Wiki location: https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minute= s/20191028

=3D Meeting of the GNOME Foundation= Board of Directors, 28 October 2019, 15:30 UTC =3D

=3D=3D Attendi= ng =3D=3D

=C2=A0* BrittYazel
=C2=A0* AllanDay
=C2=A0* TristanV= anBerkom
=C2=A0* RobMcQueen
=C2=A0* PhilipChimento
=C2=A0* Federic= oMenaQuintero
=C2=A0* NeilMcGovern

=3D=3D Regrets =3D=3D

= =C2=A0* CarlosSoriano
=C2=A0* RosannaYuen

=3D=3D Agenda =3D=3D
=C2=A0* Approve minutes of 14 October
=C2=A0* Environmental impact<= br>=C2=A0* Announcements

=3D=3D Minutes =3D=3D

=C2=A0* Approv= e minutes of 14 October
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Rosanna and Neil have submitted m= inor clarifications and corrections.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* No objections, minut= es are approved pending a final wording of Neil's correction, to be inc= orporated at Neil and Philip's discretion.

=C2=A0* Environmental= impact
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* See https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Board/102.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* All= an: There was a fairly long discussion about reducing the Foundation's = environmental impact during the last board election. Subsequently, Philip W= ithnall did a large amount of work and presented a talk at GUADEC showing s= ome tentative numbers. 98% of our emissions are from people using GNOME on = their computers at home, and 2% are from transport. Digging down into trans= port, GUADEC is responsible for just over half. It seems that some smaller = events have an outsize effect but we're not sure why.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0*= Questions:
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 * What environmental targets should we = set for GNOME?
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 * What steps should we take to reduc= e the power consumption of our software?
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 * What kin= d of data gathering and administrative processes do we need to put an envir= onmental strategy in place?
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 * What should the relat= ionship be between environmental impact and our other goals?
=C2=A0 =C2= =A0 =C2=A0 * Is this something that we need to reflect in our budgeting?=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Neil: the GNOME Foundation is here to serve our purpose; we= are not an environmental charity.=C2=A0 There are things we can do to redu= ce the environmental impact which arguably serve our purpose, but if there = is a conflict then our charitable purpose must come first.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0= * Federico: The chart that Allan made shows that even if we reduce the amou= nt of transport emissions, it's nowhere near the emissions from users&#= 39; computers. Transport emissions are a good thing to watch because it'= ;s something you can affect personally, but even if we cut transport emissi= ons in half it wouldn't have a noticeable effect on the total. However,= we aren't sure of what causes the emissions from users' computers;= simply from the computer being turned on? We have not made it easy for use= rs to measure the emissions output of their computers, and they have no con= trol over what their computers do.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Philip: Regarding the = users number, it's a bit misleading to count transport emissions as so = low compared to users emissions; if these users didn't use GNOME their = computers would probably have comparable emissions but it wouldn't coun= t towards our total. So the most efficient way to get that number down is t= o encourage people to use Windows. We don't want that either.
=C2=A0= =C2=A0* Tristan: Is the users number including only the computers or total= emissions by an average person?
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: The comput= ers.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: I see having an environmental impact strategy= as part of good governance. I expect that having enough data to have a rob= ust strategy is still far away, because once we decide what data we need to= collect, we still need to collect it for a while. However, that shouldn= 9;t stop us from making changes that have an impact now.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* = Tristan: I would be interested in benchmarking power consumption of success= ive GNOME releases.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Neil: I can start to come up with an = environmental policy for different areas. I have a concern that doing so im= mediately is going to be a big piece of work; doing so in February would be= better work-wise.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: It would be worth going separat= ely through this list of ideas and see which ones we can do short-term; may= be we can have things like guidelines for hackfests.=C2=A0 Maybe for data g= athering we could target next GUADEC. Regarding power consumption, we shoul= d start a conversation among the developers.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0* Phili= p: For hackfests and such we should start gathering data from travel sponso= rships.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: Let's talk to Philip Withnall t= o see what sort of data or capture infrastructure he needs.
=C2=A0 =C2= =A0 =C2=A0* Neil: I agree, we should have a measurement in place. Before ma= king changes that are potentially expensive I would like to have some infor= mation on what will be most effective. Otherwise we may be making costly ch= anges, without being sure if that is the best way to spend those resources.=
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: For large scale changes that we need to en= force, I agree. For smaller changes I believe there are things we could do = immediately without much cost.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0* Tristan: In Europe,= taking trains can sometimes even be more economical.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Phi= lip: We should take into account the effect on our goal of becoming a globa= l project; countries that already have GNOME contributors are more likely t= o be able to connect via other means than travel, than countries where we w= ant to establish a presence.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0* Federico: This ties i= n with the discussion about the location of GUADEC. We should get to a poin= t where contributors can feel confident that they won't miss out substa= ntially if they don't go to every conference.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: = It sounds like we should start a conversation about improving the power con= sumption, and figure out what data we need in order to put together an envi= ronmental policy.

=C2=A0* Announcements
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: The= committee guidelines discussion is waiting on help from our committee liai= sons.
=C2=A0 =C2=A0* Allan: Next session will be an ED report and board-= only discussion.