OSI Board Meeting Minutes, Friday, June 14, 2019

Minutes of a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Open Source Initiative held via Jitsi conferencing on Friday June 14, 2019.

 

Quorum

Quorum was reached and the meeting was called to order at 17:08 UTC.

 

Attendees

Present

Molly de Blanc

Patrick Masson

Elana Hashman

Hong Phuc Dang

Chris Lamb

Christine Hall

Pam Chestek

Simon Phipps

 

Declarations of Interests

Directors were asked to declare any actual or potential conflict of interest material to items on the meeting agenda (italicised below). None were declared.

 

Officer Reports

Motion to approve minutes (Simon)

Simon advised that the minutes for the May face-to-face meeting were still in preparation

 

President's report on representation (Molly & Josh)

Molly advised that she had no representation of OSI to report. She advised the Board of upcoming meetings.

 

Treasurer's report (Hong/Josh)

The Board had not received the monthly financial report, for personal and temporary workload reasons of the Controller. Patrick assured the Board there was no obvious issue of concern.

 

General Manager Report

Patrick outlined the contents of his report (see Appendix B) and answered questions.

 

Board Topics

Staffing Committee report (Josh, Molly)

Molly reported that a meeting was held which discussed gaps in good HR practice and shape of a future staffing strategy. No minutes were provided.

 

Membership Topics

Affiliate Membership for OpenStack (Patrick)

Motion (Patrick): Approve OpenStack Foundation as OSI Affiliate member.

Second (Simon).

Discussion: 

  • Patrick provided the Board with due diligence research demonstrating that OpenStack meets OSI’s current requirements for Affiliate membership.
  • The membership committee will bring discussion of (c)(3) vs (c)(6) categorisation at a future date but the question was tabled for now to allow unanimous admission of OpenStack..

The motion was approved by unanimous consent.

 

Membership Committee report (Elana)

Elana identified the Membership Committee actions from the June 2019 meeting as:

  • Create a membership communication role (part-time staff position)
  • Hold a quarterly call for affiliate members

Elana identified the Membership Committee goals for 2019 as:

  • Expanding the OSI membership, including new individual/affiliate members and increased representation outside Europe and the US
  • Increased engagement with communities the OSI has not traditionally interacted with
  • Reviewing membership benefits and types

Elana provided the Board with reference material for the Committee (in online storage) but no minutes were presented for acceptance.

Elana led a discussion on the clarity of messaging for individual members and affiliates, concluding that OSI needs a "soundbyte" to communicate the board's mission for the OSI to the membership in a brief and clear way.

The phrase emerging from the discussion was “OSI will promote and represent the open source community, protecting the meaning of the term and development model through community and standards work.”

 

KDE Advisory Board member (Patrick)

The OSI sits on KDE's Advisory Board. The OSI representative was Italo Vignoli. With his departure, this seat needs a new representative.The commitment is detailed at https://ev.kde.org/advisoryboard.php

Chris Lamb volunteered to fill the role and the board agreed by unanimous consent.

 

Communications Topics

Twitter messaging (no owner)

This item was tabled in the absence of a topic explanation.

 

2nd half of 2019 Event Attendance (Hong)

Patrick explained the current event strategy to the Board: 

OSI has rarely held event ourselves. Rather, 1) we identify strategic events that general directors would attend and promote them, or 2) we align selected conferences with the annual planning and make them staff responsibility to arrange OSI presence.

(Simon noted the exception of a very successful government workshop in Washington DC)

 

Conferences in 2019 Annual planning: OSCON, DebConf (?), Linux Foundation Open Source Events (??), All Things Open (??, Pam lives close to the venue, can staff the booth for some time, Christine/Molly will be there) 

Alignment: current process: Email the board > Add the event to OSI calendar > Social Media

Action Item: Create list document of proposed events (Patrick)

Historical:

OSI wiki page, "Planning Rubric" https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Operations/Conference_Planning_Rubric/

OSI Operations wiki page (see, External Events): https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Main/OSI+Operations/

 

Prepare for OSCON (Patrick)

Logistics for the booth: Patrick is taking care 

Who will be there: Hong, Carol (?), Elana (tbc), Molly, Josh

Who needs exhibitor pass: Elana

 

Awareness request: ICANN/UASG Information on Updated Internet Standard (Patrick)

Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) - Apple, Google, ICANN and Microsoft

Initial proposal and follow (via email, attached)

3 blogs submitted by ICANN/UASG for outreach to your members.

UASG101 - Introduction to Universal Acceptance: http://get.uasg.asia/docs/UA101-Intro-2019-03-20.pdf

UASG102 - Email Address Internationalization (EAI) http://get.uasg.asia/docs/UA102-EAI-2017-05-17.pdf

UASG103 - Programming Language Hacks  http://get.uasg.asia/docs/UA103-Hacks-2019-03-20.pdf

 

Legal Topics

Status of Cryptographic Autonomy License and discussion:

Pam explained that the Licensing Committee had decided to issue a rationale document with each license approval, and since CAL would be the first approval with a substantial rationale document the Committee sought the Board’s consent before proceeding.

Pam explained the findings of the committee and agreed to make a version of the rationale document for the Board's review prior to sending a version to the license-review list per the published process. The Board consented to publication of the report after a short review period.

 

Approval of LBNL BSD License

Motion (Pam): Resolved that the LBNL BSD be approved as an Open Source Initiative Certified license in the “legacy” category of licenses. 

Second (Chris).

Discussion:

The Board accepted the Committee rationale document.

The motion was approved by unanimous consent.

 

Moderation of license-{discuss,review} (Chris)

Chris waived discussion as the Licensing Committee had commenced a new moderation strategy.

 

Incubator/Project Topics

These agenda items were not discussed.

ClearlyDefined update (Carol)

Carol was not present.

Standards update (Simon)

Simon waived discussion pending changes in the Working Group taking effect.

Open Source Africa (Josh)

Josh was not present.

 

Next Board Meeting

The next OSI board meeting is scheduled for 19 July 2019 subject to confirmation by the Standing Committee.

 

The meeting was adjourned  at 18:50 UTC.

 

Appendix A (Treasurer's Report)

Open Source Initiative
Treasurer’s Report
As of May 31, 2019

Total Assets at Beginning of Period, 05/01/19: $498,489

Revenue or Sources of Funds

Contributions $659
Memberships $640
Interest $11
Total Revenue or Sources of Funds $1,367

Expenses or Uses of Funds

Compensation $10,599
Fundraising Expense $0
Legal & Professional Fees $1,000
Office Expenses $110
Program Service Expense $20,000
Promotional Expense $0
Travel & Entertainment $7,948
Other Expenses -$820
(Gandi.net refund)
Total Expenses or Uses of Funds $10,599 $38,837

Changes

Change in Accounts Receivable $0
Change in Accounts Payable $10,500
Other $3

Total Assets at End of Period, 05/31/19: $471,523

Appendix B (General Manager's Report)

  • Shifting from technical infrastructure to operational infrastructure.
  • OSI staff planning page
  • GM Activity, May 2019.
    • Creating annual, Calendar of Events
      • Goal is to list recurring OSI activities to enable event planning, and ensure operational continuity.
    • Joined New York Council of Nonprofits (NYCON) & Empire State Society of Association Executives (ESSAE)
    • Resource for services (e.g. D&O Insurance), compliance (e.g. GDPR), and "best practices."
    • Peer networking.
    • Professional development opportunities for OSI staff and board.
  • Wiki gardening contracting with XWiki.
  • Annual Plan, Status of those initiatives outlined in the Fall 2018 FWF meeting and planning session
    • Annual long term investments: Red (Seeking provider, NYCON)
    • Engage Board Alumni: Yellow (engagement less than 10 alumni/events)
    • Engage Advocacy Circle: Yellow (engagement less than 10 alumni/events)
    • Responsive to community inputs, developments: Red
    • Support Open Source and Standards Working Group: Green
    • Administer License Review Process: Green
    • Increase Individual Membership: Red
    • Expand Affiliate Membership: Yellow
    • Develop Professional Development & Higher Education Courses: Yellow

To promote and protect open source software and communities...

For over 20 years the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has worked to raise awareness and adoption of open source software, and build bridges between open source communities of practice. As a global non-profit, the OSI champions software freedom in society through education, collaboration, and infrastructure, stewarding the Open Source Definition (OSD), and preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement.

Open source software is made by many people and distributed under an OSD-compliant license which grants all the rights to use, study, change, and share the software in modified and unmodified form. Software freedom is essential to enabling community development of open source software.