[Board] UNOFFICIAL minutes from yesterday's meeting

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Below are the lightly edited notes I took.

Please check to see if I quoted you incorrectly or anything. I'll post the real minutes to the wiki in a couple days after I get feedback.

-mpg





[10:20] call to order

roll call
- Cameron - Au
- Daneil - Canada
- Frank - US
- Jacym - Cz
- Jeff - Ca
- Michael - US
- Anne - Italy
- (Hobu and Matt Wilkie lurked)

[10:23] review of minutes from Jan 17
- motion to approve - 1/Frank, 2/Cameron 2nd, all +1

[10:26] on to regular business

geotools new contribution agreement
- motion to approve - 1/Cameron, 2/Jeff, all +1

Anne to be GSOC mentor
- motion to approve - 1/Frank, 2/Daniel, all +1

[10:32] open discussion about osgeo priorities

- http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2013-February/010516.html

- mpg: do what osgeo members want to do and will do, and do not try / wring-hands over other things
- mpg suggests 4 lists: "I+" (where income comes from), "I-" (where income not expected from), "E+" (planned expenses), "E-" (expenses we don't want)
- I+: conference income primary source
- E+: expenditure to main & regional conferences
- mpg: "accept, but not chase" spnsorships
- cameron: size of risk/income/expense should all be in proportion
- jeff: small regional confs unsure if they can come to osgeo proper for support? - yes, they can - need to make this explicit

- cameron: minimum suggested amount in bank - 50-80K?
- mpg asks: how much return on investment for events?
- cameron: suggests 1.10x, i.e. $1K investment ideally yields $1.1K return
- jeff: does this mean each foss4g must generate 100K?
- cameron: worst case scenario to break-even -- get back what we invested
- cameron: codesprints supported by excess funds, different category from events
- noted that "codesprint is a pure loss-making activity"
- all generally in favor of "matching funds" policy
- noted that these are principles and guidelines, not strict rules
- jeff: "we're here to support"

- cameron: we should not be paying for booths
- frank (on IRC) clarifies: I think the idea is that paying for booth space at tradeshows can be very expensive and not a particularly good use of our funds.
- jeff: line item for 'advocate travel' -- still valid? -- if they want us, they should pay for us
- mpg/daniel: distinguish between "advocate" travel and "board business" travel
- (anne speaks, but audio is poor - can't transcribe much)

- frank: speaks of our "corporatist" beginnings, via Autodesk, but moving now towards grassroots
- mpg applauds this sentiment
- various terms suggested: "cheap", "scrappy", "spunky", "lean", "minimalist"
- anne notes: would like to see more cooperation among projects and osgeo funding the meetups of osgeo projects' communities
- mpg wonders aloud what mlucas and pmbatty would say to these discussions
- aghisla: foss4g barcelona was not appealing for developers, more for presenting technologies and make a great "show" - forgive the term
- frank: we are not all things to all people

- jeff: "an environment in which osgeo service providers could thrive"
- cameron: if the service provider effectiveness was important, how come no one has stepped up to fix it?
- mpg: is SPD a core priority for us?
- various: go to discuss list, throw a little money at it, have a contest, kill it, ...

- cameron: livddvd at conferences
- mpg: support for communities that already exist… or support incubation of new ideas w/o a community yet?
- cameron: livddvd aimed at value to users, which means projects already extant
- jeff: traveling for educational purposes... "osgeo labs"...  big success, goes back to an MOU with ICA
- anne speaks to the value of Suchith's work - http://nottingham.academia.edu/SuchithAnand
- mpg - points to osgeo labs as model if success -- low $ but high visibility, and no work from board to date
- frank: "we just have to be supportive", stay out of their way (which is not to imply that we have been in their way)
- jeff: we are farther than just "…and we support education too"

- discussion turns to local chapters
- mpg: LCs are low overhead for board, but big impact - another example of how ogee foundation is a win
- mpg notes half his dev team came out of local chapter, promises to write some stuff about value & benefits of LCs
- anne: speaks on osgeo journal, asks about value of the local chapter reports
- anne: italian chapter was created long before becoming osgeo local chapter and connection is still weak
- jeff: gets asked "why create a chapter?"
- various: local events, networking, language affiliation, ...
- cameron: note no need for overhead, funding, etc
- daniel: local chapter "precursor" can be helped to perceive when it's appropriate to form a formal local chapter
- anne points to local chapter mailing list to share experiences on how and why to establish local chapters
- frank points to http://www.osgeo.org/content/chapters/guidelines.html

[12:15pm] on to budget discussion
- budget draft: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av9Xf1ehZXz-dHJRdGhXZlo4ako2b21qd2lXbVVMdGc#gid=0
- (did not caputre details of line-items discussions)
- noted that "co-contributing" == "matching funds"
- cameron noted that livedvd featured at ~40 events, jeff thinks that is low(!)
- daniel asks: should we support the DVDs or the Projects?
- cameron: ~150 people contributing

- Q: should the board be paid travel expenses to the annual mtg?
- mattw: "as an outsider, I think board members should be helped/encouraged to make the annual FOSS4G's, and funded to do so."
- and what about conference registration expense?
- frank says this is anti-scrappy
- straw poll taken (I did nto record votes, sorry)

- agreed to take rest of issues to mailing list and/or next meeting

[1:20] adjourn