Board of Directors Meeting 2017-08-14

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2017-08-14
Call Minutes

Location: Phone Conference Room

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

In the call: Michael (Deputy Chair), Kendy (Board), Simon (Board), Thorsten (Board), Florian (ED), Marina (Chair), Italo (TDF)
Representation: None

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 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 5 Board of Directors members are attending the call.

The call 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 3.

The meeting commences at 17:05 Berlin time.

Public agenda:

1. Discuss: Support for ODF TC editor (Simon/Florian)
Regina Henschel requested sponsoring for an ODF TC editor via e-mail to info@. Simon is working on that and might have an update, parts of that possibly in the private call.

* Proposal to support ongoing support to ODF standard
* Supporting Red Hat's contribution to it
   -> needs to be brought to the board as a motion, but no rush
AI: have it on the agenda for next time
* no need for action for Thorsten then

Simon leaving at 17:10.
From now on, a total of 4 Board of Directors members are attending the call.
The call 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 3.

2. Discuss: Opening session for LibreOffice Conference in Rome (Marina)
Some ideas on how the opening session could look like for the conference.
    + like to have people present themselves - but quickly (Michael)

The opening session of our annual conference is the perfect moment for talking with the community and an important opportunity to listen the needs of the members.
Before the usual "state of the art" talk, we could organise a session "meet the Foundation" where all the BoD, MC and team will be on the stage. The meeting should be divided in two sections. In the first everyone introduce him/herself and his/her roles and activities in TDF. (Max 5 minutes per person) The second section we'll be a Q&A session with the attendees. Will be important to notice the community in time, adding this "meet the Foundation" directly in the program.

Björn joining at 17:18.
Representation: Björn for Osvaldo.
From now on, a total of 5 Board of Directors members are attending the call.
The call 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 3.

         + CoC topic, shunt it?
         + Thorsten warns topic is highly explosive
         + but then, not discuss it to the end
         + Proposal Michael: Moving deeper discussion to a smaller group/slot
         + Marina: If the community wants to know something, we are here to answer
           + having Q&A at the end of conference as usual might miss some people who have already left

     + who moderates it ? (Thorsten)
         + someone from the team / board etc. ? (Marina)
     + organize a review of questions before conference ? (Marina)
         + in the board meeting, wait for community questions.
         + wait for Q's - otherwise, go with prepared ones.
         + feel it is deeply unwise to discuss very polarising
           topics in the opening session (Michael)
              + nothing to hide - we should discuss everything (Marina)
              + not discussing it is really controversial too (Thorsten)

Public call ends at 17:25 Berlin time.

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

I think it's really OK to meet on the subject of the Code of Conduct in
Rome, imagining it's beneficial to work at better understanding of the
various opinions and feelings on the subject. That is: how to put it in
words; I would assume there is agreement on having the message,
expressing that we expect all in our community to behave in a way that
respects other people's integrity and dignity.

Better understanding other peoples ideas, different than ours, to me
seem a useful and necessary step, from where on we can continue.

The subject is important enough, and our route even interesting, to
deserve it's own time. So yes, please not at the opening meeting. And
many probably wanting to have the opportunity to continue after the
first meeting, means not having it at the final gathering is a good idea
too.

Regards,
Cor