Board of Directors Meeting 2020-04-24

[stephan.ficht]

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2020-04-24
Meeting Minutes

Location: Jitsi

Session chair: Franklin Weng
Keeper of the minutes: Michael Meeks

In the meeting: Michael, Thorsten, Franklin, Florian (ED), Paolo
(Deputy), Nicolas (Deputy), Emiliano, Cor, Daniel

Representation: Nicolas for Lothar
(See
https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/subject
"Representation statements")

Deputy Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or
Deputy Chairman is required to be present or represented for having a
quorate call.

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 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 13:05 Berlin time.

Agenda:

Public Part

1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 15 minutes)
Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to
the new board and about TDF.
    + no-one present to ask questions.

2. Discuss: Process of publishing the Board minutes, additional ways for
informing and discussing issues (Lothar, Florian, All 5 minutes)
Rationale: Clarifying the process with all/public, collecting new ideas
for additional interactions between board and members
    with Lothar not attending the call skipping

Public part ends 13:09 Berlin time.

Franklin Weng (Session chair)
Michael Meeks (Keeper of the minutes)

Stephan

[uwealtmann]

Hi

The meeting commences at 13:05
...
ends 13:09 Berlin time.

...and the minutes then need two an a half weeks to be published? And at time there was really nothing worth working on it? Or reporting to the community?

Ain't you ashamed of this document of obvious idleness? There are open issues which damage the Foundation and the community as long they are not solved and you dare to just do nothing? Or at least to tell us nothing about what has been discussed and/or done?

Just to remind item 4 of the last TDF board meeting: "4. Discuss: one of the highest Ranking in budget vote: ...what to do in general...(Lothar, All 5 minutes, if needed shifted to the private part)"
I' afraid 5 minutes will be not good enough by half. And besides that: A shift to the private part is not welcome at all.

[samtuke]

Uwe: it’s a shame that your tone is aggressive, and that you assume bad faith, because it undermines the point you’re making, which I believe is a good one.

Board: To phrase Uwe’s question differently: can we on this list expect swifter and more comprehensive minutes in future? Could inexpensive process changes be made to enable that?

Thanks,

Sam.

[floeff]

Hi Sam,

Sam Tuke wrote:

Board: To phrase Uwe's question differently: can we on this list expect swifter and more comprehensive minutes in future? Could inexpensive process changes be made to enable that?

on the topic on when to publish the minutes, we were indeed discussing how to optimize and speed up the process (cf. see item #3 from the last board call), so I assume publication to happen faster in the future.

Florian

[lothar.becker]

Thanks Sam, Uwe, Florian,
indeed, as Florian said, this process was bespoken exactly these days, no need to be ashamed. So we clarified that process, we publicly discussed it
last Friday, got a few good ideas even from you Uwe (*publishing topics of private part of board meetings and give a reason for privateness, both if
possible and if not in the nature of itself). So now, thanks Sam, we as the board should now pinning some time frames at the steps of this process, so
that there is an expectation management with it.
Hope, this helps here further and give the impression, that all want to get better and better.

Thanks again, Lothar

[samtuke]

Florian, Lothar: that’s encouraging progress - thanks for highlighting

Sam.