[previous private MINUTES] 2023-06-26

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 2023-06-26 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.

2. Vote, Discuss: Approve “Technical Budgeting Procedure” (tdf-board, 30 mins)
Reason for privacy: legal topics

  • premature to vote on the procedure (Thorsten)
    • unless input 2022 suggest to skip item 2 and 3 and go directly to item 4
    • agreed, #2 skipped

3. Vote, Discuss: Finalize TDF 2023 Budget (tdf-board, 20 mins)
Reason for privacy: legal & tax topics

Update on budget, new items, continue planning from FOSDEM in-person meeting.

  • skipped

4. Discuss: Last minute item(s) (tdf-board, 5 mins)
Rationale: if there is time left, and anything is popping up after sending the agenda

  • We can look at [REDACTED: name of external communication consultant] report (thorsten)

    • give each director 5 mins to reflect on that
  • no input from [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm], lets skip items 2 and 3 (Thorsten)

  • staff policy (Cor)

    • quarrels left and right
    • what do others think?
  • staff policy under discussing since 3 years (Thorsten)

    • not on agenda so no one prepared - not expecting it
    • staff policy brought up from Cor last Thursday, so perhaps fresher in mind?
    • lets hear Cor first then
  • lot of discussion around (Cor)

    • hear/recognize Florian and know where it comes from
    • give some guidelines
    • not clueless
    • important to do careful process
    • everbody allowed give input in early process
  • just answerd your mail (Laszlo)

    • can imagine important thing
    • see Paolos reactiom
    • forwarded to [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm]
    • more general thing, best practice
    • related to democracy
    • merci rule
    • suggested LO to survive for the next 10 years
    • stardivision times
    • open source in our history
    • idea of free software
  • my q to you Laszlo (Cor)

    • what do you think about from historical view
  • like 2 months time frame (Laszlo)

  • good to talk to people at LibOCon (Cor)

  • some seems out of control now (Laszlo)

    • sad to hear from a friend of mine
    • about what’s going on w LO
    • fine with the process
    • not reading books but want hear opinions
  • so your are in support (Thorsten)

    • so we can start process today
  • already epressed my opinion (Paolo)

    • bad timing
    • rember discussion from TDC
    • outcome ignored
    • experience of staff
    • solid advise
    • see warning signs to new board members
    • if we don not turn know we will hit the wall
  • good idea to have it written down for the staff? (Thorsten)

  • staff to serve TDF not the board (Paolo)

    • not hepfull at this time
    • things not in good shape, going wroing
  • content of policy is wide open (Thorsten)

  • before thinking of staff policy think first of baord policy

    • harassement of staff from board members
    • first directors policy to protect staff THEN we may start thinking about staff policy
  • Priorities are wrong (Paolo)

  • question of naming it (Thorsten)

  • fix tender process (Paolo)

  • recognize problems Paolo mentioned (Cor)

    • pushing in front of us for years
  • not clear for me what’s the scope (Gabriel)

    • to manage relation board-staff, or manage staff?
  • approach: write the rules down (Thorsten)

    • many discussions in the past at TDF
    • we’ve recently written quite some rules - CoC, tendering etc
    • have clear rules, seems clearly desirable?
    • no more fights over what is right or wrong, once written down
  • everytime things at border (Cor)

    • whistleblower
  • has a broader scope (Gabriel)

    • positive opinion to start
    • want o understand what should part of policy
    • seeing issues raised already
  • scope is board - staff relation (Thorsten)

  • three years discussion in the board (Paolo)

    • tender process
    • limiting what staff say
    • goal how to silence the staff
    • Also at FOSDEM started talk about it as soon as MC left the room
    • Told to stop talking about it
  • no need to decide today (Thorsten)

  • work first on staff protection (Paolo)

    • [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm] could help to do immediately
  • email from Cor says board - staff (Thorsten)

    • let’s start the process and see where we are in ~6 months
  • possible to start staff protection (thorsten)

    • not eager to hand over to [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm] from experience
  • whistleblower process (Cor)

    • up to board to decide
    • 90 days to get there
  • let’s say +1 and start it and give it to [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm] and [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm] which can solve the issue very quickly (paolo)

  • like to put timeline (Gabor)

    • like Paolos proposal
    • start with staff policy and then other things
  • make sense to ask input (Cor)

  • happy to support [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm] looking in to the whitleblower thing (Thorsten)

    • will take a while
    • do technical work on the staff policy
    • seems we all agree
    • gathering input for weeks
  • will work on proposal (Cor)

    • with input from others
    • any one can give suggestions to include in the policy
  • possible to split in to two? (Paolo)

    • a board policy and a staff policy so that the 2 issues can go their own way
    • staff
  • not helpful to split (Cor)

  • more holistic view makes sense (Thorsten)

[REDACTED: name of external communication consultant]

  • no time to have full discussion here (Thorsten)
    • all have different bias
  • many action items I proposed al long time ago (Paolo)
    • [REDACTED: name of lawyer or law firm] on CoIs
    • paying invoices
    • evaluate CoC procedure
  • board decides on CoI (Thorsten)
  • board is saying shut up and let’s move on (Paolo)
  • board decided it is happy to pay the invoice (Cor)
    • there is a report with a lot of positive things we can
  • issue not solved (Paolo)
    • thorsten blocking the discussion
    • we had that discussion twice (Thorsten)
    • I will write to the lawyers and see what happens
  • you are of course welcome to (Thorsten)

Paolo leaves 19:58

  • will send email, asking for all directors to extract action items out of [REDACTED: name of external communication consultant] report (Thorsten)

  • good to have that done - extract all the useful things out of this report (Gabriel)

  • should produce eth on this report (Gabriel)

  • lets follow up in budapest in detail (Lazslo)

  • share publicly for transparency (Laszlo)

  • only member (Thorsten)

    • intimately concerns TDF
  • is already on board-discuss (Laszlo)

    • only speak about positive things
  • write the emails to kick start the process, point to doc for action items (Thorsten)

  • need time to have a look (Gabor)

    • but support it
  • support report shared with internal (Cor)

    • side letter to explain

The private meeting ends at 18:09 UTC / 20:09 Berlin time.