Minutes for Meeting of September 16th, 2010

Next Meeting

  • September 30th, 2010

Attending

  • Andreas Nilsson
  • Brian Cameron
  • Emily Chen
  • Germán Póo-Caamaño
  • Og Maciel
  • Paul Cutler
  • Rosanna Yuen
  • Stormy Peters

Regrets

Missing

  • Bastien Nocera

Recurring Items

  • Review past action items.
  • Did each person with action items send their status reports to the board list before the meeting?
  • Approve and make sure that minutes of last meeting were published to foundation-announce and foundation-list.
  • Make sure to start up the gobby server for better note taking.
  • Update foundation.gnome.org website.

New Items

  • Collecting feedback about GUADEC.

    • ACTION: Andreas to take the GUADEC feedback and post it to a public wiki page.

  • Developer Documentation Tools hackfest (December 2-5) and the 7º Forum GNOME event in Natal, Brasil (November 5-6th).
    • Expenses approved for both.
  • Boston Summit

    • ACTION: Emily will plan blog posts to announce sponsorship for Boston Summit.

  • Sponsorship proposal process

    • ACTION: Stormy to update the hackfest wiki pages to make it clear that The GNOME Foundation needs detailed information about expenses included with proposals if they are asking for GNOME Foundation sponsorship.

      • Goals for attending: For example, why the sponsored travelers need to be there?
      • Goals for event.
      • Costs, broken down to the level of who is traveling from where. Particularly expensive travel costs should be justified. If, for example, on traveler is considerably more expensive than the others, there should be some clear justification.
      • Potential sponsorship and income.
      • Provide a write up after the event?

    • ACTION: Og will start a discussion on the mailing list about how The GNOME Foundation wants to organize event planning for events that carry the GNOME brand.

      • Email sent to the Board.
  • GIMP asked The GNOME Foundation to handle the purchase orders with Google for their GSoC (Google Summer of Code) mentor payments. This past year we handled three student projects for them.
    • The board voted and approved doing this for GIMP and GStreamer (if GStreamer asks again).

    • ACTION: Rosanna will handle the purchase orders with Google for GIMP/GStreamer GSoC mentor payments as she has been doing it already for GNOME.

  • Om Chandra (the teacher of Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport of Cambodia and an E-Learning Training Coordinator of Open Learning Program of Open Institute NGO who was wanting to work with us) wanted sponsorship to attend GUADEC for training. What is the status.
    • Stormy asked him if he could attend GNOME Asia instead. He agreed, but he had issues with the visa to Taiwan and so was not able to make it.

    • ACTION: Emily will send Om Chandra an email about whether there is still an opportunity for training or further cooperation.

  • Fiscal Year Budgeting Process

    • ACTION: Germán to have a draft Fiscal Year Budget in October for the board to review.

  • GNOME 3 as a Foundation Goal -- discussion with membership
    • Need to relate 2011 goals to Stormy's performance (and make it measurable).
    • Emails sent to foundation-list, but not much response.

    • ACTION: Og will read up on the "GNOME 3 as a Foundation Goal" discussion that has already taken place and will write something to be sent to Stormy for further discussion and feedback.

  • Stormy fiscal year end review
    • Discussion about whether we should continue with the bonus plan or move to a flat salary for the next fiscal year.
    • Difficult to measure Foundation goals (and then relate to those to Stormy where applicable, or not).

    • ACTION: Brian to send an email to discuss Stormy's bonus and salary process for 2011 with the board.

    • ACTION: Board to review and finalize Stormy's year-end review feedback and bonus for 2010.

  • Boston Summit: fees for the venue.
    • The organizers are working on getting free rooms for us. J5 has pinged them every week or so and we have not heard back in a while.

    • ACTION: Stormy will confirm final cost of the Boston Summit.

  • 2010 Q2 GNOME Quarterly Report Update
  • Desktop Summit
    • Andreas is doing a great job organizing and serving as the liaison.
  • Privacy Policy
    • Paul has written a draft and has gotten some feedback from community members. To be compiled and sent to James Vasile for review.

    • ACTION: Paul to finish the Privacy Policy, get review from James Vasile, etc.

  • Employee Handbook
    • Need to perform updates to the employee handbook by the end of the year (in order to maintain the IRS non-profit status).
    • At least 6 policies in the handbook need to be approved.
      • Conflict of Interest Policy
      • Compensation Policy
      • Expense Reimbursement Policy
      • Records Retention
      • Whistleblower Policy
      • Gift Acceptance Policy

    • ACTION: Brian will finalize the Employee Handbook so the board can approve it by the end of next week.

Completed Actions

  • Bastien - To contact some international banks for the possibility of a US-based dual-currency account (probably will not work, as Stormy already did research). Bastien reported that Stormy was right.
  • Brian - Will follow up with the a11y team to help address communication issues.
  • Jorge - Will reach out to Linaro to see if GNOME can more effectively work with them.
  • Stormy - To attend the next ally meeting to help figure out how to proceed with some opportunities.
  • Paul - To mail the URL of the annual report to board for feedback. (Done last month)
  • Paul - To start brainstorming for the GNOME IRC meeting.
  • Paul - Will create a board-mentor mailing list.
  • Emily - To create list of everyone who requested money in 2009-2010. Emily will contact them and ask about their plans for 2011.

Status of action items

  • Andreas - Will finish the Friends of GNOME revamp and find someone with proper javascript skills to help.
  • Andreas - Follow up with Vincent Untz about creating a Philosophy page on the GNOME Wiki.

  • Andreas - Will follow up with Andrew Savory from LiMo to see if relevant information from their GTK+ study can be made more public.

  • Andreas - Will get feedback for the Annual Report for Daniel Galleguillos.
  • Andreas - Will find out if the GTK+ and WebKitGTK+ Hackfests need help fundraising.
  • Andreas - To reach out to Ekaterina (Kat) Gerasimova to see if she wants to be the GNOME representative for the 2011 Desktop Summit and, if so, to invite her to the Desktop Summit meeting.
  • Bastien - Will try to find people who can consolidate the feedback about the Texas Instruments Zoom2 device to provide back to Texas Instruments.
  • Bastien - To find contacts at HP who are working on GNOME with Palm OS.
  • Bastien - Will take over the internal review process task from Diego Urrelo (hopefully he can automate it).
  • Bastien - To find a way to automate the process of exporting results from internal review process and email it to the board.
  • Bastien - To discuss the use of badges (a-la Creative Commons, last.fm page colors, or PSN badges).
  • Bastien - To talk to Olav Vitters about using bugzilla to track Friends of GNOME post card sending.
  • Bastien - To get _a_ WebOS/Palm contact from Lennart Poettering.
  • Bastien - To contact the BBC to discuss about possible collaboration in working directly with GNOME.
  • Bastien - Will create private Wiki page to sort ideas about how to better organize events like GUADEC.
  • Bastien - Will reach out to Dave Richards from the City of Largo to plan for a hackfest there.
  • Bastien - To write up a call for bids for Nokia proposal, and discuss the technology with people from Nokia.
  • Bastien - Emailing with Nokia and GTK+/XI2 maintainers to further detail out the proposal of how to spend the money provided by Nokia. Major issues include the bug discussed on d-d-l and touch framework. Bastien gathering more information currently.
  • Bastien - To talk to sysadmins about the GNOME IRC meeting, follow-up on Sept 16th.
  • Brian - Get information about what should be in an "Employee Handbook". Draft approved by board. Now under review by the GNOME legal team.
  • Brian - Develop trademark usage forms for common use cases. James Vasile from legal is working with Brian on this.
  • Brian - Check records of organizations with existing contracts to use the GNOME trademark. Taken over from Vincent Untz. Look at the archives in 2005 and try to determine which companies can use the GNOME trademark. Know what kind of contracts we had with them. Taken over from Jorge.
  • Diego - Will send an updated "Día GNOME" article for the Annual Report.
  • Germán - Will share the financial data that was provided to the advisory board to foundation-list.

  • Germán - Will follow up with Shaun McCance about how the board can help with his proposal for funding developer documentation. ONGOING: There will be a BOF on Developer Documentation at GUADEC + further conversation with Shaun might help to clarify what would be needed.

  • Germán - Will help Paul put together the Financial Report for the Annual Report.
  • Germán - Will update the Travel policy to cover the extra costs (such as visa, vaccinations, etc.) when the board requests that a representative attends an event on behalf of GNOME Foundation.
  • Germán - Will write a template that people who fill out bids can complete that can be made public.
  • Germán - To discuss with GNOME Hispano about them handling GNOME Foundation money in Euros (€).
  • Germán - To track if the new method of boletos generates more or less money from Brazil.
  • Germán - Will follow up with Murray about Ekaterina (Kat) Gerasimova helping with planning and possible "ack" as a sponsor.

  • Og - Will create a new wiki page to explain the process for handling emails sent to security@gnome.org.

  • Og - Will take over from Diego Urrelo the task to work Jonh to determine how Ronaldo Padula (Loja Geek Depto Comercial) should send profits to the GNOME Foundation and then work with Ronaldo to finalize arrangements. The Brasilian Free Software Association is likely to help us out here, on the plus side we will also be able to take "boleto" donations.
    • A final contract was given to Ronaldo but he seems to be having problems understanding it. Will follow up with him in Portuguese to make sure there is no miscommunication.
  • Og - Will assist with the GNOME 3 as a Foundation goal task and to help in getting the GNOME 3 as a Foundation Goal survey topics together.
  • Og - To help come up with a list of possible speakers.
    • Finally heard back from Miguel de Icaza who recommended we invite Federico Mena.

  • Paul - Will send an email to the foundation-list and the gnucash list seeking someone to take over the GnuCash automation. Taken over from Behdad Esfahbod.

  • Paul - Will lead putting together the GNOME Annual Report.
  • Paul - Will organize the next GNOME Foundation IRC meeting and create an agenda.
  • Paul - Will look into finding contacts for additional GNOME.Asia sponsors.
  • Paul - Will work on 2010 Annual Report
    • Paul - To fix the annual report: remove all TM in the GNOME logos, s/GNOME Asia/GNOME.Asia/g, use right font for GNOME logo.
    • Paul - To start work on next 2011 Annual Report ASAP (due start FY2012)
    • Paul - To work with Jonathan Blandford for the pants article in the annual report.
    • Paul - Will follow up with Germán about the financial data for the Annual Report.
  • Paul - To talk to Jonh Wendall to see how we can localize Friends of GNOME web site.
  • Paul - Will work with Gil Forcada from guifi.net and gnome-marketing to define the best way for organizations like guifi.net to participate in the GNOME community. Not many replies from the community. Diego Urrelo will draft something more concrete for gnome-marketing to determine the best name and process for managing this. There was a discussion on the mailing list and a few good ideas, Diego will wrap them up and send them again for further comments.
  • Paul - Update the blog and planet to highlight that people are expected to sign and follow the GNOME Code of Conduct.
  • Paul - Will send an email to the board to put together an agenda for a GNOME IRC meeting.
  • Paul - To make sure Board members have access to the Foundation blog. (Update as of August - all members who do not have blogs on blogs.gnome.org have access - working with the sysadmins to fix a bug).
  • Paul - Will follow-up with Board to read the Advisory Board fees for small businesses proposal, ask for feedback and set a date to vote by.

  • Paul/Germán - Automate the process of entering PayPal information into GnuCash. Taken over from Behdad Esfahbod.

  • Rosanna - Research the GNOME Guidestar website and update if necessary. Rosanna sent an update about the status of Guidestar, but work is still needed. Need to find someone to keep the website up-to-date.
  • Rosanna - Will apply for the GNOME credit card. Status: Filled out initial application, have appointment next Wednesday with the bank to continue process.
  • Rosanna - To find out how many donations The GNOME Foundation has had from Brazil in the past year by month.
  • Stormy - To schedule a meeting with companies that do consulting work with GNOME to start discussions on how we can help (how can we work together). Sent email. Got a couple of positive responses.
  • Stormy - To follow up with Orbitz to find out if the GNOME Foundation can pre-purchase travel tickets. Tried to contact them several times. Exchanged emails to set up a time - they didn't respond to availability.
  • Stormy - To add advisory board member roles to wiki.
  • Stormy - To add the information she got about opening nonprofits in other countries to the wiki.
  • Stormy - To follow up with Friends of GNOME post card senders to make sure they have sent them.

  • Stormy - Will follow up the GULEV Free & Open Source Software Conference 2010 organizers and provide them with a list of potential GNOME speakers in Mexico. Waiting on Og for the list.

New Action Items

  • Andreas - To take the GUADEC feedback and post it to a public wiki page.
  • Brian - To send an email to discuss Stormy's bonus and salary process for 2011 with the board.
  • Brian - Will finalize the Employee Handbook so the board can approve it by the end of next week.
  • Emily - Will plan blog posts to announce sponsorship for Boston Summit.
  • Emily - Will send Om Chandra an email about whether there is still an opportunity for training or further cooperation.
  • Germán - To have a draft Fiscal Year Budget in October for the board to review.
  • Og - Will start a discussion on the mailing list about how The GNOME Foundation wants to organize event planning for events that carry the GNOME brand.
  • Og - Will read up on the "GNOME 3 as a Foundation Goal" discussion that has already taken place and will write something to be sent to Stormy for further discussion and feedback.
  • Paul - To finish the Privacy Policy, get review from James Vasile, etc.
  • Rosanna - Will handle the purchase orders with Googlgle for GIMP/GStreamer GSoC mentor payments as she has been doing it already for GNOME.
  • Stormy - To update the hackfest wiki pages to make it clear that we need detailed information about expenses included with proposals if they are asking for GNOME Foundation sponsorship.
  • Stormy - Will confirm final cost of the Boston Summit.
  • Stormy - To send the 2010 Q2 GNOME Quarter report to the Foundation list and announce as normal.
  • All Board Members - To review and finalize Stormy's year-end review feedback and bonus for 2010.

Discussed on the mailing list

  • Events
    • The Berlin Desktop Summit planning meeting will be held in Berlin from September 22-25.
    • Discussion with the KDE board about how we will handle finances the same way as the last Desktop Summit, which was profitable. We plan to handle finances the same way as last time, but working out the fine details.
    • Attendees and Travel costs for the Developer Documentation Tools has been approved.
    • Travel costs of $4468.24 for the 7º Forum GNOME event in Natal, Brasil (November 5-6th) have been approved.
    • Paul Cutler proposed a Snowy Hackfest to be held at the Boston Summit.
    • The board approved spending $12,748 to cover travel costs for the GNOME a11y hackfest at the AEGIS conference Seville, Spain (October).
  • Planning for the Advisory Board meeting on September 14, including putting together the agenda.
  • Stormy proposed hiring an event coordinator who would work about 10 hours/week for $10,000 to take care of things like:
    • Job: Make sure all GNOME events from hackfests to GUADEC turn out well. The coordinator would not be responsible for organizing the events but rather serving as a resource for the event organizer. The coordinator would make sure:
      • All processes were followed,
      • The organizers have a complete plan, budget and schedule,
      • Attendees understand the travel committee process,
      • Raise money from sponsors (not just our regular sponsors),
      • Call out potential issues to the organizers and board before they become issues,
      • Event is well publicized,
      • Work very closely with the travel committee,
  • The board approved spending $2,500 to hire Ryan Singer and is working with him to put together GNOME 3 marketing materials.
  • The sysadmin interview and hiring process is still moving along.
  • Working with people in Taiwan to set up a Taiwan User's Group.
  • Michael Schumacher from GIMP asked The GNOME Foundation to handle the PO to Google for their GSoC (Google Summer of Code) mentor payments. This year we had three student projects.
  • Planning an agenda for the next GNOME Foundation IRC meeting.
  • Paul is working on putting together a GNOME Foundation Privacy Policy.
  • Germán updated the travel policy. Working to make it more clear that people who need assistants can request funding for needed help.
  • Discussion about how to improve communication in the GNOME a11y team.
  • Bastien reported that he did some research on international banks and could not find any that would allow the GNOME Foundation to have an account in Euros (€) without incorporating there.
  • The GNOME Foundation was approached by an organization wanting to donate money in exchange for a mention on the GNOME website.
  • Discussion about updating the Foundation websites that discuss referendums.
  • Discussions between Tobias Mueller and Luis Villa about improving The GNOME Foundation Charter and By-Laws.

FoundationBoard/Minutes/20100916 (last edited 2010-10-14 21:43:00 by BrianCameron)