Board of Directors meeting 2023-05-29

Board Discuss
#1

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2023-05-29
Meeting Minutes

Date: 2023-05-29
Location: Jitsi

Session chair: Thorsten Behrens

Keeper of the minutes: Cor Nouws

In the meeting:
Board Members - Thorsten, Cor, Paolo, Lázsló, Emiliano (joined later)
Board Deputy Members - Gabriel
Membership Committee Members - #
Membership Committee Substitute Members - #
Community - Alfredo, Tammy, Jessy
Team - Hossein, Olivier

Representation: Gabriel for Emiliano

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 5 Board of Directors members are attending or represented in 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 3.

          • Someone to start recording via Chrome * * * * *

Florian/Thorsten

Recurring item: Publication of previous board minutes

  • board-discuss (now in Discourse)
  • tdf-members
  • wiki page for minutes
  • wiki page for decisions
  • private minutes to the MC

Any updates regarding director affiliations and substantial interests:

Would any of the directors present need to declare an interest, for any of the listed agenda items?

The public meeting commences at 16:# UTC / 18:# Berlin time.

AGENDA:

Public Part

  1. Answering questions from the community (tdf-board, 30 mins)
    Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask
    questions to the board and about TDF

Alfredo: Reading about very worring this happening in the board. Please explain. Thank you.

Thorstem: tempest in a tea cup - something got public that should not have been. Now we fixed that

Paolo: Just a tempest in a tea cup? You must be joking. You deleted a vote I sent out claiming it contained confidential legal information. The quotes simply confirmed issues that were already public, so nothing privileged/confidential shared. That affects my duties and ability to do board work. As you made a mistake, just revert changes. Not even asking for you to apologize.

Thorsten: you’re not blocked

Cor: RoP changed, accept it. Its not the board did not notice your input, Paolo - but we simply decided otherwise. That you don’t accept it, is clear. A waste of time. Not a valid way to behave as a board member. Covering things up, and accusing - also not ok.

18:17 Emiliano joins, representation changes to Gabor

Laszlo: worried about the mails, we have lots of problems. Under the lid. Agree with Thorsten, we must share, what can be shared. Plan to present something at next LibOCon, on the history - which is related to this. Be good to know about our history. sent a few messages on board-discuss, on the root of the problem. Share link: laszlo. nemeth - related problems, and answers. So I’m actually contributing to the discussion. A long list of mails to answers, perhaps publicly. Also on the future. The thing here, was a board decision, not just Cor or Thorsten

Cor: hard to keep track on the amount of information - but usually a bit more flexible. But, with a day job. Emiliano. Lazslo, Gabriel, Gabor - cannot be anything else, but both the struggle, and the avalanche after the day job, careful in replying, only expected after past behaviour. There are quite some thoughtful replies. There are board members, doing productive things like hiring QA

  1. Discuss: Schedule meetings during LibOCon in Bucharest (tdf-board, 15 mins)

Gabriel:

  • questions on exact schedule
  • structure like the past years
  • 21-23rd of Sept main days
  • 18-20th rest of the meetings
  • community day on the 20th
  • 19th MC/board/staff
  • 18th board-only

Cor:

  • posted to TDF internal
  • good to take time, have organized discussions, on various topics
  • which are important for foundation and community
  • there are items that keep popping up - be good to sort out, and not sweep under the rug
  • not every detail matters, but: general direction of development, and ecosystem
  • natural questions, looking at the history of the foundation
  • was in the community council
  • it is obvious, people are concerned, wrt balance of power
  • seems much of that is beneath current discussions
  • also important: how to grow ecosystem number
  • next decade manifesto
  • also: a report, on areas where we can improve in working together
  • all these things matter to members - valuable to meet on wednesday

Thorsten:

  • might need larger room

Gabriel

  • no prob. still vacation time

Tammy: no input, I’m new here

Olivier:

  • in favour

Gabriel

  • very happy if we can discuss, and end in something positive
  • schedule: asking hossein wrt the workshop? when?

Hossein

  • busy with personal stuff - couldn’t check yet, what is the best time for the workshop
  • the actual program - needs contributions from me, stephane, others
  • hope others can help? workshop programme - covers different things, from opensource, to programming (sdk, extensions, core hacking)
  • so, can be flexible for the schedule - but having help in the area is appreciated. will help achieve the goals for the workshop
  • can prepare good materials. the plan is 3 days workshop
  • will discuss schedule with gabriel

gabriel

  • end of uni year, vacations soon starting
  • don’t have enough time otherwise to promote
  • in a hurry, go to university tomorrow, share some posters
  • discuss with representatives? needs an answer ASAP
  • unsure when to schedule - not sure exact days are issue
  • of course, if main conference is in parallel - then its an issue
  • otherwise, concerned about Hossein/not being able to participate in conference?

Hossein:

  • can we overlap with actual conference?
  • depends on size of workshop (wrt room sizes)
  • having before or after the main conference, would be best

Cor:

  • comes down to marketing?
  • who’s the kind of person we want in the workshop?
  • suggestion: one day on tuesday? then the next two days, just half-days, so they can join the conference?
  • Muhammed Kara, the blooged on the some teaching endeavours he did - gave quite some courses, during uni - with the idea to entice them to do libo hacking
  • he might have ideas, experience, materials? perhaps useful to poke him for hossein
  • more general discussion topics - lets plan, please everyone look out for updates!

Hossein:

  • will poke Muhammed
  • also held a workshop at uni - but not the extended workshop we have now
  • target audience are students
  • important to have them - make sure we have people, who can/will present
  • big gap - asking people to travel twice is a prob - can’t have gaps between conf and workshop, sadly

Tammy:

  • asking if it can be virtual? will not be there
  • perhaps could help, remotely?

Hossein:

  • virtual event, if its a small one - is possible
  • the blocker will be, preparing material for workshop is time-consuming
  • not all people presenting (him, stephane)
  • can prepare all the materials
  • but: a small session, to understand, who will attend
  • ask who want to attend, to be present?
  • for efficiency, for the virtual event, vs. in person - believes
  • better onsite, for helping people out
  • but: prelim session, to prepare, with interested people, so get prereqs prepared - could be useful?
  • have some laptop/mobile phone, to present the workshop online

Thorsten

  • suggests remote teachers, and a 2nd event purely virtual

Hossein:

  • will think about it - but a lot of work surely
  • use chatrooms in any case
  • needs audience to prepare, knowing who/how many, and have them instruct to prepare properly
  • be great to have a chat room way before, to meet & sync

Gabriel

  • very difficult to know who will participate
  • people will just show up
  • suppose that - people who will attend, will have the needed skills
  • unclear if smart to have workshops overlap the conference
  • might be better to have people being able to meet community, and overlap the events
  • if the event is a success, uni will be happy to continue collaboration - e.g. involve libo in

The public meeting ends at UTC / 19:15 Berlin time.

Private Part

  1. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (tdf-board, 15 mins)
    Rationale: if there is time left, and anything is popping up after
    sending the agenda

The private meeting ends at ### UTC / ### Berlin time.

Thorsten Behrens (Session chair)
Cor Nouws (Keeper of the minutes)

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