Minutes of the Board meeting, 2006/Aug/02

[Federico Mena Quintero <federico ximian com>]

Hot minutes straight out of the oven!

GNOME Foundation Board Meeting, 2006/Aug/02
===========================================

Attendance:

Anne
Dave (chairing)
Federico (minutes)
Jeff
Zana

No attendance:

Jonathan (regrets)
Quim (regrets)
Vincent (regrets)


AGENDA
======

* Trademark application

* Canonical coming into the Advisory Board

* Budget

* Election reform

* Other business


OLD ACTIONS
===========

* Jeff to write a proposal for the technical project meeting. NOT DONE

* JRB to send an update on what hardware has been bought for the event
  box.  DONE - we are missing a small-form-factor machine.

* Vincent to work with the membership committee on problems and
  governance.  DONE - the membership committee had a meeting, and they
  are moving forward.

* Vincent to change the template for the notifications that happen upon
  getting a CVS account:  "By the way, now that you have CVS account you
  may want to become a Foundation member!".  DONE

* Jeff to write a press release for the GTK+ / Foundation
  announcement.  IN PROGRESS

* Quim to finish the financials from GUADEC (should be ready
  by the end of July or August).  IN PROGRESS

* Quim to finish his GUADEC-HOWTO (ETA: end of August).  NOT DONE

* Federico to send question to foundation-list: who should get the two
  Ultra 20 machines?  DONE

* Dave to contact Miguel �gel L� and Izabel Cerqueira about the
  Latin American conferences.  NOT DONE

* Anne to send the trademark licensing agreement to Software Freedom
  Law Center for approval.  NOT DONE.  We have the old agreement lying
  around; we need to update the new one to send it.

  New action:  Anne to contact our pro-bono law firm instead of SFLC.

* Quim to talk with Killermundi about the GNOME Store.  IN PROGRESS,
  Quim is in contact with them and they are defining the details.

* Dave to mail Zana about rewording the sample contract.  DONE -
  contract is finished and signed by Jonathan.

* JRB to mail the draft criteria for an interview for the executive
  director to board-list.  NOT DONE

* Federico to ask JP Rosevear about Novell's people going to demo
  GNOME at SIGGRAPH (Aug 1-3, Boston). DONE - Dave Reveman and other
  people will go.

* Federico to contact Dave Richards about going to GOSCON - ASAP,
  because we need an abstract to be submitted. DONE - Dave got
  contacted; is talking to our own Dave Neary about this.

* Federico to send GNOME's nomination for the Mellon Awards for
  Technology Collaboration.  DONE

* Zana to mail Federico with her ISV integration guide (articles in
  Red Hat Magazine), so that Federico can integrate it with the
  current GNOME Integration Guide.  DONE - sent to Federico; not
  integrated yet.

* Dave to ask O'Reilly about comissioning a GNOME book for ISVs under
  a free documentation license.  NOT DONE


MINUTES
=======

* Trademark application:

	- Costs about USD 1,000 to 2,000 to register the foot trademark.

	- Anne thinks we need to have the mark (foot logo) registered,
          not just the GNOME name.

	- Anne will get in contact with Luis and our lawyer.

	- Luis is in close contact with our lawyers and knows the
          issues well.

	- We should keep using Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, our
          pro-bono lawyers, for legal matters not related to free
          software.  The Software Freedom Law Center is appropriate
          for free software concerns.

	- DECISION: we will register the foot logo.

	- ACTION: Luis and Anne to talk to our lawyers to restart the
          trademark process.

* Canonical coming into the Advisory Board:

	- This is great news!

	- Starting on 2007 with the fee for big companies (USD 10,000)

	- We need a press release.  ACTION: Jeff to draft a press
          release about Canonical joining the Advisory Board.

	- Dave suggests that we have another Advisory Board meeting at
          the beginning of September.  ACITON: Federico to announce
          the meeting to the advisory-board mailing list on Wednesday
          September 6th.

* Budget:

	- We'll make the final numbers public once the GUADEC budget
          is done at the end of August.

	- We are rather poor in the bank right now, but we have many
          upcoming fees to collect.

* Election reform:

	- Dave contacted the election committee after GUADEC to let
          them know that we are thinking of changing the format of the
          Board elections.  They said they had no problem updating
          their software to support the new scheme.

	- We want a model where people run specifically for certain
          roles in the Board (president, vice-president, secretary,
          and treasurer):

		- They would know the responsibilities, so that they
                  won't apply for things they can't perform.

		- Foundation members may get a better idea of whom to
                  vote for, based on what they know about the
                  candidates' experience for their particular roles.

* Other business:

	- Simos Xenitellis is talking to Bitstream about releasing the new
          version of Vera under a similar license to the one we got a
          few years ago.

	- Anne: aKademy would like someone from Novell to attend to
          talk about open standards, particularly Open Document
          Format.  Jody Goldberg can't attend.  ACTION: Anne to mail
          Michael Meeks about attending aKademy on September 26 to
          talk about ODF.

	- Proposed Code of Conduct:  no board member seems to disagree
          with it.  We don't think it is something that the board
          needs to declare support for at this stage.

	- Next meeting in four weeks (Aug 30).


ACTIONS
=======

* Jeff to write a proposal for the technical project meeting.

* Jeff to write a press release for the GTK+ / Foundation
  announcement.

* Quim to finish the financials from GUADEC (should be ready
  by the end of July or August).

* Quim to finish his GUADEC-HOWTO (ETA: end of August).

* Dave to contact Miguel �gel L� and Izabel Cerqueira about the
  Latin American conferences.

* Anne to contact our pro-bono law firm instead of SFLC about the
  trademark licensing agreement.

* Quim to talk with Killermundi about the GNOME Store.

* JRB to mail the draft criteria for an interview for the executive
  director to board-list.

* Dave to ask O'Reilly about comissioning a GNOME book for ISVs under
  a free documentation license.

* Luis and Anne to talk to our lawyers to restart the trademark
  process.

* Jeff to draft a press release about Canonical joining the Advisory
  Board.

* Federico to announce the meeting to the advisory-board mailing list
  on Wednesday September 6th.

* Anne to mail Michael Meeks about attending aKademy on September 26
  to talk about Open Document Format.


DECISIONS
=========

* We will register the foot logo trademark.