Hello everyone and welcome to the Foundation meeting meeting agenda is here https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/MembersAgenda thanks andreasn anything anyone wants to add to the agenda, please do so * Foundation elections are over. Welcome new board. nice agenda are all the new board members here? --> Pockey (~Pockey@119.121.75.163) has joined #foundation hi everyone as mentioned here https://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2011-June/msg00030.html congratulations everyone :) --> seb128 (~seb128@83.141.95.158) has joined #foundation <-- seb128 (~seb128@83.141.95.158) has left #foundation new board is Shaun McCance, Emmanuele Bassi, Stormy Peters, Bastien Nocera, Brian Cameron, Germán Póo-Caamaño, Ryan Lortie welcome everyone thanks andreasn, aday :-) welcome shaunm, ebassi! thanks! a good team :) stormy sent her regrets for not being able to attend this meeting, as she's giving a talk at a conference this very nw now yippi: here thanks for your work last year, andreasn and yippi. much appreciated the entire board did a pretty good job the past year. it was a challenging one, especially keeping things going when Stormy stepped down as ED all the new board members have been added to the private board list, but are not able to vote until the old board step down at Desktop Summit i have a question about that yippi: i'm sure - thanks! GUADEC isn't at the same time every year, right? so why does the board switch over at GUADEC? shouldn't it switch over on a specific date? it used to do that, at the beginning of january yippi: i think the convenience of having guadec to do the switch-over outweighs the slight inaccuracy i think in the past it has switched at GUADEC, and we can continue that tradition, but it doesn't make for a full year but it turns out having a face-to-face switch was much better sure, but GUADEC is quite late this year it's usually in july and this year it's in early august really only a week or two later than 'normal' GUADEC used to be in May --> pochu (~emilio@pasanda.collabora.co.uk) has joined #foundation not for quite some time, i think :) :) it's been five years ;-) so, do we want to switch at the Desktop Summit or, perhaps sometime in July? i want to wait ebassi, shaunm; ? I have no strong opinion, but the in person switch-over is a nice tradition I think its fine to switch at the Desktop Summit, as long as we recognize that terms aren't really year-long so I'm for waiting how formal is the switchover? i believe the modification to the constitution a few years ago allows for that anyway It seems to me the only problem is if an important vote must occur in between the time when the official transition must happen and the conference. formal in the sense that you can vote before the switchover, new board members can only vote on invitation how dumb would it be to do an official switchover on a set date, but still do an old-board-new-board thing at guadec? we could switch voting in July and also have the meeting, yes yippi: you're talking about changing the bylaws, yes? shaunm: it doesn't seem dumb to me at all. the bylaws say I don't know if there are confidentiality issues with things that have to be dealt with do the bylaws state the switchover happen at GUADEC? Each of the directors shall hold office for one (1) year." to be changed as "Each of the directors shall hold office for one (1) year, or a period of up to two (2) years as determined by the Board and announced prior to an election being called. (before and after) perhaps i'm suggesting we follow the bylaws then. :) one thing I think we should consider is that a lot of decisions before GUADEC have to do with GUADEC itself, and the old board have more of a background on that. sure, but when voting switches and when we stop meeting together can be separate dates at the same time, the new board can read up on the archives with the downside that the very thing they have to do is dive into a lot of GUADEC issues but apart from that, I don't have a strong opinion on either method sure just to be pragmatic, if you take the votes away from the old board, they probably are less likely to show up..... --> shmore (~shmore@dhcp-0-12-17-51-3b-2d.cpe.mountaincable.net) has joined #foundation but anyway, if the bylaws say we should switch after one year, we should probably follow those I guess the bylaws do say that the director shall serve until his successor is duly elected and qualified, and also says that they're elected in accordance with http://foundation.gnome.org/electionrules.html, which has a timetable --> hadess (~hadess@94-192-232-89.zone6.bethere.co.uk) has joined #foundation it seems clear that the new board has no burning desire to sit immediately desrt: (joke) but we have to make them stand the whole time until then? and we're technically not violating the bylaws by having the old board stay on slightly longer (sorry couldn't resist) karenesq, what does the timeline indicate, then? could someone change the channel topic? if we want to be pedantic we could identify that if guadec is in july next year then the newly-elected board will have sat slightly less than one year but we could also amend the bylaws before then its been a rough year sumanah, seems noone is op, does that mean anyone can change it? (congrats to new ED & new & reelected board members.) I think we navigated a successful GNOME 3 launch without an ED, so give us a break. :) so, ready for next topic maybe? we were able to hire people to help us out, thanks to everyone involved, I think it worked out better than expected i propose that we let the board stay on for now (as is permitted by the bylaws), sit the new board at guadec, and fix the bylaws for next year sure, we can take when the voting switches offline any objections to that? desrt, I agree with that --> schendje (~jef@a80-101-22-31.adsl.xs4all.nl) has joined #foundation okay. safe for next topic, i think :) * Welcome Karen Sandler, our new Executive Director. karenesq: welcome :) so karenesq is our new Executive Director, hello karenesq thanks! :) and as others said before, thanks to the board for keeping things going in between EDs! karenesq: welcome :-) nice to have you with us, karenesq karenesq: any plans for early shake-ups? welcome karenesq desrt: do you suggest any? :) i have some in mind. i guess we can talk about that at guadec :) karenesq, do you want to quickly introduce yourself? karenesq: we're happy to hire someone like you ;-) I hope everyone will talk to me with their ideas and their frustrations at guadec and online andreasn: sure! Until this week, I've been General Counsel at the Software Freedom Law Center I think many of you know me already http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2011/jun/21/Karen-Sandler-Named-New-Executive-Director-GNOME/ :) I'm a huge fan of gnome (obviously!), I've been a user for a long time and have loved my participation in the Gnome community through my role at SFLC I'm incredibly excited to become ED and we're really excited to have you! and I'm in the stage where I'm trying to ramp up --> jhs (~jhs@ppp-93-104-141-31.dynamic.mnet-online.de) has joined #foundation so I may be calling on each of you to help in various ways :) please feel free to contact me if I can help on any Gnome matters at all next item on the agenda is: * Making GNOME Foundation membership a bigger deal. aday, the floor is yours thanks andreasn this was something that came up at the last foundation meeting i attended and i wanted to follow it up there's an explanation on the agenda - https://live.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/MeetingAgenda I like these ideas the idea is to discuss how we can make foundation membership more meaningful to our existing members as well as encourage more people to join aday: hmm, reading the Ubuntu membership thing it doesn't look that they have a bigger deal than we have. that's just one example this could also tie into making sure that people know if they are still members or not, as seen in latest elections lwn.net is cool though but I doubt that we can pay for that. there are plenty of things we could do automatically giving out @gnome.org email addresses could be one example another might be an enhanced members page on gnome.org don't we already for foundation members? shaunm: it's not automatic you have to apply separately shaunm: it's a pre-requisite revisiting the foundation website (and putting some info about the membership on the getting involved page) would be a start, too. ah, ok jhs: you're not wrong :) i think that's in progress, andreasn? yes, the foundation page will get a revamp soon could we require membership for e.g. shell access? are there non-members with shell access? bundling those together seems like a natural thing to do shaunm: ideally, Olav wants to get rid of ssh access shaunm: even for maintainers that makes sense ebassi, shaunm: tie to git account would be an idea then. This could also automatically renew your membership as long as you are active... right now, ssh access == people.gnome.org space I think one issues is that people don't know what the Foundation governs. jhs: that might be putting things in the wrong direction. getting git access is part of the vetting process that leads to membership There has been a lot of debate in various fora about the level to which the Foundation governs the direction of GNOME, etc. I would guess that developers don't really "care" about what the Foundation does, because they are most concerned with technical direction, which by design the Foundation doesn't govern. I think therefore a related issue is getting a clear definition of what parts of GNOME is within the Foundation's purview. A single URL that has that list that can be shown to developers who would qualify for membership would help IMO. I have at least one very active docs contributor with no interest in being a member shaunm: what reason does that contributor give? although, to be fair, he's also a very active ubuntu docs contributor, and doesn't want to be an ubuntu member some people just don't care about being members of things like that bkuhn, clarifying what the foundation is and is not about sounds like a good fit for the foundation website update "I wouldn't join any club that would have someone like me as a member." -- Groucho Marx. :) Yes, I think there has been a lot of debate lately about what "GNOME" means. I think this is the larger issue. Lately the board has been asked to answer a lot of questions about how the GNOME brand and logo can be used, for example. The usage of the GNOME logo that the Debian community did, I think is an interesting one to consider, since Debian shares our free software ethic. the main reason for membership is voting, but that only happens once a year. i'd like to think of ways that we can put the spotlight on our membership more frequently also, it would be cool to get more visibility of GNOME in OLPC products, I think. a "GNOME Inside" logo or something? yippi: I think defining GNOME and defining the GNOME foundation's tasks are different issues. aday, yes, I agree. Is there a wiki page for this somewhere? If not, lets create one yippi: I agree completely it's a larger issue. I think it's related though. aday: folks won't want to join unless they know *what* they are joining and what their votes will control. andreasn: I agree with you, but again, I think it's related: better info about what it means to be a member will relate to membership interest. Foundation is just a facilator to push forward GNOME IMHO sure, and I think brand management is an important thing for the Foundation to manage. andreasn: yea, let's do that and that should be done at the will of the larger Foundation community, I think. possibly disruptive question: if people really don't care about voting, should we really care if they're members? i.e. what's the reason for bolstering membership? perhaps there should be more community voting? the membership is supposed to be the community, no? we don't currently ask the larger community to vote on things other than by-law changes. The profeessional side of being a GNOME Foundation member can be exploted shaunm: Since GNOME is a membership org, I think it's important that GNOME Foundation be representative of the GNOME community. That'd be my reason. You don't want GF to be a "just whose interested" sort of thing; it should represent the community. shaunm: legitimating the board? If nobody is a member the board doesn't really have much legitimation and as such not much power. s/whose/who's/ shaunm: i remember stormy saying that funders of the foundation like to see high membership ok, all fair points aday: My guess would be that she meant they like to see high *donating* membership, which is a different thing. But I don't know for sure that's what she meant; I just have an inkling that might have been what she meant. being a member makes people feel like they are officially part of the community, even if they only vote once a year and it helps keep them involved another interesting point might be to have the quarterly reports more interesting for members so they feel to be part of something that works for them. (I'm curious, anyone have a URL handy for how the voter turnout was for existing membership. I'm curious in relation to this discussion if we currently have a lot of inactive members) what's the current number of Foundation members? and number of contributors? karenesq: nod - that's what i'm getting at - membership as a way that people belong to the project * sumanah wants data sumanah: http://foundation.gnome.org/membership/members.php the question isn't really to do with the foundation as a governing body; rather - 'how to enhance peoples' experience of gnome?' 177 people submitted ballots in the 2011 elections http://foundation.gnome.org/vote/results.php?election_id=16 aday: right, I'm just wary of asking them to vote on more things will have the opposite impact - feel like too much work and decrease the significance of the annual elections so, 348 members that's not a terribly high turnout better than the turnout that elected Obama Well, a 50% voter turnout would be amazing in a USA election ;), but for this purpose, shaunm, I agree it's not so good. karenesq: doesn't have to be voting. we could do more to publicise new and long standing members through the foundation blog, for example It's so easy to vote (answering an email), that if existing members can't be bothered at a, say, 80-90% level, it's troubling. how was the turnout for the next-to-last debian elections? in the last Annual Report, Foundation members over 10 years were given a special page aday: I agree it can and should be other things there were only 6 of them. yippi: i didn't know that. it's a really good idea - could we put those profiles on the foundation blog? hasn't the foundation only been around for 11 years? yes. I do like the idea of publicly recognizing long-standing members and i guess most of the early Founation members are no longer members do we know whether there's a trend in the voting turnout? Were more people voting in the past? this year was particularly popular, but that's largely due to our interesting times, i would say :) *to do with 2010 had more ballots 214 2009 also had a lot of votes http://foundation.gnome.org/vote/votes.php?election_id=13 andreasn: where would be a good place to put this on the wiki? this sounds like marketing why not on the marketing wiki? aday, the enhance membership thing? yep yeah, marketingish lets continue there probably it belongs on foundation.gnome.org foundation.gnome.org has bad marketing mojo kind of like it was designed in 1997 or something yippi: it's still built with the wml stuff from git, yes? yippi, it's in progress to be updated was about to point it out i know. :) --> victortyau (~victortya@206.132.224.107) has joined #foundation but i think it would be nice if foundation.gnome.org made it more clear why the Foundation is cool i'll put some notes up here - https://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/FoundationMembership it could better highlight GNOME 3 there has been some e-mails to marketing-list about it recently we've been on this topic for 25 minutes. should we just push it to the wiki and move on? all right, lets move on to next subject since just a couple of minutes left * Improving GNOME's news facilities. This is a brief item to let people know that this is happening and to encourage them to contribute. * Improving GNOME's news facilities. I mean http://mail.gnome.org/archives/marketing-list/2011-June/msg00044.html is a relevant msg It is a bit strange that news.gnome.org and gnome.org/news point to completely different things... https://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/NewsRedesign is a place to discuss thanks sumanah :) jhs: yes, that's part of the tangle that we want to straighten out jhs, historical reasons, but yes, we should fix this There were a lot of people that wanted to vote but couldn't due to membership renewal hiccups. I have been involved with GNOME Journal for a couple of years, and am going to decrease my involvement substantially -- I have a new fulltime job that is very time- and energy-consuming, and can't give proper attention to GNOME marketing & GNOME Journal (will be blogging this soon.) Just wanted to mention that as part of the GNOME news rethinking afranke: could that account for the entire decrease? Was that connected to the timing of the election? I don't know, but that sure counts for a bit. aday: I would propose to merge them. I mean, news.gnome.org has a lot of content quite a lot of projects contribute. gnome.org/news must be handeled by a dedicated news team. Haveing the merge means more content and also a better way to show of project progress. In addition, interesting blog posts about desktop-wide design & features might be manually added to the feed. we're just starting to formulate a plan for how to improve our news facilities. this meeting item is to make sure people know about it and encourage you to participate :) jhs: it'd be great to have your ideas on the marketing list. we'll be having a meeting soon too, hopefully yeah, lets make discussion happen on the mailing list and the wiki sumanah: congrats on the job! last item is: * Desktop Summit call for volunteers last meeting there was a question about volunteers for Desktop Summit all you need to know is now here https://www.desktopsummit.org/news/call-for-volunteers aday: not subsribed to the list (and unlikely to be in the future). But you can drop me a line if you do a meeting. I won't be able to help much apart from ideas though. thanks karenesq ! and I must put in a tiny plug to mention that we're hiring http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Job_openings :-) <-- shmore (~shmore@dhcp-0-12-17-51-3b-2d.cpe.mountaincable.net) has left #foundation I also wanted to remind people that the call-for-bids for GUADEC 2012 deadline is approaching I was hoping for a bid from Quebec. :) the deadline for volunteer signup is in 3 weeks: July 18th * sumanah looks at http://live.gnome.org/GUADEC/2012/Bids <-- pochu (~emilio@pasanda.collabora.co.uk) has left #foundation is there a public list of the actual bids made? https://live.gnome.org/GUADEC/2012/Bids is useless. It lists lots of funny cities, but none of the REAL bids that have been received so far. I still don't get why it was created. andre: then what's the real list of bids received? Existing bids so far were Brno, Lyon and A Coruña, IIRC. andre: can you delete it then, please? jhs: well, I don't want to make Bob Murphy and yippi angry - maybe they had some concept in mind that I don't understand yet. it looks like it should be made a private page for the committee members so that they can keep their drafts but some random "Candidate Locations" just because there's one GNOME contributor living around that area surely should not be listed on a page that says "2012" in its title. please add your ideas here, everyone! https://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/FoundationMembership no, i was joking. At GNOME.Asia Ryan Lorie said he wanted to submit a bid for Quebec, but I think he was only joking. andre: agreed; i think it was for the guadec committee to keep track of possibilities andre: and not for public consumption okay. I'll clean that page up. There currently are not many Hackfests planned. https://live.gnome.org/Hackfests I'd like to encourage people to think of ideas for hackfests and to make them happen. also, I'm a little concerned about the Boston Summit this year. It doesn't seem that there are any volunteers helping to make that happen in 2011. yes, J5 won't be able to help out organizing it this year preferably Boston locals it might be a good idea asking for help with this on foundation-list Should we consider doing a call-for-bids for an American site? can we proactively ask somebody? any candidates? we could ask jrb who might be a good person to help. doesn't novell also have an office in Boston? i'm not sure who to contact there. yippi: that summit was done outside Boston once, and people seemed to agree it was bad i attended the Brooklyn Summit, and it wasn't that bad it is nicer to meet at MIT, sure --> xjuan (~xjuan@host6.190-226-221.telecom.net.ar) has joined #foundation yippi: I think it just wasn't as organized I think we might be looking at the Cambridge Innovation Center instead of MIT this year, but I'm not sure I wouldn't think it should be hard to drum up enough people in Boston to organize it, but we do need volunteers. FWIW, FSF used Bunker Hill Community college for LibrePlanet in Boston (FSF used to use MIT and/or Harvard), which was much cheaper. is the boston-social mailing list still active? that might be a good way to reach boston gnome people hi guys, I am a member and want to get a gnome.org alias to create a blog. Should i send a mail to accounts@gnome.org or fill the mango form? last i heard it is still a useful way ot reach boston people, but the list is apparantly not very active maybe this could give them some things to talk about I can mail the boston-social list Pika? sure, but I think most of the people who work at Red Hat in Boston probably already know J5 has told us he won't be organizing the Summit this year hopefully, the fact that boston-social has been inactive isn't because people are just disinterested in doing it again. that doesn't necessarily translate to them realizing we need someone else to step up =) :) otherwise, yippi just volunteered to organize the chicago summit ;) :) we could do it with Flourish? any other business? seems like we're done <-- andre has quit (Ping timeout: 600 seconds) yes, seems so. Thanks everyone for attending Thanks very much for coordinating the meeting, andreasn. thanks andreasn. thanks everyone thx thanks andreasn!