Board of Directors Meeting 2022-03-07

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2022-03-07
Meeting Minutes

Location: Jitsi

Session chair: Thorsten Behrens
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht

In the meeting:
    Board Members - Thorsten Behrens, Caolán McNamara, Jan Holešovský, Paolo Vecchi, Laszlo Nemeth, Emiliano Vavassori, Cor Nouws
    Board Deputy Members - Gabriel Masei, Gabor Kelemen
    Membership Committee Members -
    Membership Committee Substitute Members - Uwe Altmann
    Team - Stephan Ficht, Florian Effenberger, Sophie Gautier, Olivier Hallot
    Community - Michael Weghorn, Aron Budea, Guilhem Moulin, Michael Weghorn, "Mr. T", "Fellow Jitster", Régis

Representation: None

The Board of Directors at time of the call consists of 7 seat holders without deputies. In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4. A total of 7 Board of Directors members are attending or represented in the call.

The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in the foundations articles, or other requirements regarding form and invitation, time limits, and for the topics discussed in this meeting.

The meeting is quorate and invitation happened in time. From now on, motions can be passed with the agreement of a simple majority of those remaining present. The majority threshold is currently 4.

The meeting commences at 17:02 UTC / 18:02 Berlin time.

Public part

1. Q&A: Answering questions from the community (all, 10 mins)
    Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF
    + no questions raised

2. Discuss: Areas of Oversight (Thorsten, all, 5 mins)
    Rationale: Items and Discussion about these, then continued in private part
    + one of the duties of the board (Thorsten)
      + slightly shuffle, then review it
     + Employees & hiring
     + infrastructure & community
     + QA & community
     + documentation & community
     + native language projects, translation, localisation & community
     + certifications and other business development activities
     + licenses and development & releases including schedules & community
     + affiliations, e.g. advisory board, peer foundations, politics
     + marketing, events, communication & design, brands & community
     + assets, finance, taxes
     + contracts, legal compliance, GDPR, trademarks

      + any further need for discussion? is everything in?
        + no further questions
        + one topic to discuss in private, therefore shifting vote to private part
        + final result made public afterwards

3. Discuss: Attic Proposal (Thorsten and Emiliano, all, 5mins)
    https://listarchives.tdf.io/i/_zcU_B2pVX7hvIcjMjbEtxvW
    Rationale: status update, prepare the vote
    + discussion on/two points of the proposal (Emiliano)
      + a 2.0 versions discussed, unclear for one part of the proposal whether to keep in inside or outside the proposal
      + publish the version 2 of this?
      + ok for me to publish version 2.0?
    + Emiliano and Thorsten still working on 2.0
      + time to discuss
      + Thorsten proposes to publish what they have so far
          + Emiliano agrees
          + should discuss in public (Emiliano)
      + asked to discuss the management of attitization (Paolo)
        + what if is managed primarily by a commercial entity? (Paolo)
        + what is going to be the result of such project? to avoid situations as with LOOL? (Paolo)
      + Thorsten added some wording to address it (Emiliano)
        + Let's publish 2.0 & follow the discussion (Emiliano)
        + Emiliano will send it tomorrow; or even earlier (Emiliano)

4. Discuss: Strategy Workshop (Florian, all, 10 mins)
    Rationale: status update, discuss, planning
    + makes sense to meet (Florian)
      + to talk about the directions to take (Florian)
      + find common grounds, where TDF to stand in two years (Florian)
      + find the questions that might be interesting to people (Florian)
      + and schedule that - when are the people available? (Florian)
    + feedback? (Thorsten)
      + should have it (Paolo)
        + and discussion with Florian and Mike S. (Paolo)
        + story of TDF
        + common view how to move forward, apparently there are different views
        + would be important part of the workshop
     + maybe that's orthogonal to what Florian planned? (Thorsten)
        + we could address this too (Florian)
        + let's see what people want to discuss
     + some pending issues from the last onboarding meetings? (Emiliano)
       + few bits and pieces indeed (Florian)
       + 1-2 hours in the next meetings maybe? (Emiliano)
       + Saturday maybe? (Emiliano)
     + some additional onboarding (Caolan)
       + makes sense (Caolan)
     + if we can avoid Saturday, would be good (Kendy)
       + but in general would be useful
       + some time in the evening is acceptable for me (Emiliano)
     + no sense to limit in advance (Cor)
       + time-wise, whatever works
     + OK to speak about strategy (Laszlo)
     + yes, support the idea (Gabor)
     + strategy workshop - good idea (Gabriel)
       + pending issues - if we can avoid weekends, would be good (Gabriel)
     + broadly yes, good idea to try to find consensus & brainstorm & have new ideas (Thorsten)
       + suggest to start with the work that is ongoing
       + not to start with strategy first
       + but after we start working together - it was way too early with the last board (Thorsten)
       + understand correctly - onboarding soon, strategy in a few months, correct? (Emiliano)
         + yes (Thorsten)
         + could be few weeks too (Thorsten)
         + if lucky, can even meet together - let's see how the traveling evolves (Thorsten)

5. Information public part: Status of budget 2022 (Florian, all, 5 mins)
    Rationale: Planning for finalizing

    + skeleton done (Florian)
      + 2 pending items
      + this week as the last to add the missing pieces
      + ranking then (this week)
      + can finalize by the end of March
      + so far just 2 people ranked
    + should find deadlines & fix them (Emiliano)
      + tenders & urgent things shortly after (Emiliano)
    + should vote in 2 weeks (the next board meeting) (Thorsten)
      + quick vote is enough, some things already pre-sorted by eg. ESC
      + in everybody's interest to rank (Florian)

    + can people add explanations to the newly added items? (Caolan)
      + would be good

    + what to do with the the Weblate proposal? Don't have a ballpark yet (Kendy)
      + what are others OK with?
      + OK to add it later (Emiliano)

Public meeting ends at 17:32 UTC / 18:32 Berlin time.

Private part

6. Information & Discussion private part: RusBITech e-mail (Florian, all 5 min)

    Rationale: status update, next steps

7. Discuss: Outgoing board members on directors@ (all 5min)
    Rationale: share opinions and finalize decision-making

8. Discuss & vote: Areas of Oversight (Thorsten, all 10 mins)

9. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (owner of the item, all 5min)
    Rationale: if there is popping up an item after sending the agenda

Private meeting ends at 17:58 UTC / 18:58 Berlin time.

Meetings
  * next regular board meeting
    * Monday, March 21, 1700-1800 UTC (1800-1900 Berlin time)
    * agenda four days in advance, i.e. before Thursday, March 17

Thorsten Behrens (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)