BoD Meeting Minutes 2016-05-23

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2016-05-23
Call Minutes

Location: Phone Conference Room

Session chair: Marina Latini
Keeper of the minutes: Michael Meeks

In the call: Michael (BoD), Marina (BoD), Thorsten (BoD), Osvaldo (BoD), Kendy (BoD), Eike (BoD), Björn (Deputy BoD), Italo, Florian, Jiri Eischmann (Red Hat), Stephan Bergmann

Representation: Björn for Simon

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

The Board of Directors at the 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 or their representatives 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 call is quorate. 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 17:07 Berlin time.

Public agenda:

1. Discussion: New packaging formats (Eike)
See https://whatofhow.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/libreoffice-flatpak/
  * Flatpak format for newer distributions
  * Eike: Would like to see Flatpak format as one of our official distribution formats provided by TDF
    * infrastructure, release engineering
  * Jiri: technology has been around for 1,5-2 years, couple of upstream projects (GNOME, KDE etc.) already experiment with that
    * bundling and sandboxing technology, one installation file for multiple distributions and their versions
    * is more secure through sandboxing, although X-Server can cause troubles until Wayland is in place
    * another benefit is that we can directly roll out updates into the distributions
  * Michael: what's the base of the container? runtimes, LibO built with GTK runtimes, but vendor-independent, distribution neutral
  * Jiri proposes to have it as official format for LibO 5.2, incl. distribution to mirrors + TDF endorsement for that, does not ask for exclusivity
    * Love the idea, community project, Stephan done some great work (Michael)
        + lets be enthusiastic about it.
    * Thorsten: GTK vs KDE
        + people around Qt, working on the KDE run-time (Jiri)
           + need to
    * how much work ? (Thorsten)
        + have at the moment - a shell-script that does a complete build & pkg (Stephan)
           + technically need, a TDF machine - that is new enough to support flat-pack
           + builds of latest flat-pack 0.6
           + already in contact with Christian
           + can be yet-another VM - but happier to merge with existing.
           + not really different from any other builds.
    * Two stories (Bjoern)
        + flat-pack release
           + not seen a first release, and/or how much work it is.
        + who does the builds
           + do should do that for other new package formats; eg. snap ?
        + Current release - disables Java
           + not a full drop-in release yet.
        + Build script downloads things
     * Can sign the flat-packs (Stephan)
     * Concerns about missing Java parts & TDF doing it from the start (Bjoern)
     * Would love to show community contributed build on DL page (Michael)
        + same with 'portable' download versions (Thorsten)
        + agreed (Bjoern, Marina)
     * Will work with Cloph to make & sign builds (Cloph)
     + Eager to get a quote (Jiri)
        + can we get a downloadable version first (Michael)
           + happy to help with marketing to devs etc.
           + end-users prolly not so interested yet.

2. Vote: Changes for tdf-members list (Thorsten)

==
Proposed text for the footer:

---
"Postings on this list are considered private communication among TDF
   members. Please do *not* share outside this circle!"
---

Proposed text for the announcement on the list, to also be sent to any
new subscriber as the welcome message:

---
"Dear members,

   the TDF board & staff is working on improving communication and
   transparency of how TDF operates, and what decisions are taken.

   One of the items identified is that you, as trustees of the
   foundation, deserve more timely updates on what's going on. As these
   things go, that sometimes requires confidentiality, as e.g. press
   statements need to be refined, people briefed, or competitors not to
   be alerted ahead of time.

   So effective today, postings on this list are considered private
   communication among TDF members. To assure mutual confidentiality,
   and for being able to share increasingly more stuff with you as
   members, TDF asks you to specifically not forward emails from this
   list, or otherwise spread information conveyed.

   Please understand that leakage of any kind will heavily
   disincentivize future sharing of information - let's all try to not
   be tempted. :)"
---

There were several additional items related to that, without which the
above makes little sense:

* the board agrees that all decision-making is public-by-default
* for private discussion / decisions:
    * define a reason (e.g. personal data, NDA requirements, priviledged
      communiction, other legal risks)
    * define a sunset period, by which time the decision will be made
      public. Unless we're legally required, I fail to see any area
      where that period would be forever
    * define a scope (bod-only (perhaps sometimes excluding CoI-ed
      members), bod+ED, members-only). No other groups.

==
     + Vote - passed; unanimously.

3. Discussion: Upcoming MC elections and size of MC (Florian)

Before the upcoming MC elections, we should discuss the size of the MC,
which the board can define within parameters set forth in § 12 II of the
statutes (at least 3 people, max. 10% of BoT, always odd number).

     + deadline for election sometime late august
     + upcon decision made this is binding for the elections, so ensure we have enough people willing to run for elections (Florian)
     + 5 seat holders, 2 deputies thus far
     + perhaps up it to 7/3 ? (Michael)
     + 215 or so people in the membership
AI: => talk to the MC about it (Florian)
AI: => canvas people whom we think may sign-up (All)
     + prolly need only 7 actual seat holders from 7/3 (Florian)
     + having space to move to the board can help (Michael)
     + lets make a decision next meeting (Florian)
     + what is MC election deadline ? (Thorsten)
        + announcement - latest Aug 5th.

Item 4 was shifted to the private agenda

5. Discussion: Certification program status and future (Marina)

     + Opinions sought on Cert. program (Marina)
         + Developer piece rocks (Michael)
         + migration & training
         + No problem with continuing @ currently level (Thorsten)
             + occasionally talk to Thomas, not aware of any issues.
             + why not keep it running ?
         + Issue on cert. committee - mostly self-appointed (Italo)
             + some people actively working;
               Thomas, Lothar, Marina; and others less engaged.
             + some outside are more interested than Cert. Committee members
         + idea to review composition:
             + people wanting to extend it in their Geographies.
             + eager to have Franklin in cert. committee eg.
         + propose: come up with a new list & we rubber stamp it (Michael)
             + agreed by Certification Commitee
             + membership expires (Thorsten)
                 + no general problem with a group that some do more & less.
         + good to have a rational here (Italo)
         + good to have a bi-annual review from here on ?(Thorsten)
             + part of the programme anyway (Italo)

Public call ended at 17:53 Berlin time

Marina Latini (Session chair)
Michael Meeks (Keeper of the minutes)