attorney, summary and discussion, further steps, further help from attorney * Two existing proposals in https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/NeBWm25cd2LHyoq - Germany and Luxembourg Rationale: We asked the public to send proposals, so let's discuss in public first. We can move to private if needed. + had call with attorney (Lothar) + just give some details (Thorsten) + then go to private if necessary + two options, German and Luxembourg entity (Florian) + TDF investments must have a perspective of generating revenues + need to find out how SIS can do that, thing seem easier for GmbH + needs clarification + questions on parameters and some fundamental questions raised + good conversation with the attorney (Lothar) + very helpful to have them with us + seconded (Thorsten, Uwe) + strongly recommended to talk with authorities in advance (Uwe) + will need a tax attorney for that + get written statement + would be nice to have proper answers from German Ministries/Authorities (Paolo) + as for the Luxembourg proposal + any questions? (Lothar)
Public meeting ends at 13:18 Berlin time.
Private Part
5. (optional) Discuss: Business entity (Thorsten, Lothar, Florian, all time incl. see above)
6. (optional) Discuss: Status of annual filings and report (Florian, all time incl. see above)
7. (optional) Discuss: Status of FSF temporary suspension from the advisory board (Lothar, Florian, all time incl. see above)
8. Inform&Discuss: Informing and Discussing about the idea to involve a company as new member in the advisory board (Lothar, Florian, all 5min)
Rationale: Informing and discussing open questions and further process reason why in private: preliminary idea, names with it
9. Discuss&Plan: (Status of) Hiring a development mentor (Lothar, Nicolas, Florian, all 5min)
Rationale: Informing and discussing open questions and further process reason why in private: Human resources
10. Discuss&Plan: Status of 2021 Running and planed tenders, tender framework (Florian, Lothar All 10min)
Rationale: inform about preliminary status view of running and planing for next tenders according to tender framework searching for proposals of persons for tender roles reason why in private: Confidential items (like names, preliminary status view, fiscal issues, timeline)
Private meeting ends at 13:58 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-03-12
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-03-12
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-03-12
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Emiliano Vavassori, Lothar Becker, Thorsten Behrens, Michael Meeks Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi, Nicolas Christener Membership Committee - Muhammet Kara Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann, Dennis Roczek, Shinji Enoki Team - Sophie Gautier, Stephan Ficht, Guilhem Moulin, Florian Effenberger Community -
Representation: Paolo for Daniel, Nicolas for Franklin
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 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.
The meeting commences at 13:03 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF.
+ which appstores by business entity? (Dennis)
+ meaning per se or for the business entity proposal? (Lothar)
+ idea is to take over what is there Apple/Google/MS-stores (Thorsten)
+ potentially further venues
+ having some revenues to go further afterwards
+ a lot of places to put LO (Michael)
+ new entity doesn't have to do everything, or take over from volunteers
+ is there some concern or just by curiosity? (Thorsten)
+ just curious (Dennis)
+ taking over LO Vanilla to the appstores (Lothar)
+ confirm this is also in my proposal (Paolo)
+ can also cover future app stores, so no distinction
+ any thinking to provide apps for free? (Dennis)
+ in-app donations a good idea?
+ free and paid versions at the same time not allowed by app stores (Micahel)
+ would love to see clear data on effectiveness of in-app donation requests
+ may be useful to use in-app payment mechanisms, unclear; needs development
+ for-pay version - not mind if it continues for a while (Thorsten)
+ if engineering can be paid with ongoing revenue
+ turning that into something in-line with in-app donations could be interesting
+ does any of that block setting up a company?
+ parallelize setting it up, everything takes time to do
+ understanding of Dennis' q.: is such a business entity needed or getting it done by TDF (Lothar)
2. Discuss: Business entity (Thorsten, Florian, all 10min)
* Two existing proposals in https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/NeBWm25cd2LHyoq - Germany and Luxembourg * rescheduled after 4 weeks question and clarification, status of this * Question about ownership and mission/scope/rationale of business entity * Need to make some decision, one of the too proposals or can also be there's no entity in the next ~6-12 months * App stores: TDF's readiness wrt. tools and skills to provide, package and update app store binaries, plus documenting Rationale: We asked the public to send proposals, so let's discuss in public first. We can move to private if needed. + tax consultants contacted (Florian) + have 1-2 available, specialized in nonprofit and cross-country law + initial consultation offered for a fixed fee -> can take that with some board members + waiting for a phone appointment ~next week, on a related topic + had exchange with ministries (Paolo) + barrier of 1m turnover before filing more expensive accounts + ministry confirm it's ok for TDF to own this company. + concern was around not being able to send donations SIS -> TDF (Uwe) + should have an open way to transfer back to TDF + suggestion - to have 100% of the shares as a social purpose (Paolo) + this is what hinders giving money to TDF + they can do donations + asked this specifically in a meeting with the ministry + this is a special question (Uwe) + donations to owner of company is quite special + when SIS is not allowed to give money to the owners + question summary (Lothar) + if TDF is full owner of SIS, can it have get donations from it. (exchange of donations from SIS and its owner) + answer is yes (Paolo) + can try to get it in writing. + re-schedule for next BoD meeting? (Lothar)
AI: Florian to coordinate initial call with specialized tax consultant, Uwe wants to join too
AI: Lothar to add this as agenda item for the next board meeting
3. Discuss&Plan: Status and follow up of "next decade manifesto" writing process (Uwe (MC), Florian, all 10min)
* Status and feedback so far, deadline for feedback
* Short version, long version
* further process
Rationale: We asked the public to send proposals, so let's discuss in public first. We can move to private if needed.
+ expectations? (Lothar)
+ need to have some decisions (Uwe)
+ how the BoD wants to handle this?
+ made some proposal how we could go on
+ could you reflect this? (Lothar)
+ small changes in the paper, no/small feedback (Uwe)
+ appreciates Michael being one of the few giving one (Uwe)
+ confused wrt. how to give feedback - surprised to not comment in the document (Michael)
+ removing "we reject" is fine? (Uwe)
+ previous experience with red-lining documents was not too good
+ need to get everyone to work on it
+ what's normal procedure for this? (Uwe)
+ not working (Michael)
+ more stakeholders should give feedback on that (Lothar)
+ agree (Uwe)
+ but want to go step by step
+ want agreement from the board this version of the text goes to next round
+ could we decide now? (Lothar)
+ main problem is getting input at all (Michael)
+ "who says nothing agrees" (Uwe)
+ "speak now or forever hold your peace"
+ basic rules of how to act.
+ not in favor of sharing yet (Michael)
+ time-frame for people to have a look? (Lothar)
+ two weeks time for next board call, we table an item to widen the circle (Thorsten)
+ existing version to go on for feedback (Lothar)
+ seems to be differences here to be discussed (Michael)
+ how to give feedback? (Michael)
+ propose a separate meeting to discuss the text, can be public (Lothar)
+ prefers text over comment (Uwe)
+ prefers comments over edits (Thorsten)
+ not helpful, how to proceed with contradicting edits? (Uwe)
+ we'll have a meeting to resolve this (Michael)
+ Uwe to moderate this meeting
+ put doc on NC to discuss it (Uwe)
AI: Uwe, Lothar, Florian to schedule a meeting date to discuss about the second decade manifesto
Public meeting ends at 13:34 Berlin time.
Agenda items of Private Part
X. last-minute: tendering (Uwe)
4. (optional) Discuss: Business entity (Thorsten, Florian, all time incl. see above)
5. Discuss: (Status of) tender framework (Lothar, Nicolas, Florian, all 10min)
Rationale: discussing open questions about roles and process reason why in private: discussion about roles and process details in tenders not for public - skipped -
6. Discuss&Plan: 2021 budget planning, final draft and further steps (Florian, All 15min)
Rationale: bringing the budget to decisions and start activities reason why in private: confidential items (like HR), fiscal issues, timeline
Private meeting ends at 14:03 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-02-26
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-02-26
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-02-26
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Franklin Weng, Lothar Becker, Emiliano Vavassori, Michael Meeks, Daniel Rodriguez, Thorsten Behrens, Cor Nouws Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener, Paolo Vecchi Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann, Dennis Roczek Team - Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger, Guilhem Moulin, Sophie Gautier, Community - Gabriel Masei
Representation: None
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:02 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (all, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF. + any questions? (Lothar) + none
2. Discuss: Encourage / help local events in 2021 (Cor)
Reference: https://redmine.documentfoundation.org/issues/3461 + limitations to organize local events (Cor) + nothing happens in the Netherlands currently, likely similar in other countries + important to have this social feeling + how to overcome this period? want to collect ideas + Sophie collected local events and places of meeting (Lothar) + some areas missing + only small activities in Taiwan (eg articles translation on Facebook) (Franklin) + defining a default jitsi-room? (Lothar) + to run monthly/quarterly meeting? + need to have some TDF member open the room each time (Florian) + doing that for the DE-community (Florian) + new participants in the last call + having an alternating but regular DE-Call + had last meeting yesterday (Uwe) + how to reach pontential participants? (Lothar) + help local groups to do so (Cor) + invite them + maybe have blog about it + send reminder some time before scheduled meeting/call (Florian) + useful to create agenda? (Paolo) + get feedback from local groups for annual report (Florian) + any more ideas (Lothar) + do you use a pad to keep track? (Emiliano) + using pad or redmine (Florian) + mailing list (Uwe) + telegram channel (Sophie) + please share (Lothar) + matrix (Emiliano) + can open TDF resources (Florian)
Public meeting ends at 13:17 Berlin time.
Private Part
3. Discuss: Budget 2021 and Budget sheet, ranking in it, if needed first decisions of budget items
Reason why in private: confidential items (like HR), fiscal issues
Private meeting ends at 13:30 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-02-12
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-02-12
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-02-12
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Thorsten Behrens, Emiliano Vavassori, Michael Meeks, Cor Nouws Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi, Nicolas Christener Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann, Dennis Roczek Team - Heiko Tietze, Stephan Ficht, Sophie Gautier, Guilhem Moulin, Florian Effenberger Community -
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 13:02 Berlin time.
Public Part
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF. + any questions? (Lothar) + next decade manifesto (Uwe) + seeking feedback, received from Cor so far + sent mail yesterday + how will the process got on + Lothar/Emiliano will reply the next days
2. Discuss: Business entity (Thorsten, Florian, all 15min)
* Two existing proposals in https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/NeBWm25cd2LHyoq - Germany and Luxembourg * No further proposals sent by FOSDEM * Question about ownership and mission/scope/rationale of business entity * Need to make some decision, can also be there's no entity in the next ~6-12 months * App stores: TDF's readiness wrt. tools and skills to provide, package and update app store binaries, plus documenting Rationale: We asked the public to send proposals, so let's discuss in public first. We can move to private if needed. + time passed since last discussions (Thorsten) + two existing proposals Luxembourg and Germany (Florian) + nothing further received so far + think a fully owned subsidiary is the only real option (Thorsten) + scope: app-store binaries, currently done by ecosystem partners, the thing for the entity + propose start with TDF itself (Paolo) + see what we can do directly as TDF. + unless we find a compelling reason to create an additional org. + prefer a separate entity for risk isolation (Michael) + not sure that this is needed (Paolo) + no disagreement useful to have one (Thorsten) + clash was over how much control TDF has + impression this was settled. + asking for proposals to domicile that + priorities are valid, not tying up board/staff time + specific to those people setting up the entity + reasons why we want to do that did not go away + things not inside the remit of TDF can be done easily there + if absolute need to do it ASAP (Paolo) + can we have a clear proposal with compelling reasons? + anything that is now hindered by not having it as an entity? (Lothar) + conflict was around control by TDF side + if this is settled, ok with that. + app-store binaries, keep granting licenses for (Thorsten) + at some stage - no need to do anything, not urgent + but we want to get on with it + need to compare both proposals (Lothar) + some discussion left between these two. + agreed (Thorsten) + entity and where, interesting from legal details + more interesting are the people running it. + who is willing to run it? + would be willing to run admin part in Germany (Uwe) + would need a technical director, or more of a concept. + willing to help when he can + or perhaps the actual engineering work could be outsourced initially + would be willing to run 'TDF services' in Luxembourg (Paolo) + an extension of TDF, a mixed executive team + doesn't need to be me + can go and lobby on behalf of TDF/community + languages are easy: French, English, German + attached letter from the ministry. + tasks should be kept simple, eg. manage app-storesthen agree tasks & people + Lionel - informally offered to help out here (Michael) + an expert in this. + would need a specific type of accountant (Paolo) + a limited company; can perform activities + on top bound by other regulations as non-profit. + can receive donations, tender in public sector + constraint - use a chartered accountant + Lionel said his org doesn't do that. + pleased to have him involved + important for me to include Lionel (Michael) + Canadian option not do-able with TDF as owner (Lothar) + german 'Genossenschaft' was mentioned, but will not work (Lothar) + is the mission of the business entity clearly defined? (Cor) + mission quite clear: deal with the app stores (Paolo) + agree with this approach (Thorsten) + what about tenders, giving development a boost? (Cor) + keeping it focused on app-stores for now (Paolo) + how to proceed? (Lothar) + Paolo to meet with Lionel, Thorsten with Uwe (Thorsten) + at some stage: 3 options: + don't do it, Luxembourg or German + then either consensus, or a split vote on what is on the table. + will meet Lionel, but if we decide Luxembourg (Paolo) + but don't need his involvement. + ensure a trusted third-party will be involved + would love to have him involved in the governance (Michael) + clarify and get back in four weeks (Lothar) + have it done in four weeks? (Lothar) + no issue with that (Paolo)
AI: have this in a board meeting in 4 weeks again with a preparation
+ if there are questions, applicants can clarify (Thorsten)
+ need to make an informed decision
+ good to have a clearly superior decision there
+ it should be clear how the money is spent (Heiko)
+ what it is spent for and how.
+ take a look at the documents (Lothar)
+ if other questions, ask Paolo/Thorsten.
Public meeting ends at 13:28 Berlin time.
Private Part
3. (optional) Discuss: Business entity (Thorsten, Florian, all time incl. see above)
4. Discuss: (Status of) Strategy discussion (Lothar, Florian, all 20min)
Rational: more time for that, kicking off consensual action items, priorities of the big items reason why in private: discussion of preliminary ideas, pictures, priorities, goals...
5. Discuss&Plan: 2021 budget planning, draft (Florian, All 15min)
Rationale: if needed first decisions of budget items in the sheet, PLEASE fill in all your items/proposals in this sheet until Friday, clarify new numbers in last year budgets, check for dublicates reason why in private: confidential items (like HR), fiscal issues timeline
The meeting ends at 14:00 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-01-30
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-01-30
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-01-30
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Lothar Becker, Cor Nouws, Thorsten Behrens, Michael Meeks, Franklin Weng, Emiliano Vavassori, Daniel Rodriguez Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi, Nicolas Christener Membership Committee - Marina Latini, Muhammet Kara Membership Committee Deputies - Shinji Enoki, Uwe Altmann, Dennis Roczek Team - Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger, Sophie Gautier, Heiko Tietze, Mike Saunders, Guilhem Moulin, Italo Vignoli Community - Andreas Reinisch
Representation: (See https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ subject "Representation statements")
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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.
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.
The meeting commences at 11:04 Berlin time.
Public part
1. Welcome, introduction, invitation, representation and quorum (Lothar/Franklin, 5 minutes)
Presentation of the agenda, confirmation of proper invitation, handle representation statements and determine quorum. * Full board present, incl. chair and deputy * We are quorate * Agenda and slides available * Lothar presents the agenda and timeline * Lothar asks how Corona situation is affecting everyone * He wishes we could meet in person * unclear situation wrt. LibOCon, in-person meeting from all continents unlikely, but maybe a hybrid mode - should know more later this year (Lothar, Thorsten, Florian) * great tools available now for videoconferencing (Paolo)
2. Update on key goals (Florian, 15 minutes)
An update on the various key goals, where we stand and what the next steps are.
1. Streamline tendering process, sign two tenders and get them delivered (Nicolas, Lothar, Florian)
* explaining using prepared slides (Florian)
+ split work with different people (Nicolas)
+ list of requirement of tenders
+ create table to summarize and weigh
+ rough idea of criteria (Lothar)
+ better way to come to conclusion
+ learned to give more details for the role model
+ share docs in the aftermath (Florian)
2. Hire development mentor, grow pool of code committers (all)
+ shared a few days ago (Florian)
+ first interviews and informal contacts
+ explaining slides (Italo)
+ Dashboard: volunteer (best guess) are Assigned + Unknown + (Unknown) (Michael)
+ issue is solved (Italo)
+ good to balance the data with the number of committers by affiliation (Michael)
3. Grow non-coding community (Ilmari, Mike) + ongoing thing, explainig slides (Mike)
4. (Virtual) Hackfests where coders and non-coders meet (Mike, Ilmari) + in person meeting not possible for pandemic reasons (Florian)
5. Marketing plan, younger contributors, OpenOffice users (Italo, Mike) + announcement next wednesday (Italo) + press release prepared and going public asap + improve website and wording + collateral activities + will happen after FOSDEM + virtual FOSDEM huge drain of time + any help needed? (Lothar) + getting younger contributors (Mike) + 'New Generation' started yesterday + big audience reacting + have things to offer + many more things to do + open letter well received + people speaking about 'OpenOffice' but meaning indeed LibreOffice + doubled download delta Aoo - LO
6. Evaluating tooling, e.g. Discourse for AskBot, incl. tools for participation improvement (Sophie, Ilmari)
7. Campus program for student ambassadors (Italo) + everything frozen on universities due to pandemic (Italo) + will keep in touch with the people + sth in parallel (Marina) + university of Perugia, Umbria
8. Business entity (Paolo, Thorsten, Michael) + no news (Florian)
3. Overview on downloads, budget and donations (Florian, Mike, Italo, 5 minutes)
Update on our budget, download numbers and the status of donations. + how is working CiviCRM? (Thorsten) + some actual issues going to be solved asap (Florian)
4. Various, quick questions and answers, closing of the public part, and invitation to next public board meeting (Lothar/Franklin, 5 minutes)
A few minutes for questions and answers. Everyone is invited to continue the discussion in the next public board meeting on February 12. + any other questions? (Lothar) + GDPR question (Uwe) + clarified in the meetings later (Lothar) + number of OpenOffice conversions (Dennis) + any stats? (Dennis) + could start to track (Mike)
Public meeting ends at 11:48 Berlin time.
Private part
5. Reports from the areas of oversight (all, 15 minutes)
6. Introduction and overview on our budget process and ranking mechanism (Florian, 20 minutes)
7. Strategy and vision for 2021 and beyond (all, 100 minutes)
7.1 Roundtable, where everyone can choose any number of topics (or no topics at all) to share their comments and thoughts about where they want to be at the end of this board's term (up to 15 minutes each, but no discussion at this phase)
7.2 Roundtable, where everyone can choose any number of comments from 7.1 to give feedback.
8. Closing round: Feelings, expectations, goals by LibOCon (all, 15 minutes)
Private meeting ends at 14:17 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
Minutes 2021-01-15
The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2021-01-15
Meeting Minutes
Date: 2021-01-15
Location: Jitsi
Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht
In the meeting:
Board - Michael Meeks, Lothar Becker, Thorsten Behrens, Daniel Rodriguez, Franklin Weng, Cor Nouws, Emiliano Vavassori Board Deputies - Nicolas Christener Membership Committee - Membership Committee Deputies - Uwe Altmann Team - Florian Effenberger, Stephan Ficht, Heiko Tietze, Sophie Gautier, Italo Vignoli Community -
Representation: None (See https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ subject "Representation statements")
Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 (not including deputies). In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 or more of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4. A total of 7 Board of Directors members are attending the call or are represented.
The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in the foundation's 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.
The meeting commences at 13:04 Berlin time.
Public part
Reminder
pre-FOSDEM meeting on Saturday, January 30, all day
-> agenda and timetable draft shared today with BoD,
-> will be made public next week
1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF. + any questions? (Lothar) + FOSDEM agenda sent out (Florian)
2. Discuss&Plan: 2021 budget planning, draft (Thorsten, Florian, All 10min)
Rationale: Preparation for FOSDEM meeting, status of planning, missing bits and pieces, feedback so far, timeline
* first draft of the 2020 closing ledgers and the budet is in Nextcloud - TDF Board - Budget 2021
* budget_2021.ods - preliminary budget draft
* closing_preliminary.pdf - preliminary closing ledgers
* italo_community.ods - community requests compiled by Italo
* reserves_template.xls - accountant reserves spreadsheet template
* https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2021 - ESC requests compiled by Heiko
* next steps: finalizing proposals, adding latest numbers and late 2020 payments, ETA ~next week
* first round of approvals on January 30, pre-FOSDEM meeting
+ clarifying the process (Lothar)
+ preliminary meeting (Florian)
+ spreadsheet for planning
+ 30k for community and marketing each proposed by Italo
+ topics worth tendering (Heiko)
+ Thorsten/Heiko to work on it
+ final decision end of next week
+ https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2021
+ want to ensure people are aware of the process and timelines (Michael)
+ everyone should give feedback and be able to make their proposals
+ started very late (Heiko)
+ there are proposals
+ good reason to go in tender
+ not announced as please-participate-here
+ who can vote? only ESC members? (Heiko)
+ ESC advises board, BoD makes final decisions (Michael)
+ do this earlier next year & advertise widely (Michael)
+ in October - we should start this process
AI: + on Florian's calendar -> kick off at LibOCon (Florian)
+ list of good topics (Heiko)
+ list from last year has been taken to this year
+ list based on bugzilla
3. Discuss&Plan: Business entity - next steps (Thorsten, All 10min)
Rationale: 5 mins status update, 5 mins planning next steps
+ Why call it TDC? There was another name proposed (Michael)
+ TDF2 or TDF Business entity? (Thorsten)
+ call for proposals out long enough
+ maybe give another four weeks notice time
+ still see need for business entity
+ should go forward with that, evaluating options on the table
+ or decide to not do it
+ want to know if we look into it or not in next 12 months (Florian)
+ we voted on priorities some weeks ago (Lothar)
+ was ranked not in the 1st place.
+ does that prevent somebody to work on it? (Thorsten)
+ otherwise mail the BoD discuss list again - 2 week deadline?
+ on the FOSDEM agenda anyway (Florian)
+ so announce now, discuss there.
+ could be helpful to have a clear idea for the reason for it (Uwe)
+ looking at the last months' development.
+ more and more in doubt if there is so much need for it.
+ can imagine some useful things to do with it, if it exists.
+ perhaps the 'why' is more important.
+ the need is stronger than before (Thorsten)
+ some paralysis set in.
+ is the Question what problem do we try to solve? (Florian)
+ form would be more obvious if we know what we want to do (Uwe)
+ a vision for what it does, not a business plan
+ my take is very clear (Michael)
+ we restricted the scope to make it un-controversial
+ plan: put PC apps in the app store & re-invest funds into development.
+ not sure if everyone has the same sight Michael has (Uwe)
+ still a plan to put things into the app stores?
+ plan was to have PC apps in the app stores (Michael)
+ be careful of open-ended questions, what could we do with the entity?
+ not the question of what could do, what is the goal of the company? (Uwe)
+ founding articles, what's the goal of the company?
+ not what it could do, but what it shall do in the next six months?
+ e.g. what right now TDF has subcontracted ecosystem companies with (Thorsten)
+ proposal - mail the list, have a discuss item on the FOSDEM agenda (Thorsten)
Public meeting ends at 13:23 Berlin time.
Agenda items of Private Part
4. Discuss: Second Decade Manifesto (Florian, all, 10 minutes)
Reason why not in public: Internal discussion in the board, then sharing with members and wider community Rationale: Discussion about the status quo of the Second Decade Manifesto and the next steps
5. Discuss: Advisory board seat request A (Thorsten, Florian, All 5min)
Reason why not in public: Possibility for confidential Q&A Rational: Q&A, plan for decision making
Franklin Weng leaves the call at 13:36. Nicolas Christener to represent Franklin Weng.
6. Inform: Introduction possible new advisory board member B (Thorsten, All 5min)
Reason why not in public: Requester asking for confidentiality for the while, possibility for confidential Q&A Rational: Q&A, plan for decision making
7. Discuss: Sync on pending tender (Florian, non-CoI'ed board, 5 min)
Reason why not in public: Discussion about tender to be awarded Rationale: Final discussion and decision on pending tender
Private meeting ends at 13:49 Berlin time.
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)
+ Now we are here:
+ 1&1 -> 1 developer
+ Munich -> 1 developer
+ TDF -> went from 1 to 2
+ RedHat -> ~2 developers
+ RedHat -> 2 developers
+ NISZ -> 3 developers
+ CIB -> 7 developers
+ Collabora -> 25 developers
+ and some more volunteers.
- The ecosystem is not growing, but not shrinking ~40 paid developers
+ very little virtuous cycle driving growth in sales -> feature / function
- What does the ecosystem do ? (Michael)
+ ~70% of commits from ecosystem companies
+ tend: larger features, longer term development, maintenance, GSOC ++ mentoring
+ ~30% of commits community
-> but ~70%+ of mentoring is companies.
+ look at how a project looks like with volunteers but no commercial ecosytem:
+ Apache OpenOffice -> good people ...
- What does it look like in money ? (Thorsten)
+ easy to work out from our annual report
+ estimations ->
+ avg. TDF staff member FTE cost order of Eur 50k without overheads
+ So 40 people at TDF would cost ~Eur 2 million
+ TDF spends ~Eur 150k on feature development / tenders
outside of fixed-costs per annum currently
+ do it in-house:
+ we could pay 3 people with that
- The ecosystem provides a 10x multiplying factor for development
=> TDF is the tip of the iceberg that is the ecosystem.
=> We cannot meet our purpose or sustain the product without a healthy ecosystem.
- Compromises to drive the ecosystem / pull money into it & TDF: (Michael)
- no LTS - short, frequent release cycles
+ neither of these seem to deter mass use in business.
- nag dialogs, info bar stuff -> to drive TDF donations
+ community members unhappy ... -> professional product.
- tell people software is un-supported when inappropriately using Online - important for TDF to have users visiting download page, also for downloading security updates for LibreOffice
+ live updates provided by community as a patch / feature.
+ not enabled.
+ we know: when we don't update the "new version" XML
+ donations drop substantially
+ TDF is funded by people visiting the download page
=> Example -> providing free LibreOffice in an app-store
+ self-updating, no need to visit TDF ...
+ sounds wonderful - but potentially deeply problematic for TDF & sustainability.
+ needs to be looked at -very- carefully.
Thorsten - People sometimes confuse paying for a product, when donating (c.f. feedback we see on Ask and Bugzilla)
+ normal feedback "I paid, but can't download"
- TDF download donations sometimes believed to drive feature development
+ implement feature with money.
- Desktop is quite different:
- Online - currently scarcity: source code, only development binary dockers of online
- CIB & C'bra charging for LibreOffice in app-stores & re-investing - perhaps others.
- The "non-contributor" problem
+ Developers:
+ Munich -> initially didn't contribute to the code -> then saw the light & joined us
+ Linagora -> no significant contributions from whole French Gov't.
+ Brazil -> 1 million users -> no paid developers until recently.
+ others: RedHat/Collabora/CIB - contribute all their code back.
+ work as members of the community.
Conclusions (Michael)
+ why is ecosystem success seen as failure ?
+ why is the ecosystem 'othered' as non-community ?
"The foundation promotes a *sustainable*, independent and meritocratic community for the international *development* of free and open source software based on open standards."
- "The only constant is change" (Thorsten)
Change is inevitable, and necessary -but- those who advocate for change without careful consideration of the consequences must bear responsibility.
Need to assess, and balance - with the other compromises listed
if parameters change substantially, we need a plan to substitute for what we're certainly loosing then in terms of ecosystem contribution.
Lets not loose again after loosing Sun, IBM, Linux Distros ...
- Uwe:
Revenue: is 90% of your revenue from the app-stores?
+ ~5% of revenue from app-stores (Michael-as-Collabora)
+ insubstantial revenue currently from app-stores (Thorsten)
Breakdown of revenue? (Michael-as-Collabora)
+ consultancy is a smaller part of revenue
+ product is a large part; can see sectors Education/Government/Business ...
Changing the overall setup -> needs a plan (Thorsten)
Do we know that downloads leads directly to donations? (Heiko)
+ there is a graphic showing the correlation (Florian)
+ lets get it from Italo.
+ updater XML was not updated -> massive drop in donations (Florian)
+ S/W did not show the notifiation - a significant drop; July 2017/2018
+ hard to imagine that no linux user ever donates (Heiko)
+ not what is said - but the *majority* of donation driven by visits to download page
+ popup of course also drives people to donate (Michael)
abstract (AI):
+ overall number of developers shrinking
+ need money in the ecosystem to pay staff in TDF and elsewhere
+ address the "non-contributor" problem
+ the direct relation downloads/donations
AI: Italo: provide graphics downloads/donations
AI: define procedure to bring in the information
Rationale: Discussion, relevance and dependencies for TDF
3. Discuss: Quick check of fitting prerequisites and procedure of the vote for the next agenda item (Lothar, Board members, All 5 minutes)
Rationale: Clarifying about voting of the next agenda item
+ Now is not the time for a vote - so no need.
4. Discussing about proposal of Paolo: (Paolo, Board members 15 minutes)
+ Interesting discussion of ecosystem, linked to all of these things.
+ everyone knows there is a need for a commerical ecosystem out there
+ naturally balance the needs of commercial ecosystem with drive & spirit of TDF
+ in the statues - can read about commercial partners
+ scope / objective - make all software we develop Android,Windows,MacOS easily usable by users
+ development has to be user centered
+ LibreOffice Online
+ takes a good deal of effort to provide a FLOSS package that TDF is obliged to deliver
+ today have Marco, been working with him in another project
+ making it available for a school - with no budget for this
+ TDF in theory is obliged to make free software available to all to be used
+ have to increase the user-base of this platform, and increase committers.
+ personally - told - feeling at the moment by some developers
+ would like to contribute, but wondering, contributing to TDF / Collabora
+ a mixed-message coming out there.
+ clarify what is LibreOffice Online - and who is maintaining it
+ when someone contributes where that contribution will go
+ at the same time - have to tell everyone (Paolo)
+ use it for personal use, non-profit org, school - duty to give it for free:
+ always been part of the plan.
+ a bit late in implementing.
+ have to support those who have been contributing to the project
+ Collabora, CIB
+ recognize their efforts though marketing & advertising
+ not to use in enterprises without support.
+ make it available to everybody, make it easy to use.
+ recognize - something much better from a technical & ethical POV
+ than other platforms out there.
+ some other organizations
+ LibreOffice Online is integrated - decided to start promoting other types of similar platforms.
+ as easy as possible to promote LibreOffice Online
+ will need professional support.
+ going out with a TDF branded LibreOffice
+ we are here for the community / duty to give the free version
+ look at our long list of commercial partners & developers.
+ even increasing opportunities of revenue.
+ are limited - personally by commercial offering has been put together
+ Michael & Thorsten - can confirm - long discussion before became part of BoD - so that we can together re-tune the offering, getting revenue to contribute to the project.
+ have to increase the number of companies that contribute to this project.
+ spirit of proposition
+ agreed to have it discussed.
- Fundamentally difference Desktop / Online (Thorsten)
+ hard for end-users to install Online too.
+ it is worth reflecting on this - lets have a plan, a careful assessment & compromise
+ a discussion to be had - TDF helping the commercial ecosystem (Paolo)
+ with an increased number of users.
+ Univention makes it easy - for non-techies to use LOOL
+ still need technical expertise.
+ thinks TDF would need to host it themselves (Thorsten)
+ for the world out there _that_ is the easy way to use it
+ but believe that is out of scope for TDF
+ challenges that we are required to do that
+ if we are to make it easily digestible - provide binaries?
- Keen to get LibreOffice Online into lots of people's hands (Simon)
+ tried to use it himself.
+ as it is designed & architected - hard for individual user to deploy
+ even given a working docker container
+ handling of certificates
+ hosting in containers
+ is beyond the skills of many, many people.
+ an alternative proposal:
+ without inadvertently harming the businesses in the ecosystem
+ start - by making available a version for Raspberry Pi
+ making one that is designed to use with Nextcloud's RPI distro
+ also have an appliance that they sell here
+ work with Rene & Raspberry-Pi ecosystem
+ that works on your internal network - with just IP addresses
+ no nasty signing certificates
+ not intended for internet use
+ but would work within a household, small business, and/or inside a school.
+ do this as an on-ramp
+ and avoid accidentally destroying Collabora / CIB
+ paper about this in the members area on TDF nextcloud
+ take this forward instead of this unfortunately poorly thought out proposal.
- Remark as an aside (Uwe)
+ Paolo's pronunciation is as bad as his - can't understand what was said + suggests Paolo to have something written down to prepare it. + a request from Simon as well (Lothar)
- Look forward to written ideas (Cor)
+ with background & discussions, like Simon's suggestion here + know lots of people enthusiastic there.
- asked for community to speak up (Michael)
* unhelpful of referring to ecosystem as "other" people
* clear ask to solve the marketing problems, was skipped
* build consensus before bring a vote to avoid dividing community unnecessarily
* LOOL already in Nextcloud, ownCloud etc.
* some of these versions don't refer to LibreOffice, are white-labelled
* we might need to get used to LibreOffice Online not to be called LibreOffice Online
* avoid TDF duplicating work done by ecosystem members
* marketing could be significantly improved
* looking at things in a balanced way, voting right now is premature
* not against TDF distributing LibreOffice Online
* good thing to grab bull by horns & discuss it
* significant improvement in marketing required for TDF to provide LOOL binaries
+ would like a paper to bring these ideas together (Lothar)
- Clarify the situation (Paolo)
+ in the agenda just a few points of a ticket that has been opened in internal systems
+ with a longer description of the project
+ didn't just come out and say - lets vote for it.
+ when something not moving - indeed tends to push hard
+ so just go for a vote
+ then convert it into a conversation / discussion
+ many other people would like to provide their feedback.
+ so it may not be what it seems.
+ lots more can be known - including the economical side
+ not been told by commercial ecosystem
+ what is the damage that we cause you ?
+ if we go out with a branded version of LibreOffice Online
+ we don't know.
+ how to proceed further ? (Lothar)
+ would like to continue discussion about ecosystem on members list (Sophie)
+ give E-mails to the internal list
+ any reason not to do it on board-discuss in public ? (Thorsten)
+ propose to default to public if possible.
+ propose hint members to members list (Florian)
+ how do we get to this document ? (Lothar)
+ get a few efforts to do this concrete LibreOffice Online theme.
+ who are the people to lead & build consensus ? (Michael)
+ many of TDF's problems intersect.
+ next next decade manifesto would be my hope
+ circumstances have changed as we saw in the ecosystem talk
+ we actually need to deeply care about the ecosystem too.
+ clarify - Paolo - responsible for bringing a document for a vote (Lothar)
+ plenty written already
+ would like to do this with Paolo (Franklin)
+ have difficulty to build a LOOL instance recently
+ concern is how you say it (Cor)
+ prepare a 1st document that we build on to create something sustainable or a good base.
+ you mentioned the word 'vote'
+ no (Lothar)
+ result should be content for a later stage for voting (Lothar)
+ we need some written content which we can compromise on
+ if we have a discussion in public (Cor)
+ come up with the best proposal possible - discussion in public.
+ poor choice of committee (Michael)
+ sorry for being a poor choice (Franklin)
+ the ability to reach out to building a durable compromise is vital
+ not convinced this composition achieves this.
+ we have a concrete proposal from Simon (Thorsten)
+ build another proposal, while we work on Simon's ?
+ work on a procedure for documents (Lothar)
+ Franklin/Michael/Paolo/Thorsten
+ just did -> as of now, work in public with Simon's proposal (Thorsten)
+ get it into a proposal we can vote on.
+ happy to hear other proposals
+ today learned something about the Raspberry Pi (Paolo)
+ original issue was - to make available in general LibreOffice Online on general platforms
+ have another project running in the background.
+ Proposal (Florian)
+ everyone is free to come up with a proposal.
+ Thorsten/Michael/Simon came up with this one
+ something is done -> can share in public
+ what is proceeded in a board call
+ no problem with lots of proposals.
+ plea for people to work constructively with others (Michael, Paolo)
+ unhappy; process to vote first, then think is nearly un-precedented (Michael)
abstract (AI):
+ need for a balanced commercial ecosystem
+ software to be easily usable by any users regardless the OS used
+ easy to promote LibreOffice Online
+ Fundamentally difference Desktop vs. Online
+ need to increase users
+ solve marketing problems
+ consensus to avoid dividing community
+ discussion just started, to be continued in public
AI: define procedure to get written ideas/proposals
AI: agenda item for next BoD call, public part
AI: Franklin, Paolo, Thorsten, Michael to work on a proposal for discussion in public later on
AI: in one of next BoD Call bring in as agenda item: How to get a "next next decade manifesto" (Lothar)
+ comment: minutes are late (Florian)
+ if you can look at them - would be helpful.
+ 27 people in the room - works more or less properly with Jitsi (Lothar)
Voting proposal via Mail from Paolo Vecchi at 16.05., 13.15 UTC+2: "...
Enable the infrastructure team to deliver the following packages with TDF and LibreOffice branding: - docker images - ownCloud connector (from which we have already got confirmation of acceptance) for LOOL - once that is in place I will ask NextCloud for the opportunity to do the same - Univention marketplace packages for LOOL - all packages and connectors will be maintained and updated on a monthly basis unless urgent patches/bug fixes are required sooner - the latest stable version of LOOL code will be used to build the images - the infrastructure oversight team will ensure that all issues that may impede the execution of this plan are identified and solved promptly - the infrastructure oversight team should evaluate, and report back to the BoD, if TDF should use its own Gerrit server for LOOL or Collabora's see ticket https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=132349 - LibreOffice branded documentation/help files should be created to make it as easy as possible to install docker images/Univention packages - TDF's LOOL packages will be free and supported only by the community. No paid/support options will be made available by TDF - In the download page it will be made clear that if LOOL is used in enterprise environment support options are available through the members of TDF's ecosystem
At a later stage eventual limitations in terms of concurrent users/documents will be discussed. ..."
Rationale: explanation of voting item(s), getting a valid voting result on Paolos proposal as described above
5. Discuss: Status of redmine tickets of the board (Thorsten, All 10min)
Rationale: Clarifying which tickets/list, what todos, who is caring, until when
+ just to make sure board knows where action items are + postponed to next call
Public part ends 14:02 Berlin time.
Private Part
- No topic in private so far -
Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)