As one of its tasks, the current board is looking into decisions and meeting minutes taken in the past that were not yet published according to our statutes. What follows are previously private minutes from the 2022-03-21 meeting of the previous board, which are now made public. Some elements in the minutes might be redacted as there is a need for confidentiality, or as individuals are mentioned in specific contexts.
Disclaimer: The following private minutes from the previous board are published as is. They have not necessarily been confirmed by the respective session’s chairperson or keeper of the minutes, nor approved by the respective board.
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Discuss & vote: budget for 2022 (Thorsten, all 40 mins)
Ranking: [REDACTED: board-only link with confidential numbers]
Budget: [REDACTED: board-only link with confidential numbers]
- What to do with previous board votes? (sheet “Ranking”, various columns)
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proposal to use the old just as advisory
- remove from the actual ranking, use only when there is a close call, and as advisory (Thorsten)
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what about the Weblate that came too late?
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suggest to postpone, it was past the deadline (Thorsten)
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if interesting enough for the community - could be as single exception and no more (Cor)
- would support that (Emiliano)
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community would profit from this, would like to vote it anyway (Emiliano)
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agreed the process, the cut-off date was the week ago
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there is support, would be useful for the community (Paolo)
- let’s do it if we vote for it
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conflict of interest - there was a line commercial contributors (Paolo)
- made some comments to votes that need clarification (Paolo)
- does that mean that there are people in the room who cannot vote? (Thorsten)
- process is to vote on people who might have conflict (Thorsten)
- are there CoI’d lines on the sheet? (Thorsten)
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votes for awarding specific tenders (after the budget is approved) exclude CoI’d people, i.e. board members who might potentially bid (Florian)
- but blindfolding does not work, as full board is responsible for budget (Florian)
- not comfortable with excluding people from voting on the overall budget - the ESC list was generated in public, not created secretly, shouldn’t exclude people (Caolán)
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could be not particularly useful to exclude (Emiliano)
- position about a specific line is clear (Emiliano)
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in general there was support for hiring developers, seems to speak against the alleged mishandling? (Thorsten)
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General issue how to fix tendering (Paolo)
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lots of details not sorted out in the “2 developers” proposal (Kendy)
- and yet asking for recurring [REDACTED: sensitive planning for compensations] EUR cost
- would love to see the plan to include how to task & manage & project manage the developers
- not opposing that it might be useful to have developers for a11y or RTL
- but want a plan before TDF binds to such a cost
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Developers plan shouldn’t be in the budget ranking (Emiliano)
- it is a strategic decision (Emiliano)
- couldn’t be refined enough, that’s fair
- if the general direction is to have that
- let’s just vote to have the space for that
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sort it out next month with the idea to have developers
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Support Emiliano’s approach (Cor)
- no objection in general, if there is solid proposal to start spending money
- good proposal first, then budget it
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Proposal: to remove 2 developers from the ranking, and decide on it separately, after finalizing proposal
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object, would need the budget (Paolo)
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anybody else objecting to remove it? (Emiliano)
- fear that if not there, it will not be finalized
- TDF tends to have lots of spare budget from the last years (Thorsten)
- if not allocated, will not be finalized (Emiliano)
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but we need to come to a decision (Thorsten)
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there is enough of free reserve (Cor)
- at any moment, can use that when the strategic plan is agreed
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if we really want to do something, we can do, there is always excess budget in TDF, e.g. the free reserve (Thorsten)
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keen to get budget to move on (Caolan)
- not much enthusiastic about the hiring proposal in general
- suggest to drop the proposal from this round
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support removing from the budget now & work on it more (Gabor)
- and specify more what the developers should be doing
- areas without the commercial interest - silently rotting…
- would make sense to improve such areas
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support removing it (Laszlo)
- can do tenders for a11y if needed
- can imagine hiring developers - would be able to work on bugs, but mentoring first
- can specify the area - not the Easy Hacks / typos, but real interop issues
- hiring newbies might not be the best approach
- so: lets finish ranking with the removal
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in favour of removing it (Gabriel)
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proposal not clear enough at least for some of us
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wise decision - to clarify & vote on the complete solution
=> do as suggested & see where to draw the line (Thorsten) and see where to draw the line and how to match it with the money on the table
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hope to get a draft budget tonight this way (Thorsten)
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supports removing the budget item (Emiliano)
- and have a working group for that (Emiliano)
=> do the ranking with crossed-out removed and with 2 developers removed (Thorsten / Florian)
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a meeting the next Monday to finish (Cor, Thorsten, Florian)
- any objection? (Thorsten)
- a week from now OK, the 2 weeks from now problematic (Caolán)
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some other bits & pieces on the agenda
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further adjustments needed to budget plan:
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“Legal advice” (sheet “Overview”, line 20) misses potential costs for [REDACTED: sensitive legal information] - propose to leave as is and get more budget when needed
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Proposal to increase “Running costs and discretionary spending” by 10k (sheet “Overview”, line 21), budget was nearly fully used in 2021
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Proposal to increase infra budget (sheet “Overview”, line 23) by 15.000 € - unexpected last-minute costs for hardware replacement in Switzerland
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“LibOCon and FOSDEM” has 30.000 € (sheet “Overview”, line 25) - propose to leave as is and see if we have full in-person conference and how sponsorships are going, ask for more budget if/when needed
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Cost for [REDACTED: sensitive HR matter] is not factored in, as previously discussed
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“Accessibility: Implement scrollto, scrolltopoint, scrollsubstringto, scrollsubstringtopoint” (sheet “Projects”, line 16, 60.000 €) seems not relevant anymore, proposal to dissolve the budget
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“2-4% budget to FLOSS software as devprojects or support” (sheet “Projects”, line 19) has about 9.000 € left - could merge with proposal (sheet “Ranking”, line 69/item 66) and make that 10k €
- let’s try to do it online (Florian)
- walk through the above items
ai florian / thorsten roll above changes into budget, nail down final sums, propose 2-3 sorting and rankings, to be discussed next Monday
ai thorsten invite for extraordinary board call Monday, 28th of March
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Discuss: Last minute item(s) (owner of the item, all 5min)
Rationale: if there is popping up an item after sending the agenda- Collabora Online / white-labelled on Nextcloud instance (Thorsten)
- Board process proposal feedback (Thorsten)
- HR topic (Thorsten)
Private meeting ends at 18:13 UTC / 19:13 Berlin time.