= Foundation Board Minutes for Tue, December 6th 2016, 18:00 UTC =
Next meeting date December 13th 2016, 18:00 UTC
== Attending ==
* Allan Day
* Alexandre Franke
* Cosimo Cecchi
* Nuritzi Sanchez
* Rosanna Yuen
* Shaun McCance
* Meg Ford
== Regrets ==
* Jim Hall
== Missing ==
== Agenda for 2016-12-06 ==
* GUADEC 2017 University accommodation contract email
* GUADEC bank account letter of authorization
* The new gnome.blog domain email
* Dropping dates in copyright claims on our websites
* Trademark registration maintenance (see email correspondence with Pam)
* Budget meeting preparation
== Minutes ==
* GUADEC 2017 University accommodation contract email
* Only concern for accommodation is that we don't get a complete refund in case of cancellation, but otherwise looks good
* VOTE: we sign off the accommodation contract, approving a payment of GBP 7153.92 as a deposit
* +1 Allan, Shaun, Meg, Cosimo, Nuritzi, Alexandre. VOTE PASSED
* ACTION: Nuritzi to sign the contract and send it back to Sam
* GUADEC bank account letter of authorization
* A letter is required from the Board to authorize opening an UK bank account, as the GNOME Foundation is mentioned in its constitution, and nominate a few officials to act on behalf of GNOME wrt. that account
* It's also mentioned that funds left in the account after the event would be transferred back to the GNOME Foundation
* The names for the officials are Alberto, Sam and Javier
* According to Rosanna, we are not supposed to have foreign accounts as an organization
* However, it would be OK for them to open the account individually, without tying it to our organization
* More information is required from the organizers about this before we can authorize it
* ACTION: Nuritzi to follow up with the GUADEC team about the bank account
* Note that payments would be arranged through invoices from the local team, as opposed to acting directly on behalf of the GNOME Foundation
* Mention that we have not done this arrangement before, and that we would need to do research on this point
* Ask if it's possible to remove the reference to the GNOME Foundation
* The new gnome.blog domain email
* Somebody suggested that we could buy this domain
* We already voted not to purchase this domain on Aug 30
* ACTION: Nuritzi to get back to the sender and say that we are not interested in purchasing the domain at this time
* Dropping dates in copyright claims on our websites
* The issue is that our copyright notice contain dates, so they need to be updated periodically
* We can't update it automatically because it has to match an actual significant change
* We could however drop the dates in the footer, because the notice is only there as a courtesy and not for legal reasons
* We could also omit the word "copyright" and just use the © logo
* It may be good to float this by a larger audience before we take action, e.g. sending a mail to foundation-list
* ACTION: Alexandre to send an email to foundation-list with a proposal for discussion
* Trademark registration maintenance (see email correspondence with Pam)
* We need to file a declaration that the trademark is still in use to renew it
* Pam is happy to do this for us, but it comes at a cost of $600
* VOTE: Authorize Pam to act on our behalf to extend our trademark and authorize an expense of $600 for the filing fee
* +1 Nuritzi, Shaun, Cosimo, Meg, Allan, Alexandre. VOTE PASSED
* ACTION: Allan to follow up with Pam
* Budget meeting preparation
* Nuritzi has sent a framadate for availability
* This is an optional meeting, not required for all of us, but we do need our treasurer
* What do we expect to be in this budget? Generally the Foundation supports community activities, not the opposite
* For instance, if we decided to allocate $50k to renew our IT infrastructure, that does not make it happen automatically, if people are not doing the work
* It does however have a few purposes
* It's a reflection of what we want to see during the year
* It's a reflection of the current spending
* An accurate (or as accurate as we can) projection of what we're planning to spend
* An ED can take a more active role in making things happen, if resources are allocated to them
* It could also help to present to the community certain goals and a budget, to encourage activities in certain areas
* Aside from sponsoring events, hiring interns or an ED, there are not a whole lot of things we can spend our money on
* Infrastructure could be another idea
* It feels that this can turn into a planning meeting for the overall activities of the Board, in that case probably the whole Board should still be involved
* We could have a meeting just to review the past year information with Kat
* It may be interesting to also involve the wider community when it comes to the annual review, once we get a better understanding ourselves
== _Ongoing_ ==
'''This section includes items which have seen an update in the last 30 days. Format is "YYYY-MM-DD, action|discussion|abstract" for this and subsequent minutes sections'''
* Dropping dates in copyright claims on our websites
* 2016-12-06
* ACTION: Alexandre to send an email to foundation-list with a proposal for discussion
* The new gnome.blog domain email
* 2016-12-06
* ACTION: Nuritzi to get back to the sender and say that we are not interested in purchasing the domain at this time
* USPTO trademark email
* We got an email about renewal for our logo.
* We thought it was already sorted.
* 2016-11-29
* ACTION: Allan to ask Pamela what the next steps are
* 2016-12-06
* Board has approved an expense of $600 for Pam to renew the logo trademark
* ACTION: Allan to follow up with Pam
* Conference sponsorships
* 2016-08-10
* ACTION: Kat to make sure that a sponsorship brochure with all conference, levels, combinations and perks is available for the Board to review
* 2016-11-29
* Nuritzi to check to see what Kat's time looks like
* ACTION: Nuritzi to get in touch with Kat about this
* ACTION: Meg to project manage the brochure
* Email from HELLOTUX, "GNOME hoodie and a new shirt"
* We have a license agreement with HELLOTUX, they want to expand the range of products and they need our approval to do so
* There's a question about Ubuntu GNOME merchandise to address separately, since we would need another agreement in place with Ubuntu GNOME that considers merchandise for them to do so
* It's also tricky becaue there are other parties interested to royalties, and the agreement would not only be wih GNOME
* 2016-11-29
* Allan has emailed HELLOTUX. We're waiting to hear back.
* GUADEC venue and accommodation contract, and bank account
* 2016-11-29
* ACTION: Rosanna to let us know if we are actually using the liability coverage in the US. Should we keep it, or is it obsolete?
* 2016-12-06
* UK Bank account
* According to Rosanna, we are not supposed to have foreign accounts as an organization
* However, it would be OK for them to open the account individually, without tying it to our organization
* More information is required from the organizers about this before we can authorize it
* ACTION: Nuritzi to follow up with the GUADEC team about the bank account
* Note that payments would be arranged through invoices from the local team, as opposed to acting directly on behalf of the GNOME Foundation
* Mention that we have not done this arrangement before, and that we would need to do research on this point
* Ask if it's possible to remove the reference to the GNOME Foundation
* Board voted to approve the accommodation contract
* ACTION: Nuritzi to sign the contract and send it back to Sam
* ED search update
* 2016-08-10, The search is still ongoing
* 2016-11-08
* The ED search committee identified qualified candidates and presented them to the Board.
* The Board is in advanced stages of the process.
* Google Play account
* 2016-09-27
* 2016-10-04
* Payment is authorized
* ACTION: Rosanna to make the payment and follow up with Ankit
* 2016-10-18
* Rosanna is waiting for Ankit to reply about the gmail account
* 2016-11-01
* Board is discussing who should have access to the credit card associated to the account
* 2016-11-29
* ACTION: Rosanna to look into getting a PayPal credit card
* Privacy campaign funds
* 2016-09-27
* Draft is out for the Board to review and give feedback
* ACTION: Cosimo to try and form a committee to review internship proposals
* 2016-10-26
* We are aiming for an internship round in spring 2017
* Bitcoins donations data
* 2016-08-10
* Board voted to shut down the account, since we can't report those as donations. Bitcoin does not allow to trace the sender, which is required to report the donations to the IRS
* ACTION: Rosanna to shut down the account
* ACTION: Allan to remove the option from our website
* 2016-11-29
* If we don't hear back from legal by December 6th, then we will announce to the community that they have 7 days until we close the account and put it back in their court
=== Ongoing but stalled ===
'''This section includes items which haven't seen an update in the last 30 days.'''
* Owncloud shared calendar for the board
* 2016-08-10
* Cosimo tested creating an event, but with mixed results
* ACTION: Cosimo to take it on from here
* Money raised for defense against Groupon
* Kat to draft a call for Free Desktop-style hackfests which would be sponsored with money raised for defence against Groupon
* 2016-09-06
* We probably don't want to track exactly this money flow, but the initiatives that the Board has been pursuing (Flatpak, LAS GNOME) are good fits for the original intent this money was kept for
* We can consider making a PR or some other form of announcement about how we're currently making use of this money
* Paypal Giving Fund
* Alexandre suggested in december 2015 to get us enrolled in the program
* That would give us exposure. For example Humble bundle allows to direct the charity part of purchases towards any of their participants
* Zana tried to get us in sometime before may 2016, we never heard back.
* 2016-09-06
* ACTION: Zana to look into it.
* From the mailing list - "support my volunteer program" (Allan)
* 2016-08-30
* There's very little information in the message, unclear how they're related to GNOME
* ACTION: Shaun to reply asking for more information
* Google ad grant
* 2016-08-10
* ACTION: Shaun will pick this up again and try to register us into the program when he's back in the US
* The actual ad campaigns would probably need to be managed by the Engagement/Marketing team
* ACTION: Nuritzi to discuss with the Engagement Team and let the board know if they want to start using Google ad
* Sysadmin fundraising levels and perks
* 2016-08-10, ACTION: Nuritzi to take on this project and figure out what it entails
* Web page for prior pants winners
* 2016-08-10, ACTION: Shaun and Allan to add the web page
* Status of logo copyright
* 2015-12-01, ACTION: Shaun to send out email to d-d-l with proposal
* 2015-12-08 to 2016-01-19, No updates.
* 2016-02-02, Shaun will try to pick it up this week
* 2016-08-10, ACTION: Shaun will send a proposal to licence the asset with dual LGPLv3/CC-BY-SA-4.0 (similar to adwaita-icon-theme)
* Friends of GNOME
* 2016-04-11, ACTION: Alexandre to request more information about the donation data from the European donations system (Wau Holland Stiftung Foundation)
* 2016-08-10
* ACTION: Allan to get in touch with Tobi and the sysadmin team to migrate the FoG infrastructure over to GNOME
=== Ongoing but no director assigned ===
'''This section includes items which haven't seen an update in the last 30 days and have no Director assigned'''
== Nice to have ==
'''This section includes items which we would love to see happen at some point but lack the time to effectively become reality'''
* Contract template for future use organizations for which we handle money
* Kat to draft this
* Privacy policy for GNOME services
* Sysadmin Team's NDA should also be covered when dealing with this item
* Kat or Allan to write up the policy
* Kat or Allan to write up recommended wording for distribution privacy policies, regarding the behaviour of GNOME software
* Photography policy for GNOME conferences
* Proposal needs to be drafted and sent to foundation list for discussion
* Should probably be addressed at the same time as a standardised code of conduct
== Discussed on the mailing list ==
== Completed actions ==
* USPTO trademark email
* 2016-11-29
* ACTION: Allan to ask Pamela what the next steps are
* GNOME Foundation goals setting and budget overview for 2017
* 2016-11-22
* ACTION: Nuritzi to set up a separate call about budget and send a framadate, inviting all the Board members, Kat and Rosanna
* GUADEC venue and accommodation contract, and bank account
* 2016-11-22
* The deadline for the accommodation booking seems to have moved to the next month, since the University themselves were a bit late on the contracts
* 2016-11-29
* Board has approved the venue contract
* ACTION: Nuritzi to tell the team about approval
* About the bank account:
* The local team is going ahead with opening a UK bank account. Kat seems to be ok with this and asked if we can use this in the future too. People on the Board call think this may not be a good idea because it's risky. We would need to keep a close relationship with the trustees. Right now it's looking like Sam and Javier will be the trustees, partly because they're both in Manchester now.
* The risks are that it's a personal account so we would need to keep close contact with the trustees, as stated above. As a US non-profit, we cannot hold foreign bank accounts. We would need to have a contract signed with them because they would be the ones responsible for money and taxes. We don't want to look like we're hiding money overseas.
* Tl;dr we will not keep the bank account open for future use. We would need to investigate more around opening up a foregin bank account, but we've already done some research before and we do not think it's possible at this time.
* Bitcoins donations data
* 2016-11-29
* ACTION: Nuritzi to email Luis Villa about this (email sent on 11/29)
