Minutes for Meeting of Dec. 13th, 2007
Next Meeting
2008, Jan. 3rd, with both old and new board. Last transition meeting.
Attendance
Members of current board and board-elect attending.
- Behdad Esfahbod
- Anne Oestergard
- Luis Villa (secretary)
- John Palmieri
- Vincent Untz
- Jeff Waugh
- Glynn Foster (late)
- Brian Cameron (late
Missing
- Quim Gil
- Lucas Rocha
Minutes
Old items
- Financial update from Zana (normally a point on the agenda when Zana is not on maternity leave.)
- Welcome to new board members
- Update on Employing a Sys Admin, from Vincent: Anne notes that FSF-E is looking for a sysadmin as well, and that perhaps talking with them about sharing an admin would be a good idea. Vincent notes that current discussion (on the board list) centers around hiring someone full-time or part-time. Seems to be some lean towards part-time (though not full consensus of yet). Glynn asks whether this would be task-based or time-based? Some discussion about what tasks the focus would be on. We do not believe that (legally) there are restrictions on where we can hire, and since the machines are hosted in colos we do not have access to anyway, physical location is probably mostly irrelevant.
Next Statement on ODF >< OOXML: board continued discussion of further statements on ODF/OOXML, carrying out/extending principles discussed in last public statement.
- GNOME Report 2007 (Update by Vincent, on Lucas's behalf): current plan is to have rough draft ready on Dec. 20; lots of coordination/volunteer coordination necessary. Physical printing and design work is an open question; last year that was handled by Dave Neary with a local designer. Some discussion about whether or not to require Free Software; given the time constraints, this seems impractical as a constraint, though all agree that this is a concern for the future. Glynn suggests printing more than the 200 from last year, particularly for the event box and other events. Cost of printing and mailing is an open question, though typically fairly cheap.
GNOME at FOSDEM: GNOME-FR organized a GNOME room last year; is doing the same again (hopefully with help from GNOME-DE and GNOME-NL). Vincent is monitoring this. Details at http://live.gnome.org/Brussels2008
- Board summary report from AB Meetings for GNOME Report 2007: Lucas is coordinating this; has asked Vincent to coordinate.
- Dates for Advisory Board Meetings: delegated to the new board.
- GUADEC Istanbul update: Baris still negotiating for university venue. Some discussion taking place on guadec-list. Behdad has pinged Baris.
New items
- W3C: Ongoing discussion. Jeff to write draft statement for board discussion/approval, to focus on supporting Mozilla and W3C positions.
- accessibility (a11y) outreach program: question: give it 10k? Some money in budget from last year for this. a11y team is hoping to announce a program in the next two weeks; goals would be to get some more visibility for a11y. Discussion to go the list so that new members can catch up on financial statements first. Jeff suggests an a11y committee, with a fixed budget; Brian volunteers to be the liason to that committee and get the right people involved.
- tax/financial: ongoing; Jonathan Blandford and WSGR are continuing to work on it and contacting IRS. Matter is best described as 'under control.'
Action Items
- Jeff to draft new OOXML statement for ad-board and board lists Friday 14th.
- Vincent to draft job description for part-time System Administration position.
- Vincent to find out from Dave Neary who did the visual layout for the annual report last year and if they can do it again next year (ideally by tomorrow); Jeff to find someone local to him if last year's person can't do it. [DONE]
- Behdad to follow up with Baris re: GUADEC. [DONE]
- Board: follow up on a11y discussion on list. [DONE]