Friday, July 17th, 2009 (face-to-face)

OSI Board Face-to-Face Meeting
Palo Alto, California
Day 2: July 17, 2009

Meeting start time 09:00 PT. Meeting called to order at 09:00 PT. Quorum at 11:00 PT.

Attendees

Board Members

  1. Mr. Michael Tiemann, President
  2. Ms. Danese Cooper, Treasurer (joined at 11:00; quorum established)
  3. Mr. Andrew Oliver, Director (joined via conference call at 14:30)
  4. Mr. Russell Nelson, Director
  5. Ms. Alolita Sharma, Secretary
  6. Mr. Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel (joined 13:00 – 14:00)

Board Observers and Guests

  1. Mr. Simon Phipps, Invited Guest
  2. Mr. Bruno Souza, Director Emeritus (left at 16:30)

Expected, but Not Present

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

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

Agenda

  1. OSI Trademark and Logo Usage Guidelines
  2. OSI Trademark Status
  3. OSI Trademark Guidelines Agreement
  4. OSI Trademark Usage and Logo Usage Guidelines on website
  5. OSI and Education – Supporting OSI’s Class 41 filing
  6. Website Gardening
  7. Committees discussion
  8. Membership Strategy (Discussion contd. from Day 1)
  9. Board participation/lack thereof (contd. from Day 1)
  10. Public meeting at OSCON discussion (contd. from Day 1)
  11. 2010 face to face meeting invitation

Detail

  1. OSI Trademark and Logo Usage Guidelines

    Mr. Tiemann prepared the trademark usage guidelines document to be used for the website. Mr. Tiemann generated the graphics and images as required in various sections of the trademark guidelines document. Mr. Nelson helped Mr. Tiemann update graphics and images as needed to support presentation of OSI Trademark Usage Guidelines on the website. Mr. Tiemann suggested an sprint next week while at OSCON to get the final version of the trademark guidelines posted on the website. Mr. Oliver discussed the usage of logo trademarks on Second Life.

  2. OSI Trademark Status

    Mr. Radcliffe joined the meeting at 13:15 to discuss and finalize trademark usage guidelines. Points of discussion with the DLA Piper team included:

    * Protection overseas of logos: The logos are filed under US law. There is a Madrid treaty that makes is easier to file for protection in 12 countries. (US, EU, Asia (AP, ASEAN), BRIC). A filing at the US PTO CTM would cover 27 EU countries. Brazil and India are not under WIPO. We need to understand the costs associated with these various filings (approximately $5K).

    * Trademark administrator for OSI: Mr. Tiemann motioned that Mr. Nelson be elected OSI trademark administrator. Ms. Sharma seconded. Motion passed unanimously.

    Mr. Tiemann will follow-up with Mr. Radcliffe for trademark agreement final version.

  3. OSI Trademark guidelines agreement

    There are use cases that require permission as well as two cases exist where usage doesn’t require permission. Conditions for non trademark use and trademark use will be clarified by Mr. Radcliffe. Proof of usage has to be sent back to OSI for verification. Non usage of logo on hybrid websites (non-dilution of open source brand) is also a consideration. Mr. Nelson will add trademark guideline agreement to the website.

  4. OSI Trademark Usage and Logo Usage Guidelines on website

    Mr. Tiemann will work on getting exact pantone colors and other details for logos. Once Mr. Tiemann has completed his activities related to finalizing the Trademark Usage and Logo Usage Guidelines, Ms. Sharma will work on building the corresponding web pages to be available on the website.

  5. OSI and Education – Supporting OSI’s Class 41 filing

    We have a section on opensource.org stating – “the OSI is actively involved in Open Source community-building, education, and public advocacy to promote awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software. OSI Board members frequently travel the world to attend Open Source conferences and events, meet with open source developers and users, and to discuss with executives from the public and private sectors about how Open Source technologies, licenses, and models of development can provide economic and strategic advantages.”

    Mr. Tiemann states that this is in sync with what we have filed as the Class 41 description. However, in order for our education efforts to be more compliant, we have to provide an educational program at the OSCON public meeting. Other tasks that need to be addressed to support the Class 41 filing include the education committee organizing education events as well as compiling links that point to past and current open source education events/talks.

    In order to complete the task of compiling links, Ms. Cooper will work with Ms. Sharma to produce evidence for allegation of use for education. Ms. Sharma will also update the website to add Education as a top-level section to the site navigation.

  6. Website Gardening

    The board members present at the meeting worked on various items related to website maintenance. Lost pages were restored by Mr. Nelson (e.g. lost research page related to Mr. Tiemann’s blog post, other lost pages (Peru government declaration translation), OSI presentation update (from FISL), translations). Comment spam was removed by Mr. Souza. Ms. Sharma posted the pending approved minutes.
    Ms. Sharma will add legal advisory board details to website. Ms. Cooper granted Mr. Phipps access to OSI’s board wiki.

  7. Committee discussion (contd. from Day 1)

    Team discussion on action committees for OSI created by the board to reflect current and future activities and goals. Discussion results posted on http://www.opensource.org/committees. Mr. Tiemann moved that the committees listed in opensource.org/committees represent the currently active OSI’s committees and any committees not listed are no longer active; the status of these committees including their activities and memberships will be reported to the Board at regularly scheduled meetings; and those updates will comprise the latest status regarding the work of these committees. Ms. Cooper seconds the motion. The motion was approved unanimously. Mr. Oliver proposed formation of an infrastructure committee to attend to OSI’s infrastructure needs. The board supported the formation of this infrastructure committee to be headed by Ms. Sharma with initial committee members – Mr. Oliver and Mr. Greant.

  8. Membership strategy discussion (contd. from Day 1)

    * Mr. Phipps will lead the effort in putting together a strawman membership proposal to be presented to the OSI board in 30 days (i.e. by the next board meeting in August).
    * Mr. Oliver suggests that the OSI board thank all charter members for their feedback and effort to help the OSI move towards a membership based organization. A message of thanks was drafted by Ms. Cooper for review by the board for the charter membership. The governance committee will be publicly announced thereafter.

  9. Nomination of Simon Phipps as board observer

    Mr. Tiemann proposes Mr. Phipps as an board observer of the OSI board. The board unanimously supports Mr. Phipps’ appointment as board observer. Ms. Sharma will add Mr. Phipps’ bio and photo to the OSI website.

  10. Board participation/lack thereof (contd. from Day 1)

    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. Discussion about changing board participation rules such that the OSI by-laws are modified to introduce a term limit or introduce performance requirements for board member participation. Refer to Article V section 3 in OSI’s by-laws to remove ineffective/inactive directors.

  11. Public meeting at OSCON discussion (contd. from Day 1)

    Discussion included topics to cover at next week’s public meeting at OSCON. Topics were highlights of OSI’s accomplishments (EUPL and meeting with EU at FOSDEM), South Korea MOU, India Open Standards letter, OSI at FISL, IPA Font License, Trademark usage, 3 minute report for each committee and an Q&A with audience for remainder of session.

  12. 2010 face to face meeting invitation

    Mr. Gune, one of OSI’s board members has conveyed to Ms. Cooper an invitation to the OSI board to hold its 2010 spring face to face meeting at Symbiosis University in Pune, India. Unfortunately, there are major cost and time considerations. The board has requested more information from Mr. Gune. Mr. Oliver inquires whether Mr. Gune’s organization will help cover transportation costs for all board members? The time involved to reach the venue is 2 days each way for international board members coming to Pune. That may be too long a break for anyone to take from their regular jobs.

Meeting Adjourned at 17:30 PDT.