Foundation Board Minutes for Tue, June 13th 2017, 17:00 UTC

Next meeting date Tue, June 20th 2017, 17:00 UTC

Wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20170613

Attending

  • Cosimo Cecchi
  • Shaun McCance

  • Neil McGovern

  • Rosanna Yuen
  • Alexandre Franke
  • Allan Day
  • Nuritzi Sanchez
  • Meg Ford
  • Jim Hall

Regrets

Missing

Agenda for 2017-06-13

  • Flattr email
  • GUADEC 2017 finance request
  • AGM Announcement
  • Hackfests wiki page update

Minutes

  • Flattr email
    • We received an email asking whether donations through flattr were possible
    • Upon investigation, GNOME already has a flattr account, it was originally opened on behalf of the GIMP project
    • We don't receive a lot of funds through this, but it's hard to track whether the money is sent for the GIMP project or GNOME
      • Discussion about this got dropped in the past because there was not a lot/no money coming through this
    • Allan: from an engagement point of view, it's always good to have more ways for people to donate, but from the Foundation point of view, it may be undesirable to have a lot of accounts scattered around
    • ACTION: Neil to follow up saying that the Board has decided not to promote the use of the flattr account (DONE already)
  • GUADEC 2017 finance request
    • This year's GUADEC income seems to have all gone to the Foundation's bank account in the US
    • GUADEC's team also has an UK account for this purpose, but it's currently empty
      • We cannot have sponsors wire money directly to the UK bank account because it's not ours (so an invoice from the GNOME Foundation can't be paid to that account)
    • Since there are live expenses that the GUADEC team needs to pay for, they're requesting GBP 5000 from the GUADEC sponsorship money to cover these
      • Additionally, there are invoices for things like the venue or accommodation that are coming up
    • According to Allan, venue and accommodation expenses have been pre-approved by the Board, but not a general budget for misc expenses
      • Should we have a different policy for how the team can spend sponsorship money without approval from the Board?
    • VOTE: Transfer GBP 5000 into the GUADEC bank account, on the understanding that anything that isn't spent is returned to the Foundation after the event
      • +1 Cosimo, Nuritzi, Alexandre, Jim, Meg, Shaun, Allan. VOTE PASSED
    • There's a new invoice for the 20th anniversary birthday party, which is due on the 29th, that has not been approved yet
      • Estimated expense, GBP 5513, which comes out of the main GUADEC budget (but sponsors can also choose to fund this specifically)
      • Some of these expenses were not initially being reflected in the bid, so the Board could either approve a new budget including them, or that the team keep a running budget that reflects the current situation
      • In the meantime, we could vote on this request separately, and then ask the team to provide an updated budget
      • A better policy for how this should be handled in the future will be discussed at the GUADEC budget meeting
        • ACTION: Neil will make sure this gets discussed during the meeting
    • VOTE: pre-approve the GUADEC 2017 team to spend up to GBP 42000
      • +1 Alexandre, Cosimo, Meg, Shaun, Jim, Nuritzi, Allan. VOTE PASSED
    • ACTION: Allan will get back to Sam

Ongoing

This section includes items which have seen an update in the last 30 days. Format is "YYYY-MM-DD, action|discussion|abstract" for this and subsequent minutes sections

  • GUADEC 2017 finance request
    • 2017-06-13
      • The board voted to transfer GBP 5000 into the GUADEC team's UK account for live expenses
      • The board also voted to pre-approve expenditure against the confirmed sponsorship money, up to GBP 42000
        • ACTION: Allan to get back to Sam
      • The board wishes to make this a more straightforward process in the future
        • ACTION: Neil to make sure that expenses allocation for future conferences is discussed by the board in person at GUADEC
  • GUADEC 2018 bid presentations
    • 2017-06-06
      • The Board would now like to move the presentations to a call, to be able to announce a decision during GUADEC
      • ACTION: Allan and Nuritzi to organize a call the week of June 26th
  • Foundation support for Flathub
    • 2017-05-09
      • The Board voted to try and use some of our pro-bono counsel time towards the Flathub legal framework, provided our lawyers agree
      • ACTION: Neil to connect to Luis
    • 2017-05-16 - Exact questions to ask Luis are being worked up
    • 2017-06-06 - Questions sent to Luis, being looked at.
  • Hackfest process documentation
    • 2017-02-14
      • ACTION: Nuritzi to take a stab at updating the documentation for the process to request a hackfest and responsibilities between Board and TC
    • 2017-05-02
      • Nuritzi will work on this by end of May, check in then
  • Dropping dates in copyright claims on our websites
    • 2016-12-06
      • ACTION: Alexandre to send an email to foundation-list with a proposal for discussion
    • 2016-12-20
      • Next step seems to be to reach out to Creative Commons to get advice on what exactly can and should be done
    • 2017-01-24
      • Alexandre reached out to Creative commons
    • 2017-02-28
      • Alexandre will try alternative channels
    • 2017-05-02
      • We got a reply, Alexandre to follow up
    • 2017-05-30
      • Two options
        • Have terms of use on the website that state that linking to a page is sufficient attribution
        • Require contributors to assign their attribution to the GNOME Foundation
  • Privacy campaign funds
    • 2016-09-27
      • Draft is out for the Board to review and give feedback
      • ACTION: Cosimo to try and form a committee to review internship proposals
    • 2016-10-26
      • We are aiming for an internship round in spring 2017

Ongoing but stalled

This section includes items which haven't seen an update in the last 30 days.

  • Owncloud shared calendar for the board
  • Paypal Giving Fund
    • Alexandre suggested in december 2015 to get us enrolled in the program
      • That would give us exposure. For example Humble bundle allows to direct the charity part of purchases towards any of their participants
    • Zana tried to get us in sometime before may 2016, we never heard back.
    • 2016-09-06
      • ACTION: Zana to look into it
  • Sysadmin fundraising levels and perks
    • 2016-08-10, ACTION: Nuritzi to take on this project and figure out what it entails
    • 2017-05-09
      • We can talk about this item at GUADEC
  • Web page for prior pants winners
    • 2016-08-10, ACTION: Shaun and Allan to add the web page
    • 2017-03-07
      • Only missing the winner for one year, 2005
      • We can crowdsource the details and refinement of the bios/photos/etc
    • 2017-06-06
      • We are trying to expedite this before next GUADEC
      • ACTION: Nuritzi to ask Shaun for a download of the information he has already collected
      • ACTION: Alexandre to suggest a suitable location to put the information and share it with the board
  • Friends of GNOME
    • 2016-08-10
      • ACTION: Allan to get in touch with Tobi and the sysadmin team to migrate the FoG infrastructure over to GNOME
    • 2017-03-07
      • Allan will pass this on to Neil, and connect him to Tobi
    • 2017-04-18 - Neil has CRM working (ish) on the gnome website, we're looking at how to move the PayPal IPN to CiviCRM

Ongoing but no director assigned

This section includes items which haven't seen an update in the last 30 days and have no Director assigned

Nice to have

This section includes items which we would love to see happen at some point but lack the time to effectively become reality

  • Contract template for future use organizations for which we handle money
    • Kat to draft this
    • Alexandre took over
  • Privacy policy for GNOME services
    • Current draft is at https://wiki.gnome.org/Foundation/Privacy

    • Sysadmin Team's NDA should also be covered when dealing with this item
    • Kat or Allan to write up the policy
    • Kat or Allan to write up recommended wording for distribution privacy policies, regarding the behaviour of GNOME software

Discussed on the mailing list

Completed actions

FoundationBoard/Minutes/20170613 (last edited 2017-08-08 12:32:08 by AlexandreFranke)