OSI Board Face to Face Meeting
Brussels, Belgium
Day 1: February 5, 2009
Meeting start time: 09:00 local time. Meeting called to order at 10:10 local time. Quorum at 10:10 local time.
Meeting Venue
Scotland House
Rond Point Schuman 6 – 8th floor
Brussels 1040 BE
Attendees
Board Members
- Mr. Michael Tiemann, President (joined in at 10am)
- Ms. Danese Cooper, Secretary and Treasurer (joined in at 11am)
- Mr. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Director
- Mr. Harshad Gune, Director
- Mr. Russell Nelson, Director
- Ms. Nnenna Nwakanma, Director (joined at lunch)
- Mr. Martin Michlmayr, Director
- Ms. Alolita Sharma, Director
- Mr. Bruno Souza, Director
Board Observers and Guests
- Mr. Andrew Oliver, Board Observer
Expected, but Not Present
None.
Sent regrets
- Mr. Ken Coar, Director
- Mr. Bdale Garbee, Board Observer
- Mr. Zak Greant, Board Observer
- Mr. Ernest Prabhakar, Board Observer
- Mr. Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel
- Mr. Merrill Freund (Schwartz Communications)
- Mr. Karl Fogel, Invited Guest
Agenda
0900 : Meeting starts
0900 – 0915: Introductions (All)
0915 – 1000: Setting the Agenda (Ms. Cooper)
1000 – 1100: Website update, leveraging opensource.org, localization (Ms. Sharma)
1100 – 1200: Licensing Status, Update (Mr. Nelson)
1200 – 1300: Lunch
1300 – 1400: Affiliate program (Ms. Cooper)
1400 – 1500: Membership program (Ms. Cooper)
1500 – 1600: OSI Trademark and Logo Usage Guidelines (Mr. Tiemann)
1600 – 1700: OSI Elections (Ms. Cooper)
Detail
- Introductions (Everyone)
- Agenda discussion (Mr. Tiemann)
Mr. Tiemann led the discussion for setting the agenda for the two day meeting prioritizing important items for discussion to maximize board member coverage.
- Website update, leveraging opensource.org, localization (Ms. Sharma)
Website update: Ms. Sharma reports that the website opensource.org gets a lot of comment spam. This comment spam has been marked by a spam filtering module but spam has to be purged manually. Also, the only way translators have been able to contribute translations of various pages on opensource.org is via the comments area on each page. So there is no choice but to go through and review comment spam manually to preserve translations also submitted as comments.
Leveraging opensource.org: Ms. Sharma would like to see a planet aggregator planet.opensource.org which facilitates various opensource opinions to be collated on OSI’s website. This would help reinforce OSI’s interest in highlighting what’s happening in the world of government policy and open source. Ms. Sharma would also like to see a section on “How do I open source my code?” since this is a very common request coming in from various geographies to the OSI. Having a FAQ would provide answers to various licensing models available, links to refer to, refer to opensource licensing experts, and provide a way for attribution of ideas. It was suggested that we also consider putting up resources pages for education (success stories and training material) as well as policy advocacy. General discussion about retiring obsolete or inactive mailing lists. It was suggested that we remove all inactive lists and update the website accordingly.
Localization: Ms. Sharma reports that opensource.org is to be upgraded to Drupal 6 by our system administrators by March 31st. They will also add the localization modules to the site to enable translations to be submitted. Another alternative would be to build a parallel site with instructions to the translation community on how to submit translations. Mr. Michlmayr offered to participate in this activity since he has some time availability in the next two months. Mr. Gune also offered to set up a parallel site to add Drupal localization modules and help accelerate the process.
- Licensing Status, Update (Mr. Nelson)
Mr. Nelson presented the license committee report.
i. EUPL: This license has been submitted for review.
ii. CA-Grid license: This is a vanity license. Mr. Nelson suggests consulting the legal advisory board for disclaimer of warranties, collective vs. derivative works.
iii. TGPPL: This license has been submitted for review. The author has taken Rosen’s OSL and added a term. Problems include granting some rights to sub-licensees is unmanageable, and it is legally isomorphic.
iv. IPA Font License: Mr. Tiemann is concerned about follow-up on this license which was submitted for review to the OSI on February 4. Mr. Tiemann will follow-up with the Japanese government (author of license). Ms. Cooper will be deputy licensor.
- Affiliate program (Ms. Cooper)
Board discussion about affiliate program includes identifying who OSI’s affiliates are, what they do, and how they do it. Our goals in putting together this affiliate program are:
i. providing increased legitimacy to opensource supporters
ii. increasing our membership in the long run
iii.securing our assets - Membership program (Ms. Cooper)
Board discussion on looking at membership as a populist model or elitist model. Ideas included – big tent vs. working members, having an incubator process for outreach, having core members who are active members and having advocates who are affiliates. We should look at a meritocracy based model where our mandates of advocacy, licensing, education and promoting community and best practices are supported.
Education is an important aspect of what the OSI does. Education and capacity building are integrally connected in a non-profit such as OSI. Ms. Nwakanma referred to the IDLELO conference in Africa which she organizes where education of policy makers is emphasized. Mr. Tiemann talked about how the scientific process where kids are involved in the development of technology and are experiential processors is an interesting model to consider. It would be ideal to have an education committee where efforts such as OLPC in Africa, OLPC in India, FOSS clubs in primary schools etc. could be followed-up by interested members at OSI.
- OSI Trademark and Logo Usage guidelines (Mr. Tiemann)
Mr. Tiemann will follow-up with DLA Piper to work on getting this work completed. Ms. Sharma will work on the corresponding website forms once the trademark and logo usage guidelines are ready. DLA Piper has to also provide a draft Privacy Policy for the OSI which needs to be reviewed by the board thereafter.
- OSI Elections (Ms. Cooper)
Discussion for the upcoming annual election. Various board members are coming up for election as well as the positions of President, Secretary and Treasurer. If any board member is interested in doing more for the OSI, they should recommend other open source experts for the board as well as consider putting up their hat for organization responsibilities. - Action Items from meeting
1. Follow-up with DLA Piper on trademark and logo usage guidelines: Mr. Tiemann
2. Website and infrastructure support for putting up guidelines: Ms. Sharma
3. Setup new paypal account for receiving donations online: Ms. Cooper
4. Follow-up with DLA Piper on Privacy Policy: Mr. Tiemann
5. Online storefront for t-shirts, shipping details: Mr. Coar
Meeting adjourned at 17:00 local time.