OSI Board Meeting Minutes, Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Quorum reached and meeting called to order at 08:07 am PT.

Attendees

Board Members

  1. Mr. Michael Tiemann, President (joined at 08:09 am)
  2. Mr. Ken Coar, Director (left at 09:45 am)
  3. Ms. Danese Cooper, Treasurer
  4. Mr. Harshad Gune, Director – (on IRC)
  5. Mr. Martin Michlmayr, Director (on IRC)
  6. Mr. Russell Nelson, Director
  7. Ms. Nnenna Nwakanma, Director (on IRC)
  8. Ms. Alolita Sharma, Secretary

Guests and Observers

  1. Mr. Simon Phipps, Board Observer

Expected, but Not Present

  1. Mr. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Director
  2. Mr. Bdale Garbee, Board Observer
  3. Mr. Ernest Prabhakar, Board Observer
  4. Mr. Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel

Sent Regrets

  1. Mr. Andrew Oliver, Director

Agenda

  1. Minutes Review and Approval
  2. Officer Reports
  3. Committee Reports
  4. Old Business
  5. New Business
  6. Motions for Consideration by Board
  7. Next Board Meeting

Minutes Review and Approval

Please review the following minutes as edited for public posting.

January 13, 2010 – Monthly board meeting minutes

Ms. Cooper moves to approve the minutes. Mr. Tiemann seconds. Minutes approved unanimously.

Officer Reports

President's Report:

Based on correspondence with DLA Piper, we have resolved two major administrative issues. We have remedied the deficiencies in paperwork filed long ago and are now again in good standing with the State of California. We also submitted documents to the USPTO to retain the right to register our Class 41 trademark. With both of these done, and with our Trademark homework done late last year, I see no problem in finishing the trademark application process in time for the next Board meeting. By completing this administrative work, the OSI can finally focus on its mission-oriented work. Thanks to all who made this happen.

I am also very happy to report that we succeeded in standing up the FLOSS Competency Center website, flosscc.opensource.org. Many thanks to Ms. Sharma, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Nelson, and the folks from the FLOSSCC project for their work in making this happen.

I made several new blog posts this month, which increased traffic somewhat. The launch of opensource.com appears to have also been positive for traffic to the opensource.org website.

I look forward to hosting the OSI face to face at the end of the month.

General Counsel's Report:

Please refer to President's report.

Secretary's Report:

Ms. Sharma reports –

  • Please review the following board meeting minutes for approval.
  • Approved board minutes have been posted on opensource.org.

Treasurer's Report:

Ms. Cooper reports –

  • Received notifications from DLA Piper, CA State Franchise Tax Board, the Registry of Charitable Trusts and CA State Department of Justice that OSI is back in good standing as a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation.
    • Our accountant is already preparing our 2009 tax return and is also preparing refund requests for taxes and penalties we paid out when our status was in question, as well as retainer refund from our previous accountant. We don't know yet how much we will recoup from those requests.
  • Bank account balances reported to board.
  • Recent expenditures: Current accountant has been paid for forensic work to re-create/validate returns not filed 2001-2003 per CA-FTB.

Committee Reports

License Committee (Mr. Nelson)

Mr. Nelson reports that discussion is ongoing for some licenses. Mr. Nelson recommends that we revisit the December license committee report and re-evaluate the licenses in discussion.

Title: The PostgreSQL License Submission: http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:mss:931:nooneedaahagajmpehif
Original-Submission: http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:mss:874:200909:kodinndfijkmchmflood
License: In the submission
Comments: Re-submitted as a general license. Asking for legacy approval.
Recommend: approval

Mr. Tiemann moves to approve committee's PostgreSQL license recommendation. Mr. Coar seconded. Motion carried unanimously.

Other licenses in discussion include:

Title: The BlackBox Component Builder Open Source License
Submission: http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:mss:887:200911:nlcjlommcajfndpfkoni
License: In the submission and http://www.oberon.ch/BlackBox.html
Comments: As Cowan says, it's sleepycat with redundancies removed and the names replaced.
Recommend: approval if Proposition #1 passes; send back for resubmission as generic template if #1 not passed.

Title: Falcon Programming Language License
Submission: http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?17:mss:826:naokadpjdjicihdgloog
License: http://www.falconpl.org/index.ftd?page_id=license_1_1
Comments: Clearly OSD-compatible but … it's the GPL with an added freedom to embed the language interpreter creating a single work without invoking the terms of the GPL. If that were it, then we could leave it there, but Giancarlo adds required attribution above and beyond that required by the GPL.
Recommend: Not different enough from the LGPL to warrant approval.

Mr. Tiemann suggests that Mr. Nelson selects 2 or 3 licenses to walkthrough changes that need to occur in the licensing process at the face-to-face meeting upcoming this month.

Membership / Governance Committee (Mr. Oliver)

Mr. Oliver will report on the membership process at the face-to-face meeting later this month.

Education Committee (Ms. Sharma)

  • Teaching Open Source POSSE initiative (Ms. Sharma)

Ms. Sharma reports that she has been working (albeit slow this month due to her travel) with the POSSE team at teachingopensource.org to organize the first POSSE camp in Silicon Valley. OSI will be a co-organizer of this camp for computer science and information management educators. The team is in the process of finalizing the venue as well as program for the camp. Current details can be found at teachingopensource.org and will also be available from opensource.org.

IT Infrastructure Committee (Ms. Sharma)

  • FLOSS Competency Center infrastructure (Ms. Sharma)

Ms. Sharma reports that the setup and configuration of the Drupal based website for the FLOSSCC project has been completed and handed over to the FLOSSCC technical team to administer and further add content. Ms. Sharma also setup userids for Dr. Kon's team to add content as well as administer the site.

  • Opensource.org maintenance (Mr. Michlmayr)

Thanks to Mr. Michlmayr for updating opensource.org content and Drupal modules.

Old Business

  • OSI Legal Status (Mr. Tiemann, Ms. Cooper)

Covered in President's and Treasurer's report.

  • Trademark filing follow-up with General Counsel (Mr. Tiemann)

Covered in President's and Treasurer's report.

  • OSI Face to Face meeting on February 26-28, 2010 (Mr. Tiemann)

Agenda items of interest to board members were discussed. Ms. Sharma will put together the agenda and discussion items for the upcoming face-to-face meeting and send it out to the board for review and additions.

  • opensource.com and Red Hat follow-up (Ms. Cooper)

Ms. Cooper has contacted Red Hat to discuss opensource.com and OSI's participation. Conversation is in progress.

  • OSI Online T-Shirt Shop (Mr. Coar)

Discussion deferred to face-to-face meeting.

  • Process for recruiting new board members (Mr. Tiemann)

Ms. Sharma has created a document on OSI's wiki to start the process of gathering recommendations for potential candidates. All board members are requested to add their recommendations to this document. Discussion to be included as agenda item at face-to-face meeting.

New Business

None.

Motions for consideration by the board

  • Motion to approve minutes for January 13, 2010, monthly board meeting minutes for January 2010

Ms. Cooper moves to approve the minutes. Mr. Tiemann seconds. Minutes approved unanimously.

  • Motion to approve or reject license committee report recommendations

Mr. Nelson reports that discussion is still ongoing for some licenses hence the BOD revisit the December license committee report and re-evaluate the licenses in discussion.

Next Board Meeting

The next OSI BOD meeting is the face-to-face meeting scheduled for February 27-28, 2010.

Meeting Adjourned at 09:52 AM PST.

Mr. Tiemann moves to adjourn the meeting. Ms. Sharma seconds. Meeting is adjourned.