Thursday, July 16th, 2009 (face-to-face)

OSI Board Face-to-Face Meeting
Palo Alto, California
Day 1: July 16, 2009

Meeting start time 09:00 PT. Meeting called to order at 14:00 PT. Quorum at 15:15 PT.

Attendees

Board Members

1. Mr. Michael Tiemann, President
2. Ms. Danese Cooper, Treasurer (joined at 14:00)
3. Ms. Alolita Sharma, Secretary
4. Mr. Russell Nelson, Director (joined at 15:15)
5. Mr. Andrew Oliver, Director (via phone for some discussions)

Board Observers and Guests

1. Mr. Simon Phipps, Invited Guest

Expected, but Not Present

1. Mr. Bdale Garbee, Board Observer
2. Mr. Ernest Prabhakar, Board Observer
3. Mr. Merrill Freund (Schwartz Communications)
4. Mr. Karl Fogel, Invited Guest

Sent Regrets

1. Mr. Ken Coar, Director
2. Mr. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Director
3. Mr. Harshad Gune, Director
4. Ms. Nnenna Nwakanma, Director
5. Mr. Martin Michlmayr, Director
6. Mr. Zak Greant, Board Observer
7. Mr. Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel

Agenda

1. Strategy discussion on membership reboot
2. Open Source For America
3. OSI-FSF cooperation
4. Board participation/lack thereof
5. New OSI board observer appointment
6. Microsoft meeting with OSI
7. OSI public meeting at OSCON
8. OSI Infrastructure for website and mailing lists
9. Open Data, Open Core: issues or opportunities

Detail

1. Strategy discussion on membership reboot
   
   Discussion included debate on
   
   * Executive vs. Fiduciary duties and board roles
   
   * The OSI today envisions project based board roles on licensing, advocacy, policy, education etc. These roles can be fulfilled as open source projects via committees. Each committee can be chaired by a board member with an active membership. The OSI has a structure in place today compliant with its charter. Mr. Tiemann made a motion to formally declare the five committees as discussed at the FOSDEM face to face and to retire or merge old or unused committee such as Women In Open Source, Open Standards. Ms. Cooper seconded. Motion passed unanimously.
   
   * How to gain traction with a face to face community to form a healthy membership structure is a top priority for the OSI today. A seed committee known as the governance committee is to be formed to put together a proposal for OSI membership. This committee will be headed by board member Andy Oliver and will initially include Josh Berkus, Simon Phipps and Danese Cooper as committee members. Other possible candidates for the committee include Karl Fogel, Zak Greant, Mitchell Baker and Bradley Kuhn as a process expert advisor. The "co-ment" tool will be evaluated for tracking the membership discussion process. The board will be presented a draft of membership proposal from the governance committee before review by the public.
   
   * Serial diplomacy is important. We need positive agents to make membership successful.
   
   * Mr. Tiemann emphasized that the board needs to play a more active role for communications and fundraising. The Donate to OSI page on the website needs to be more prominent as well as user friendly. Ms. Sharma will work on making the Donate to OSI page more prominent and easy to read. Ms. Cooper will setup another PayPal account.
   
   
2. Open Source for America
   
   Mr. Tiemann and Ms. Cooper were invited to join the Open Source for America on behalf of the OSI. Both have accepted. Mr. Oliver raised an objection that the board was not consulted ahead of the decision.
   
   
3. FSF-OSI cooperation
   
   Peter Brown of the FSF is interested in working with the OSI on joint initiatives. The OSI will map out initiatives to the FSF and follow-up.
   
   
4. Board participation/lack thereof
   
   The OSI has been plagued by lack of participation by some board members. Board participation is essential for the health of the organization and perhaps it is time to recruit other enthusiastic open source community members who can be more active board members.
   
   
5. New OSI board observer appointment
   
   Mr. Tiemann recommends that Mr. Simon Phipps be appointed to serve as an OSI board observer.
   
   
6. Microsoft and OSI
   
   Microsoft will meet with the OSI on July 24. Mr. Tiemann will be unable to attend.
   
   
7. OSI's public session at OSCON
   
   OSI's public session is scheduled for Thursday, July 23 from 12:20 to 13:35 (1 hour 15 minutes) in Ballroom A7. The room has a seating capacity of 130 people. We need to finalize the agenda for the public meeting. Mr. Tiemann suggests the session be used for a public discussion on membership strategies for the OSI.
   
   
8. OSI Infrastructure for website and mailing lists
   Mr. Nelson has updated the board mailing list to include only current board members and board observers. He has also sent out a reminder to OSI alumni who have to elect to stay subscribed to the board list.
   
   
9. Open Data, Open Core issues or opportunities
   Mr. Tiemann reports that Jordan Hatcher of Netherlands, a lawyer consultant is very interested in open data and creating a license to protect collections of data. Mr. Tiemann also reports that the scientific community is also interested in the effort (CC-BY-SA). Topics under discussion include the four freedoms (FSF nomenclature) vs. the OSD; royalty-free vs. open data vs. data liberty with responsibility.
   
   

Meeting Adjourned at 18:00 PDT.