The summaries from March to December 2015 are from Richard Brown's posting: http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2016-01/msg00025.html, edited by Per Jessen.

December 2015

Summary of activities/topics

one meeting cancelled due to technical reasons, other because of Christmas
More discussions about mailinglist moderation
oSC 16 discussions (time, date, location in Nuremberg) with the oSC 16 team

November 2015

Summary of activities/topics

some meetings disrupted by SUSEcon and openSUSE Asia. Had an 'unofficial' Face to Face meeting at SUSEcon (minus Michal)
Poking about the inactive member tidy up
Preparation for elections
More discussion about concerns regarding certain individuals in mailinglists

October 2015

Summary of activities/topics

Planning for this december Board election - seeking Election Committee
Discussion about the join SUSE/openSUSE presence at LinuxCon europe and how it seemed to be very beneficial for openSUSE, lots of attention for Leap, Tumbleweed, and openQA - Board would like to see such an approach used more often.
SUSEcon preparation
openSUSE Asia, decision to send Michal as the official Board member/keynote speaker
Discussion regarding about concerns regarding certain individuals in mailinglists

August-September 2015

Summary of activities/topics

bit of a quiet time for the Board actually, lots of vacations caused the cancellation of meetings, and most meetings that did happen didn't discuss anything more than the current status of the impending Leap 42.1 release and minor issues arising from that.

July 2015

Summary of activities/topics

Discussions about having another 'mini-summit' at SCaLE in 2016 - decision made not to have one, but to treat SCaLE as a very important event for openSUSE, like FOSDEM.

June 2015

Summary of activities/topics

openSUSE Membership tidy up was discussed at length both in opensuse-project and in Board meetings
More openSUSE Asia discussions, budget considerations, final decision made

May 2015

Summary of activities/topics

oSC 15 happened, leading to lots of follow-up discussions regarding the topics started there
Some topics regarding the SUSE/openSUSE collaboration that would be required in order to turn what we now know as Leap into a success
Board decided the naming and numbering of Leap in response to community requests
openSUSE Asia location discussions

April 2015

Summary of activities/topics

Lots of discussion surrounding what since became 'Leap' (at that time being referred to as 'Cornerstone' which was SUSE's draft internal name for the opening of the SLE sources). Decision made to open the conversation at oSC, with Richard doing it because it's dependant on SUSE's opening of SLE's codebase.
Assisting with the coordination and content of the new www.opensuse.org website. Board got involved with the sysadmins responsible to help actually get it deployed.
TSP discussions regarding guidelines proposed after F2F meeting.
Lots of followup to various topics from F2F meeting.
Lots of discussion, assistance, and coordination regarding oSC 15.

March 2015

Summary of activities/topics

dominated by the annual Board Face to Face meeting at SUSE HQ in Nuremberg.
Meeting included a "Meet the Board" session with SUSE employees. Topics discussed included:
- The openSUSE Project is more than "just a distribution" but home to a number of tools for distribution builders, developers & admins
- openSUSE needs to define its target audience and market itself - "pick a fight and fight it"
- Improvement needed in the definition and public understanding of the roles and responsibilities of Package and Project Maintainers
Discussion of the Boards 'Vision' for the Project, which was publically discussed on stage at oSC 15 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMWvY9PNwBE
Membership - Board agreed the Membership Program is in need of reform, the membership list includes many inactive individuals, that it is currently impossible to accurately measure the activity of our current core contributors. An action item was given for Michal to develop a tool to help identify member activity as a starting point for tidying up the inactive list. Board agreed that no Member should be removed if they still wanted to be a member, even if inactive. ie. You're an openSUSE Member for as long as you're interested enough to stay one.
TSP - Discussion about improving the guidelines for the TSP, feedback given to the TSP team
Event Sponsorship - Event sponsorship continues to be a success, gaining openSUSE mindshare and new contributors. The Board thinks it only makes sense for openSUSEto Sponsor events openSUSE can attend. Emphasis should be given to events that are aligned with the newly defined Vision/Audience. Draft list put together with Douglas DeMaio.
Foundation Sponsorship - As with events, the Board believes openSUSE should only sponsor other organisations when there is a tangible benefit to the openSUSE Project. Current agreements would be reviewed to ensure they met this simple criteria, future sponsorships would have to meet that criteria.
oSC 15 - Lots of discussion about the planning and preparation for oSC 15.
oSC 16 - the Board discussed the proposal to have oSC 16 in Nuremberg.
openSUSE Asia 2015 - Board agreed that it should happen and assisted the team with the Call for Locations.
IRC Project Meetings - Board decided that due to lack of interest, IRC Project Meetings would only happen 'on demand' from now on.
Mailing Lists - Board reviewed the list of mailinglists and identified a number of inactive ones which were approved for deletion.
Change Guidelines - previously proposed Guidelines for how to request, discuss, and implement major changes were approved.
openSUSE Shop - Board approved proposed changes to http://shop.opensuse.org
Progress - Board agreed to start using progress.opensuse.org more to better track what they are up to.
Annual Report - it was decided that Richard would write an annual report for the community (This was effectively replaced by my talk about what we now know as Leap, the Board keynote, and the Board project meeting at oSC 15, all of which were recorded and posted on YouTube).

Meeting 2015-03-09

Agenda

Meeting 2015-02-23

Agenda

Board face to face meeting
oSc15

Meeting Minutes

Present: Andrew, Kostas, Michal, Richard, Robert

Missing: Bruno -> SCaLE hangover,

1.) Board face to face meeting

Meeting will take place on March 28 & 29. The idea is to have a "Meet the Board" session on Friday March, 27 in the afternoon in the all hand area at the SUSE office.

A.I. Richard will double check about access security to the SUSE all hands area. We would like this to be an open event to all community members that are interested in participating. There will however, be no virtual presence set up.

2.) oSC15

CfP has been extended, article on news.o.o The program committee will start accepting talks starting the end of this week. We currently have 80 people registered, an improvement but still way short. More promotion is needed.

Meeting 2015-02-09

Agenda

Face to Face Meeting
oSC15 Follow-up
Scale Follow-up
openSUSE.Asia

Meeting Minutes

Present: Bruno, Michal, Richard, Robert

Missing: Andrew -> Business trip Hong Kong, Kostas -> Ill

1.) Face to Face meeting

We will meet on the weekend of March 28. While this is a bit later than we would like conferences and travel plans prevent us from meeting earlier. We will meet in the SUSE office in Nuremberg.

We will try to arrange a "meet the board" session in the SUSE all hands area in the SUSE office. We will try and make this an open session, i.e. non SUSE employees should be able to attend. We have to check with facility access requirements.

A.I. Richard check on time and accessibility.

2.) oSC15

Things are ramping up, and it is expected that Hotel accommodation recommendations will be announced shortly.

3.) SCaLE

The schedule for the talks is complete but not published. We still need some more volunteers for the booth, but everything else is pretty much in place.

4.) openSUSE.Asia

We received a proposal from the team organizing the previous event for a location search for the next event. We are all OK with the proposal and will proceed along those lines.

A.I. Richard reply to Sunny

Meeting 2015-01-26

Agenda

FOSDEM
openSUSE Board Elections
SCaLE mini-summit
Contacting all members

Meeting Minutes

Present: Andrew, Bruno, Kostas, Richard, Robert, Peter

1.) FOSDEM

We are ready for the conference. We have the material equivalent to 2 booth boxes. Bus is leaving 11:00 A.M. on Friday from the Nuremberg office, there are still a few seats left. Return is at 5:30 P.M. on Sunday.

2.) Board elections

Today is the last day the polls are open. The polls will close at 11:00 P.M. UTC. The number of members voting this year appears to hit an all time low, which is very unfortunate.

3.) SCaLE

There is a potential that the miniSummit has to move to Thursday, which would cause a problem getting our speakers there in time. There is also no decision yet whether or not we will get a keynote during SCaLE. If we do, Alan Clark is potentially available. Uncertainty this close to the event is not good. Drew and Peter are trying to resolve this as soon as possible.

4.) Contacting all members

A motion has been put before the board to allow mass e-mail to all members for specific occasions. These occasions are the openSUSE Board Elections and the openSUSE Conference. The motion was accepted unanimously by the board. Therefore, it is OK for someone from the board, the election committee, or the oSC organization team to send a direct mail to all members to make members aware of the elections and the openSUSE Conference and ask for participation.

Meeting 2015-01-12

Agenda

openSUSE Board Elections
oSC15

Meeting Minutes

1.) openSUSE Board Elections

Polls open tomorrow Jan-13-2015, only 2 membership applications are remaining to be processed. One candidate has not yet posted the platform, the election committee is reaching out to the candidate to get this done before the poll opens tomorrow. The election committee will sen an announcement to MLs.

2.) oSC15

There is an issue with the venue and we have to change to a new location which is just at the outskirts of The Hague. It is still easily accessible via train and bus. The background is that the previously planned venue BINK36 is up for sale and has a potential buyer. Neither the present nor the new owner want to enter into a contract at this time. As the sale is pending and we do not know how long this will take we need to change venue. The oSC15 team has submitted a new venue proposal.

The venue change adds yet another difficulty to bringing oSC15 together. At this point registration is lagging behind previous conferences as are the session proposals. However the change of venue a few kilometers down the road is not considered as a very serious issue. Even those that may have already booked a Hotel close to the previous venue should be able to either cancel their reservation and move to a different Hotel or use the public transport system to get to the new location. Based on the information received from Hans it's only a 10 minute train ride from The Hague main station and the a no more than 10 minute walk to the new facility.

With registrations and session proposals behind everyone needs to put effort into promoting the event. There has not been much noise about the event and this has to change immediately.

Meeting 2014-12-29

Meeting canceled, everyone is taking a much needed break.

Meeting 2014-12-15

Agenda

FOSDEM
TSP
Elections
LibreOffice
SCALE

Meeting Minutes

Present: Andrew, Bruno, Kostas, Peter, Richard, Robert

1.) FOSDEM

There will be a bus leaving from Nuremberg, this bus is sponsored from the openSUSE budget and thus people wanting to go to FOSDEM are encouraged to take advantage of the "free" transportation. As far as we know about 20 seats are occupied on the bus thus far. Therefore there is plenty of space. Please contact Richard if you are interested in this transportation option.
Still need to produce material to promote oSC15 at FOSDEM. Kostas is handling our FOSDEM precense this year.

2.) TSP

Recently it has been difficult to get a response from the TSP team.
- A.I. Richard try and get a hold of team to see where things are stuck.
- We will need TSP support for FOSDEM, SCALE, and oSC15 early next year

3.) Elections

Currently we have only 2 candidates for 3 positions, Peter & Robert are running for re-election. Kostas is undecided. Hopefully we will get more candidates as the deadline for announcement approaches (December 22nd.) We will take a wait and see approach, no need to think of alternatives yet.

4.) Document foundation

Andrew has been approached by the Documentation foundation to see if openSUSE would like to have a representative on the advisory board. We will need to know what SUSE is doing as it will not make sense to have openSUSE and SUSE on the advisory board.
We will investigate if there would be an advantage of those in the community working on LibreOffice upstream if we would take this opportunity. There is no "marketing" value for the project.

5.) SCALE

Ship marketing material we have in Provo. There is a regularly scheduled call to organize SCALE.

Meeting 2014-12-01

Agenda

Booth boxes
Election status

Meeting Minutes

Present : Richard, Robert, Andrew, Bruno Absents : Peter, Kostas (work)

1.) Booth boxes

We have distributed all the material we had from last years order. We need to come to a conclusion on where to produce the next batch of material and get orders placed. We also need to spend effort to have a better organization around the material.

2.) Election status

The election committee will be formed by Marcus Rueckert (darix) and Frederick Crozat. They will meet this week and discuss timeline. The election will most likely be pushed to next year as we are late in forming the committee and the holidays are approaching.

Meeting 2014-11-17

Meeting canceled, Andrew, Richard, and Robert are at SUSECon

Meeting 2014-11-03

Agenda

Upcoming elections
13.2 Release
Tumbleweed
oSC 15
Booth boxes
openSUSE Asia Summit
SCALE

Meeting Minutes

Present: Bruno, Richard, Peter, Robert

Absent : Andrew (customer meeting), Kostas (work emergency)

1.) Upcoming Elections:

Revisted the results from last election, based on our interpretation now Kostas' seat is up for election, Kostas had a 1 year term, Robert's seat is up for election, end of 2 year term, and Peter's seat is up for election, Peter was appointed when Richard became board chair
There has been no response for the call for volunteers for the election committee

2.) 13.2 Release

Release is in the bag, ready for tomorrow
Marketing is lacking
Release schedule, in the past discussions about the release cycle have not yielded fruitful results. During the most recent discussion about 8 month vs. 12 month no one stood up to do any additional work. Thus, the reality is that the release cycle will be whatever Stephan thinks is best. Re-visiting the release cycle discussion is not expected to yield a different result and therefore, initiating the discussion from the board level is not seen as productive.

3.) Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed will merge with Factory as the rolling release. This was announced on the ML. Although the way this came about is not the

way we want things to happen. There was a bit of time pressure due to the upcoming release and thus a broader discussion was short circuited in favor of a more expedient way of action. Lets not take actions like this again going forward.

4.) oSC 15

We have all lost track of the status. There was a meeting in IRC today but it appeared as if only Hans and Robin participated. We need to catch up on

the status and help get more people involved in the organization.

5.) Booth boxes

The goal is to have distributed production soon, i.e. production in the US and China to save money on shipping. All boxes for the Asia region should be produced in China, to be stored in Beijing. Boxes produced in the US are for the Americas and are to be stored at the Provo office. We will produce additional material for Europe in Nuremberg.

6.) openSUSE Asia Summit

The event was a success. Thanks to Sunny and team for the effort of putting everything together.

7.) SCALE

Bruno is planning to go to represent the board, Peter will probably also be there
We need to catch up with Drew to get the web sit started, as far as talks and tracks are concerned there is still uncertainty how this

will be handled. Peter will follow up with Drew this week.

Meeting 2014-10-20

Meeting canceled, Richard at summit in Beijing and phone trouble.

Meeting 2014-10-06

Agenda

openSUSE PR position
SUSECon
Asia Summit
Linux Foundation certificate
GSoC
Booth boxes
Local Reimbursement
FOSDEM (Kostas)
Translation for Marketing Material

Meeting Minutes

Present: Robert, Richard, Kostas, Bruno, Andrew (first 30 minutes) Absent: Peter

1.) openSUSE PR position

The openSUSE PR position that has been open for a while has been filled.
- Douglas DeMaio has taken on the position for openSUSE PR & Marketing
  - Doug joins SUSE with limited open source an community experience
  - A call has been scheduled with Doug and the board for next Monday October 13th 2:00pm UTC

2.) SUSECon

openSUSE will have a booth at SUSECon
The booth box from Provo will be shipped to SUSECon
We need at least 2 people for booth duty, TSP is available

3.) openSUSE Asia

Everything is under control and we are looking forward to a great event we have roughly 250 attendees registered.

4.) Linux foundation certification

The Linux Foundation offers a 30% discount for openSUSE users that take either or both of the Linux Foundation certification exams.

5.) GSoC money

Richard will meet with Roland to figure out how we can get the GSoC money back into the openSUSE budget.

6.) Booth Boxes

No progress, we are reaching the end of available material and need to figure out the next steps for ordering more. Local production vs. centralized as with the last batch.

7.) Local Reimbursement

The application is live

8.) FOSDEM

Kostas is leading the effort for openSUSE presence at FOSDEM this year
TSP money will be available

9.) Translation of marketing material

Contact Zvezdana to get material in appropriate electronic format
Translation would have to be done by the community.
We would need good numbers from ambassadors to print an appropriate amount
At present we think this should not be covered by money set aside for local reimbursement. The ideas is that local reimbursement money is spent for events where we do not send a booth box.
One issue with localization is the languages to choose and the rightful complaint by those locales that do not get localized material. It is not feasible to have localized materials for all events.
This topic requires more thought.

Meeting 2014-09-22

Meeting canceled due to scheduling conflicts by almost everyone.

Meeting 2014-09-08

Agenda

Booth boxes

Meeting Minutes

Present: Andrew, Richard, Robert Missing: Kostas -> work conflict, Bruno -> Akademy, Peter -> MIA

1.) Booth boxes

The new app is ready and live
- The new application should be used by advocates to request a booth box.
Material availability
- We need to be a bit more frugal for a while as we are low on supplies. A good chunk of the material we had was absorbed at oSC14 (more than anticipated) and thus we have to discuss in more detail how we will replenish the booth box materials. Will discuss when we have all members present on the next call.

Meeting 2014-08-25

Agenda

Review of Action Items
Events
General info

Meeting Minutes

Present : Robert Richard Bruno Peter Kostas presents Missing : Andrew on vacation

1.) Action Item Review

LibreOffice sponsorhsip
- Should be all set, but need confirmation from Andrew
Booth box materials
- We have materials to satisfy the current requests, but need to get more to fulfill new requests.
- Application for booth box requests has been tested will go live soon
- Board has to decide how we will handle material ordering and shipping going forward

2.) Events

oSC15
- kick off meeting is next
Asia Summit
- shifting money from organization to TSP is OK
akademy 2014
- Bruno is organizing a booth there and we will have booth box material available
Scale
- We have positive feedback from the SCALE organization team to co-locate an openSUSE mini Summit at Scale next year. Details need to be worked out with Scale organization team w.r.t cfp and other organizational items, Drew Adams will lead the effort.

3.) General info

openSUSE Team PR candidate
- Work is in progress, there are applicants

Meeting 2014-08-11

Agenda

Review of Action Items
Events
board mailing list

Meeting Minutes

Present: Andrew, Peter, Richard, Robert Absent: Kostas => work Conflict, Bruno => Car trouble

1.) Action item review:

TSP Reminders - done
LibreOffice Sponsorship - done
Budget Spreadsheet - done
Booth box app - pretty much done
Create an overarching design tem - no
Infrastructure clean up - in progress
Board Candidate - done Peter Linell
Progress.opensuse.org - increase usage

2.) Events

openSUSE.Asia Summit
- Richard will be there to represent the board and give opening keynote. Richard was able to combine the trip with work for $DAYJOB and thus SUSE is picking up the bill for the trip sparing the openSUSE budget.
- On the organizational side things look to be on track.
oSC15
- We agreed on location and dates, the next step is to get the organization rolling with a kick off meeting.
- AR: Robert follow up with Hans
oSC16
- We need to get a call for location out the door soon.

3.) board mailing list

It was noticed that people have sent messages to opensuse-board@o.o, but this list is not eing monitored anymore by anyone from the board and is considered obsolete. The mailing list will be removed and e-mail concerning the board sshould be sent to either -project@o.o if it is a public concern or board@o.o for more "private" matters.

Meeting 2014-07-28

Agenda

Review of Action Items
1. TSP Reminders - Richard
2. Libreoffice sponsorship - Andrew
3. Budget Spreadsheet update on progress.o.o
4. Booth box : team setup and requests ?
5. Trademark Requests - was Vincent (Richard) : Give a clear status on https://progress.opensuse.org/issues/2352
6. Create a VGT (visual design group)
7. Clean-up infrastructure : what's up since February
8. Board candidate : status
9. Use of progress : what follow-up give we to the tools
Events
1. oSC15
2. Asia Summit
  1. Board presence status update

Meeting Minutes

present Robert, Bruno, Richard on irc Guadec excused :-) Meeting reported to 2014-08-11

Meeting 2014-07-14

Agenda

Review of Action Items
1. TSP Reminders - Richard
2. Libreoffice sponsorship - Andrew
3. Donation requests in distro packages
4. Booth Boxes - Richard
5. Project Meeting - Vincent
6. Trademark Requests - Vincent
Spam/Mailinglist issues - Update from Richard
Events
1. oSC15
2. Asia Summit

Meeting Minutes

Present: Bruno, Kostas, Richard, Robert

Absent: Andrew => Conflicting meeting, Vincent => Bastille day

1.) Review of action items

TSP Reminders -> done
- TSP app will now send out reminders to send in receipts after an event for the sponsored person is over.
- remaining reimbursements for oSC14 should be out by the end of the month
Libreofice sponsorship ->
- Andrew confirmed with LO organization
Donation requests in distribution packages
- Announcement should go out this week
Booth boxes
- Richard will shepherd a couple of requests through the new process for test and debugging purposes, than we will make the new process "public"

2.) Spam filtering on Board Mailing list

The board mailing list had a typo in the configuration and a number of mails were lost. This has now been fix.

3.) Events

openSUSE Summit Asia
- summit.opensuse.org is being updated
- no web banner yet on www.opensuse.org (may need help from the artwork team, org team has reached out to @marketing)
- organization appears on track
oSC15
- have 3 venue choices, we can make any of these work, waiting for cost estimate

Meeting 2014-06-30

Agenda

TSP Requests
openSUSE Summit Asia
Libreoffice Summit
oSC15
Requests for donations in packages
Booth boxes + App
Brand discussion
Project Meetings
Copyright Requests
GSoC
Mailing Lists

Meeting Minutes

1.) TSP Requests

There is currently no reminder mail to submit receipts. This is on the list of things to implement. This may cause people to miss the 2 week deadline.
AI: Richard to check if the priority can be raised.

2.) openSUSE Summit Asia

Everything appears to be on track, follow up with Izabel to ensure Sunny's mails do not get filtered.

3.) LibreOffice sponsorship

We will sponsor the LibreOffice conference and Bruno will organize the booth activity. Help is needed.
AI: Andrew respond to Michael

4.) oSC15

We have the potential for 3 locations at this point that fit in our budget. The timing is a bit in the air and may move into May as the Dutch national Holiday was recently changed due to a change in the monarchy.

5.) Requests for donations in packages

A package was found that called for donations in the description. This issue was brought to the board and we feel this is not in the spririt of the project. Thus, the board will initiate a change to the packaging guidelines to explicitly address donation requests. We will also make a general announcement.
AI: Richard handle both items

6.) Booth boxes + App

Booth box requests have been light Richard is handling this at the moment. Long term we need some other interface.

7.) openSUSE Branding

There was a concern on the forum and various ML about the branding topics hinted upon during the oSC14 presentation by Kenneth and Zvezdana. The concern was that the branding and art is being taken over by SUSE employed designers. This is not the case, the designers, as Kenneth pointed out in the presentation at oSC, very much want to work with the art team that does not happen to work at SUSE to create an image of openSUSE that is exciting and new.

8.) Project meeting

All board members missed the last project meeting. One problem is that the meeting is not in the openSUSE Calender. The Calender does not appear to be maintained.
It also appears that the attendance at the meetings has been dwindling. Maybe the format is not longer working for people. We will reach out to the project to inquire about the project meeting. We still think an interactive session is useful.
AI: Vincent to send message -project

9.) Trademark requests

At present we do not track who has received approval for trademark usage. Vincent will create a spread sheet to collect the information based on request history.

10.) GSoC

All 14 students passed their midterm evaluation.

11.) Mailing Lists

If there are issues, flame wars, language, etc., people should contact the moderator of the list and not depend on the moderator to notice things when they get out of hand.

Meeting 2014-06-16

No meeting, too many conflicts, and still phone number issues

Meeting 2014-06-02

Sponsored by ARM

Agenda

Con call number
openSUSE Budget
openSUSE Team
oSC15
Booth Boxes
Press release

Meeting Minutes

Present: Andrew, Bruno, Richard, Robert, Vincent

Absent: Kostas (phone trouble)

1.) Conference call number

The person setting up the new number is away but should be back soon. We will get a new SUSE number so Kostas can participate again

2.) openSUSE budget

Roland and Andrew will have a phone call to work on the board input on how the money should be spent

3.) openSUSE Team

There have been some departures from the team, the intention is to backfill those positions, SUSE has the opening posted on their Career site

4.) Booth Boxes

We have sent a number of booth boxes, but not received any feedback after the events
- We need to be more diligent to request the feedback. Feedback should be sent to Richard (rbrown at suse dot com)
- UNitl we have an app or a web form please send requests for booth boxes to the board ML (board at opensuse dot org)
Generally we need at least 4 weeks notice to get a box out on time

5.) Press Release

ARM will have a press release this week concerning the collaboration with the openSUSE Community

Meeting 2014-05-19

Agenda

Booth boxes
Local material production
oSC15

Meeting Minutes

Present: Bruno, Richard, Robert, Vincent

Missing: Andrew, Kostas phone trouble (our number needs to be renewed)

1.) Booth boxes

No box was sent to Mexico, communication break down. We will use the old promo DVD web form for now to avoid this in the future.
Need some people for US conferences, Richard will send an open call
Wiki will be updated shortly to show list of events that are targeted

2.) Local material production reimbursement

Procedure reviewed, ready for announcement
Robert follow up with the team and announce

3.) oSC15

Follow up with Hans on venue options

Meeting 2014-05-05

Meeting canceled, everyone is very busy and trying to catch up on the rest of work and life after oSC14

Meeting 2014-04-21

Meeting canceled, we will all be at oSC14 starting at the end of the week

Meeting 2014-04-07

Agenda

Action item review
Booth boxes
Posters for College in UK
Art work visibility
LinuxTag

Meeting Minutes

Present: Bruno, Kostas, Richard, Robert, Vincent

Missing: Andrew

No meeting on the 21st, we will meet at oSC.

Meeting time will not shift with the change to summer time.

1.) Acton Items:

openSUSE Planet, Richard looking for maintainer
local material reimbursement, Robert moving this forward
no progress on web site redesign, potential sponsor for the work has fallen off the face of the planet, Bruno is out of ideas

2.) Booth boxes:

As of today all items have been received
1 box will go to Dubrovnic, this one is basically ready to go
1 box will be shipped to Provo for OpenWest
1 box is requested for an event to Honduras, Richard will try and make this happen
Richard is working on list of events
Kostas and Richard will make a push to reboot the Advocate program

3.) Posters for College in UK:

We have a request for posters for permanent display at a College in the UK. We will try and make this happen.

4.) Visibility of artwork:

At present the booth box printed material is not publicly accessible. This is not a good state. As discussed at the board face to face meeting this is undesirable. There's no clear cut solution yet, the desired ownCloud solution is currently stuck due to infrastructure issues. We will try and get this resolved soon. This also complicates making material available for people that would just like a few posters, see the request from the College in the UK.

A.I. Richard to follow up.

5.) Linux Tag:

We already have money committed for LinuxTag to share booth space with KDE and ownCloud, per Jos' proposal. Although LinuxTag is right after oSC and TSP money is already committed to support people of oSC we want to make TSP money available to get another person to LinuxTag. We will discussion whether or not we can make more money available for a "marketing gimmick" on the board mailing list.

A.I. Robert respond to Jos

Meeting 2014-03-24

Agenda

Booth boxes
1. Event List/Board Approval for Events?

Minutes

Present: Andrew, Bruno, Richard, Robert, Vincent

Absent: Kostas

Booth box material is arriving and things are getting ready to ship. Due to the delay in getting the material produced the list that was created with events and people to receive the boxes is dated and we do not feel that we are in a position to plan out a whole year of events. Therefore, for the time being we will move to the hybrid system. The hybrid system is comprised of box requests, these should be sent to the board mailing list for the time, and pre-planned events that will show up on https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Advocates_events#2014.

Action: Richard to populate the list with existing data Action: Board review booth box requests as they arrive

We currently have 2 confirmed locations to store material SUSE office in Bejing and Nuremberg.

Action: Robert contact Provo office to check if we can store stuff there

The idea is to store and eventually produce material in 3 or 4 locations around the world to reduce our shipping costs.

Meeting 2014-03-10

Agenda

Action item review
Progress.o.o
Trademark requests
osc14
osc15

Minutes

Present: Andrew, Bruno, Kostas, Richard, Robert, Vincent

1.) Action item review:

Currently we have too many action items to discuss in the time available. Vincent will move all the face 2 face action items into progress.o.o. Everyone needs to update the action items assigned.

2.) Progress.o.o

Not everything is in progress.o.o, but we'll get there in the next week or so. By default Board items are public.

3.) Trademark requests

Need more info on one request
OK with using logo on t-shirt for shop in Poland

4.) oSC14

org meetings have started on weekly schedule, things appear to be on track
registration numbers are low but team is planning more marketing actions
many things to do

5.) oSC15

location is selected, to be announced at oSC14

Meeting 2014-02-24

Canceled, we had some time issues

Face to Face Meeting 2014-02-07,08,09

Agenda

Events:
1. US Mini Summits
  1. define target events for colocation
  2. define list of people to ask
  3. budget
2. Other Summits
  1. we have ateam interested to organize a summit in Asia
  2. timing
  3. budget
3. oSC
  1. 2015
    1. we have a semi proposal for Toulouse
  2. beyond
    1. what can we do better to spur interest in hosting oSC. After only 2 community organized events we have difficulty finding people willing to organize oSC
  3. budget
    1. should we put together a general budget guideline

Merchandising
1. Booth boxes
  1. one year later we have nothing tangible and lack of material has taken its toll
2. Local production reimbursement
  1. situation is still uncertain whether or not there is money available and how much
  2. need a team of people willing to handle money
  3. do we need another app to track local reimbursement
  4. team should operate independently similar to TSP team

Budget - board control of openSUSE funds
1. Is SUSE willing to hand over control
2. Do we need a treasurer
3. Do we need crowdfunding capabilities
4. We need a way to accept donations

General
1. osc14 - we need to create a keynote
  1. set aside some time for welcoming remarks by University official
2. board wiki presence
  1. activities page, looks dated although it is still current
3. board role and visibility
4. Discussions with
  1. Ralf Flaxa, VP Engineering at SUSE
  2. Roland Haidl, Director Operations & Services
  3. Lars Vogdt, Team Lead SUSE IT Services

Minutes

1. Events:

1.1 US Mini Summits

Long term it is our goal to have 2 mini summits in the US, one in the west and one in the east.
We would like to co locate with events that have attendance of 500 people or more
For the event in the west we consider SCALE the primary target
- SCALE is a large event
- we already have Drew Adams who does the organization
- timing is good
- the goal is to have an openSUSE mini-Summit at SCALE in 2015
- AI: Robert to contact Drew with a proposal and ask for feedback and Drew's willingness to organize
For the event in the "east" we have a number of options
- SELF (South East Linux Fest)
- All Things Open
- Ohio Linux Fest
- Chuck Payne helps with SELF organization and thus this may be a natural fit as he is also a local coordinator
  - The concern with SELF is timing
- AI: Robert try and establish contact with All things Open organizers to discuss options as this event fits better in the overall timing picture
We are not certain we can pull off the 2 mini summit goal at this point, thus we will let things develop and pick this discussion back up in 6 month or so

1.2 Other Summits

We have a proposal for the organization of an openSUSE Summit Asia in Beijing
We are happy with the proposal, but are unable to support the original plan of Co-location with GNOME Asia Conference due to timing
AI: Richard speak with Sunny while visiting SUSE China office about openSUSE Summit Asia organization
We also have a proposal for an openSUSE Summit Co-located with Latino
AI: Vincent discuss details with Izabel and sent proposal on financial support
As more people are interested to host Summits in conjunction with existing events we developed a general plan to support such efforts financially. The plan is as follows:
- Allocate $5000 as either sponsorship money for a given conference where we Co-locate an openSUSE Summit or use the money to make arrangements for rooms the day before or after the conference
- When used as sponsorship money such the the summit takes place during the event with which we Co-locate we expect to have a dedicated openSUSE track with 4 or 5 session slots
- TSP money will be allocated appropriately for the given event we will try to plan to have sufficient TSP funds available. If there is only one Summit in a given quarter we want to allocate most of the TSP money for the Summit, if there are multiple Summits we will split the TSP funds, plus try to allocate funds from a different fiscal quarter if another quarter has less expected travel activity
- Each event will be supported with a large booth box
- If we do not have the speaking resources needed to fill the slots for the track we will contact people and ask if they would be willing to go and cover the cost with TSP money
- This is the general blue print for openSUSE Summit organization support we'll see over time if we have to make adjustments and how this plays out with the budget

1.3 oSC

We have 2 different teams in France that might be interested to organize oSC15, but both groups would feel more confident for a oSC16 bid
We have some other potential options for oSC15
- AI: Bruno contact potential organizers for oSC15
- If neither of these work out we will fall back to one of the teams in France
Looks like we might have multiple options for oSC16, thus we'll maintain contact to make next year's search easier
After oSC14 we will take the oSC13 and oSc14 budget and develop a general budget guideline to make it easier for organizers to plan

1.4 General

An effort is needed to help find and build a "non technical" part of the community that has interest in organizing events, not just our own events such as oSC, Summits, and Hackfests, but also event presence at events like FOSDEM, LinuxTag and others around the world (more on this later). At present, also due to the shortage of marketing material (more on this later), our presence at events if often not well planned and is pulled together at the last minute.
- Prior to the material drying up we had a list of events where openSUSE would be represented, this should be revisited. We need to decide if we have any interest in also being a sponsor of some of these events
We reached agreement that oSC will be, and should remain, spare Hackfests, our only "inward" facing event, i.e. oSC is focused on our existing contributors. All other events that we organize or that we participate in are targeted to be outward facing with the goal to attract new contributors and users. Each such event needs to be evaluated from a "bang for the buck" point of view.
- Hackfests are by definition inward facing as well but contributors that are not regular openSUSE contributors are always welcome
Longer term, once our Summit and event presence settles in we would like to reserve $10000 each year such that advocates can nominate events where openSUSE would be a sponsor of the events chosen. We envision that we can sponsor 2 or 3 events with the funds. The idea is that we would pick 2 or 3 different events each year. Important will be that we are not only sponsoring these events but that we also have a presence with a booth.
We would like to see more hackathons, but at present the event organization is in a bit of disarray and thus we need to sort that out first

2. Merchandising/Marketing materials:

2.1 Booth boxes

One year later, after last year's "reboot" we finally have material
- Need to move forward with what we have now and not dwell on past missteps
Material looks really good
- First use at FOSDEM
Final touches are needed on some items, but generally we are ready to go
- Budget was allocated for this SUSE fiscal year (ends end of March, 2014) to produce 15 small and 15 large booth boxes
- The money is available and the SUSE design team will get the boxes ordered before the end of March
Booth box production
- The initial 30 boxes will be produced in Nuremberg area
- We want to develop "local" production capabilities. The target is to find capable vendors in Asia and the US, possibly other regions in the future
- The potential vendors would work with the SUSE design team to establish quality standards
- We want to piggy back on SUSE vender contacts in different areas around the world to not have to start from scratch
- AI: Richard talk to Sunny while visiting the SUSE China office
- AI: Robert contact marketing team in Provo
We want to also store booth boxes at SUSE offices, other than Nuremberg, to reduce shipping costs. Initially the locations would be Beijing and Provo. Richard and Robert will initiate the discussions.
We need to figure out how one will request a booth box
We need to write guidelines about the expectations for those receiving a booth box
- AI: board develop initial guidelines to be refined by local coordinators and advocates
Booth boxes will contain an inventory list and some guidelines on how to use the material, obviously not everyone that visits a booth can receive a USB stick
Booth box and content will be presented at oSC by a member of the SUSE design team

2.2. Locally produced material reimbursement

Booth boxes will cover certain event sizes, but we still want to support smaller efforts. Therefore the reimbursement for locally produced materials will be reinstated starting with the next SUSE fiscal year (beginning of April 2014)
We want to form a team, similar to the TSP team that will have mostly autonomous control over a pre-allocated amount of money per quarter
AI: Kostas create initial guidelines how the money is supposed to be used and allocated, to be refined by board and new team
AI: Richard to contact identified community members to be on this team and send out a general call for volunteers
We would like to use the same application for the local reimbursement that is being used for the TSP process. Need to ask Ancor how extensive additions/modifications would be.

3. openSUSE Budget

The financial support for the openSUSE project by SUSE is not yet confirmed, but it is expected to remain constant from last year. The money is allocated from the SUSE FY 15 budget and we will need to wait until it is finalized to have the final number
SUSE is willing to let the board influence where and how money is allocated
- Part of the openSUSE budget is sponsoring the GNOME and KDE foundations. We need to figure out whether this needs to continue going forward or if it is better for SUSE to be the sponsor. Optionally we might choose to rather sponsor Akademy and Guadec instead of being a general sponsor of the foundations. Bang for the buck as a general sponsor is perceived to be low. Sponsoring the events and being present with a booth will presumably have a bigger impact
- As part of the financial influence by the board it will be required that one member of the board will have a quarterly call with SUSE to review funds allocation
- Andrew was just elected and has a 2 year term, thus for continuity to start this new endeavor Andrew will be the SUSE contact on the board for financial matters
- AI: Andrew create a preliminary plan for allocation of money
There will be flexibility w.r.t. money spend per fiscal quarter, as long as we have a plan and do not over spend
Fundraising and accepting donations
- This is very difficult at this time, SUSE has no option to deal with this
- With planning and allocation proposal for SUSE sponsorship funds being picked up by the Board and the long list of other items we feel that this is a topic we cannot tackle at this point. We will revisit in 6 month to re-asses the situation

4. Technical review board/change process

During last years lengthy discussion toward the end of the year opinions were voiced by community members about the communication of larger changes that effect everyone.
One of the key points of our distribution, the community, and the project is that we are very open and welcoming. The establishment of a technical review board could potentially lead us down a path where people feel the need to have contributions reviewed and approved by the review board. We do not want to get into this position, thus the establishment of a technical review board is seen as not necessary at this point. Also it could be an "extreme" reaction to a problem that mostly amounts to a communication problem.
Although the board generally focuses on non technical areas it is within the boards charter to be the instance of last resource and decision making. We accept this role also for technical areas. The idea is to have the technical contributors find common ground and have the board help mediate if necessary to find technical solutions that are workable be all parties involved. This process is often already working GNOME and KDE team discussions about NetworkManager for example and sometimes it breaks down, systemd changes.
The board will establish some guidelines for the communication of large changes such as systemd, the next major change is possibly the switch to Wayland, to try and avoid misgivings such as experienced during the systemd transition in the future.
- Contributors should have the opportunity to voice there opinion, thus we need to make certain large changes are planned appropriately and well communicated
- AI: Robert create draft guidelines board and factory maintainers to refine and present to package maintainers
Over the past year we also had a number of situations were abrupt changes effected the whole project and the changes took place basically over night. This happened in technical and non technical areas. We would like to avoid such situations in the future as they create misgivings and generally are not very productive. Therefore, we think some actionable guidelines based on our guiding principals should be established to try and avoid such drastic changes without transition periods in the future.
- AI: Robert create draft guidelines of "change process" that outlines general expectations

5. Meeting with Design Team:

A new designer was hired by SUSE that is dedicated to the openSUSE project
- however in the end this is not an ideal situation as not everyone knows everything and design flows into many aspects of how we present openSUSE to the world
SUSE is establishing a design team that will eventually be comprised of 4 people. Three are already on board. From this team the openSUSE project will get the equivalent of 1 dedicated person, but depending on the current need it may be a different person that works on different areas.
The goal of the design team is to be immersed with the marketing and art teams and work with the teams to create new designs and ideas for openSUSE marketing
The design team is happy to help people work on their skills if they so desire, share techniques used by the design team that have proven results etc.
The SUSE design team is working with the marketing and art team to establish a publicly available area for collaboration, such as an ownCloud instance to allow designers to focus on idea and concept creation and execution rather than having to learn git. The current shared work area is on GitHub and this is not working out for many contributors.
- Having a new collaboration area will allow everyone to work together as one team without the creation of technical hurdles, such as git or some other version control system

6. Meeting with Lars

We do not have sufficient maintainers for our infrastructure, examples
- Planet.o.o is unmaintained
- Connect is unmaintained
- Lizards is "unmaintained" and basically duplicates Planet
- our web presence is not well maintained
Planet
- Kostas suggested and contacted a potential maintainer
- New person will work with Lars and Richard to investigate a different framework to use for Planet and develop an understanding of the expectation for being a maintainer.
- If this does not work the last resort would be to scuttle Planet.o.o
Lizards.o.o
- Basically duplicate functionality with Planet.o.o
- AI:Lars and Richard to contact current maintainer to investigate state and assure that an understanding exists about what is expected w.r.t. maintenance.
We think we need either Planet or Lizards, but not necessarily both, will keep both if they are properly maintained
www.o.o
- We have found a company that is willing to donate time to design and maintain a new web site
- The company with then become a sponsor of the openSUSE project and will be displayed as such
- AI: Bruno to follow up on the progress
Connect
- Our voting system is tied to connect
- Generally not maintained
- Usefulness is questioned
- If we find a good replacement for voting connect may be a target for shutdown
It is perceived by Lars that one problem of the lack of infrastructure maintainership is the lack of experience/knowledge
- Lars and his team are available to mentor people that are interested in maintaining an openSUSE infrastructure service

6. Meeting with Ralf Flaxa

Ralf provided the board with the opportunity to provide input on where we thing the shoe hurts the most.
- Our primary focus were two areas where we feel SUSE could have a bigger positive within the community. One area is advocacy of the openSUSE project within the walls of SUSE and the other area is help with bootstrapping a "non technical" part of the community that has interest in organizing events and the openSUSE presence at events.
- Advocacy of the openSUSE project within the walls of SUSE should have the goal to make contributing to openSUSE more interesting to developers at SUSE. While the contribution and immersion works well for some teams it is not as prevalent or natural for other teams within SUSE. Collectively we think that having more engineers immersed in the openSUSE community will help openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise alike.
- Events coordination is important for openSUSE and our presence at events is currently in shambles. For the most part things get pulled together at the last minute and often events where we have a booth do not have any one from the openSUSE community speaking. Thus, there exists a need for someone to organize things and pull stuff together. Things probably need to start out with a central person but should eventually be set up such that the work can be carried by many shoulders. Part of the issue is that as a very technical community we have not spent much effort to help mentor and develop a part of our community that is interested in this type of contribution. Thus having a central person that can lead such a mentoring effort and help get things organized would be a great way for SUSE to have a great positive impact on the openSUSE project in a non technical area.
Ralf will investigate if there is a way for him to find people that can help in both areas.
TSP, we believe that it should be possible for SUSE employees that spend their time to contribute to openSUSE and present openSUSE at an event to participate in the TSP. The current guidelines we have should cover concerns about misuse of the openSUSE funds. Additionally having openSUSE community members that also happen to work for SUSE represent openSUSE at events is a great way to highlight the synergy between the project and the company. Also having SUSE employees treated differently contributes to the "in and out" perceptions we still face every so often.
- Ralf will consider the request/proposal and discuss internally if a change in policy is feasible.

7. Meeting with Roland Haidl

The openSUSE Board will have influence on money allocation to categories such as TSP, Events, sponsorship, marketing materials etc.
- Establish a quarterly meeting with someone from the board to discuss financial allocations during the quarter and take a balance of where things stand
- The numbers will be finalized in the coming weeks for the FY 15 SUSE budget, we expect have about the same money available as last year
- SUSE will establish cost centers in China and the US to more easily handle expenses that arise in those regions
TSP
- We still had a number of people waiting for reimbursement
- Unfortunately the person usually handling this has been on extended sick leave, but we will get this rolling and completed in the next few days
- One issue for people being sponsored is often having to advance money for expensive flights. Even in the best case it is probably 10 weeks before a person can get reimbursed for the flight cost. We expect people to book 4 weeks prior to the trip, then add a couple of weeks after the event to complete the process and some time for the money to arrive. This puts a large burden on contributors that often due not have the financial means to compensate flight expenses for such a long time. Therefore, it would be great if SUSE could figure out a process that allows pre-booking of flights. The sponsored person would do all the work and present the flight numbers and times. Someone at SUSE would do the booking. This would make things a lot easier. Roland will investigate if this is possible.

8. General:

oSC14 keynote we agreed on a general theme and direction
- AI: Robert create a draft
Board wiki presence
- Although the activities page is up to date and does not provide any outdated information it does appear stale. The nature of the page is such that updates are very infrequent.
- We agree to abandon the page and move board activities into progress.opensuse.org to see how that works out
Local Coordinators and Advocates
- With the marketing material almost available and the restart of the reimbursement for locally produced materials we are ready to revive the effort
- AI: Kostas and Richard to contact known Advocates and Coordinators to get things rolling
wiki
- Too many pages need reviewing, thus changes are stuck
- need to lower the barrier, pages should be "no review" by default
- reviewers team should be reviewed
- possibly have some kind of opt in system that lets people set themselves as reviewers, rather then having a dedicated team of reviewers
- AI: Richard approach wiki team to discuss options

Meeting 2014-01-27

Agenda

Action Item Review
Face 2 Face
1. Everything in order?
2. Ready to post our agenda?
openSUSE Summit Asia
osc15
1. open the public call, validate openSUSE:Conference_call
Trademark request
1. ThinkPenguin
2. lihaso
PromoDVD followup
Board Wiki pages
1. Activities refresh or drop
2. Elections & results why still stalled

Minutes

Present: Bruno, Kostas, Richard, Vincent, Andrew, Robert

1.) Action item review

Change branding package licensing - no longer a board issue, up to package maintainer now
UEFI name registration no progress yet
Joinup registration - done
- We need to find an administration in Europe that uses openSUSE to take the next step to get a web page setup within the joinup system. Bruno will continue to work on that
Continue to search for oSC15 location, knocking on doors

2.) Board Face to Face meeting

Coalesce the items collected in Google doc and post to wiki - Robert

3.) openSUSE Summit Asia

Having an event in Asia would be great
- We are very happy that there is a team that wants to organize the event
- The proposed timing is unfortunate, end of May falls into the same FY quarter as oSC
- Given the financial constraints as we understand them today we cannot support the event financially at the proposed time

AI: Robert sent message to organizing team

4.) oSC15

Advertise at FOSDEM

5.) Trademark requests

ThinkPenguin wants to sell HW with openSUSE pre-loaded and label the HW accordingly, "powered by openSUSE".
- Vincent sent message of approval to ThinkPenguin
Lihaso
- Requested additional information

6.) PromoDVD

For SCALE we will try to find a better price than the current quoted, if we cannot we need to bite the bullet, SCALE is important and we need DVDs
The bigger issue needs to be discussed at the Face to Face meeting

7.) Board wiki pages

We need to get the elections page updated
We need to discuss the "Activities" page at the face to face.

Meeting 2014-01-13

Agenda

Action Item Review
1. Branding - Richard
2. EFI - Vincent
3. Mini Summit - SUSE
New Board
Board Face to Face
openSUSE/SUSE Cafe Request
op Joinup Request
PromoDVDs
oSC 14
oSC 15

Minutes

Present: Andrew, Bruno, Richard, Vincent, Kostas, Robert

1.) Action Item Review

Richard will make changes to Branding packages as we did not get any additional feedback from legal (for details see minutes from 2013-10-21)
EFI name registration, Vincent will ping again, no response to previous follow ups
openSUSE Mini Summit in US, SCALE is right around the corner, we missed that train, lets focus on event on east coast later in the year and have the discussion with SUSE at the face to face meeting

2.) New Board

Welcome Bruno and Kostas
Update on administrative stuff
- mailing list
- call numbers and schedule
- differentiation between "own" initiatives and "board" initiatives

3.) Board Face to Face meeting

start draft agenda in Google docs to let us iterate and discuss
agenda will be posted to wiki when it settles down a bit
everyone is welcome to send agenda suggestions to the board list
everybody has booked
Vincent needs to leave on Sunday at 3:30 P.M.

4.) Trademark request

openSUSE/SUSE Cafe Request
- Hans De Raad registered the URLs and asked about if the registration should be transferred.
  - we will not worry about SUSE
  - while we do not fully understand the purpose application, we trust Hans not to take any action that would harm the project
  - it would have been better to have the discussion prior to the registration
  - Kostas will follow up with Hans to get more information

5.) Joinup opportunity

Hans De Raad pointed out openSUSE is not in the Joinup DB and we should consider registering openSUSE.
- Bruno will register openSUSE

6.) Promo DVDs

we need to figure out the issues of getting promo material moving
this will be discussed again with SUSE at the face to face meeting in 3 weeks

7.) oSC14

No board action at this point

8.) oSC15

we do not want to have oSC15 on the Canary Islands
- Robert send a reply
Kostas and Bruno will try to reach out to members of the community to find a new location
worst case we will not have oSC15

Meeting 2013-12-16

Agenda

Action Item Review

Meeting 2013-12-02

Agenda

Action Item Review
Conference budget
oSC15

Minutes

Present: Andrew, Richard, Vincent, Robert

1.) Action Items

Branding package licensing changes -> Richard follow up

EFI name registration -> followed up no news -> Vincent follow up again next week

Follow up on money w.r.t to mini Summit proposal -> waiting for SUSE

2.) Conference budget

SUSE has handed over control of the oSC budget to the openSUSE board. We have the cost break down of oSC13 as a guideline to allocate funds for oSC14. The idea is to let the local organization team have as much control of the budget as possible. SUSE has requested a reasonably detailed budget proposal for the event, this should be handled by the local team with only broad guidelines provided by the board.

A.I. Robert send e-mail to local team about the budget

The board's preference is to have the budget public, with general reasonably detailed categories. We need to double check with SUSE if this approach is acceptable.

A.I. Vincent to follow up with SUSE to see if there are any objections to a public oSC14 budget.

3.) oSC15

We have not received any interest for hosting oSC15. Our original plan called for closing the call for location by the end of December. Where to go from here?

Potentials:

- Extend time period -> not likely to have any results

- Ping local Advocate teams -> Richard will follow up

- Start thinking of a plan B?

Co locate with other event in Europe
- LinuxTag

- Potentially not have a conference in 2015?

Meeting 2013-11-22

Agenda

Action Item Review
TSP
Marketing Material Reimbursement
openSUSE Summit
oSc14

Minutes

Present: Richard, Andrew, Vincent, Robert

1.) Action item review (for details on the action items see previous minutes)

Elections rolling -> done
Mexican Academies -> done
Branding packages license concern -> Richard to follow up
EFI name registration -> Vincent follow up again after sending initial e-mail

2.) TSP

The Board initiated a call for volunteers after learning that the current team needs more help. A number of people stepped up, THANK YOU. The current team will discuss with new volunteers about process and joining the TSP team, new members will be announced in the near future.

oSC13 - The Board have been informed that all sponsored participants have finally been paid, sorry about the delay. Efforts are on the way to avoid such lengthy delays in the future.

3.) Marketing Material Reimbursement

The Board does not feel it is a good idea to intermingle the Reimbursement of Marketing Materials with the Travel Support Program, especially as the TSP team is already very busy. There is supposedly money available for reimbursement of locally produced marketing materials. We need to try and form a new team. We intend to call for volunteers after the TSP team changes are sorted out.

4.) openSUSE Summit

While the openSUSE Summit in conjunction if SUSECon has been well received and was successful in the past two years there are some fundamental issues.

Community in US is relatively small and the country is large
People are not inclined to fly around the country to go to a conference on their own dime
Organization had single point of failure in the last two years
Summit takes place at "higher end" locations, thus hotel cost is generally high for participants
Going forward the Summit cost will need to be carried by the openSUSE budget and it is relatively expensive to locate at the SUSECon venue

Considering the concerns the Board has come to the conclusion that openSUSE Summit in it's current form in North America will not take place in conjunction with SUSECon 2014.

The Board believes the best future for openSUSE Summit is to change the format into a mini-Summit and co-locate with other events. The idea is that we would work with event organizers to get a track that is dedicated to openSUSE. This will allow us to get better exposure to more people while reducing our organizational effort and cost.

SCALE is a target but SCALE 2014 maybe too close need to discuss with SUSE to get money to fly in people for technical presentations

A.I. Vincent follow up with SUSE on Money

All things Open may be a good option

5.) oSC14

An initial meeting with venue people has taken place
The dates for oSC14 should be nailed down in the next couple of weeks
Svebor will setup IRC kick-off meeting
current indication are that the Board will receive direct control over the conference budget

Meeting 2013-11-04

Canceled, no quorum; Vincent on Airplane; Richard in training

Meeting 2013-10-21

Agenda

Action Item Review
oSC - 14 & 15
Elections
Trademarks
1. Our branding packages
2. Requests

Minutes

Present: Vincent, Richard, Robert

Missing: Will, Andrew => @ LinuxCon Europe

1.) Action Item Review

Advocate Committee suggestion: The ball is in Kostas' court, no more action from the board side for now
Mexican Academies: We received a detailed proposal to follow the outlined action plan with estimated costs. While the plan is reasonable and the approach is likely to succeed the costs cannot be bared by the project at this time. Richard will handle the response to the request.

2.) oSC - 14 & 15

oSC14: Contacts to negotiate the venue contract have finally been made after an unfortunate long delay and the ball appears to be rolling now. Once the contract is done the dates will be announced.
oSC15: Call for location is out, -project ML and news.o.o no one has shown interest yet.

3.) Elections

Election committee is formed and we need to follow up, we'd like to see the timeline announced before the end of the month. Richard will follow up with the Election Committee.

4.) Trademarks

Branding packages: Our current license of the branding packages has the potential to dilute the trademark. Action needs to be taken to plug this loophole. Richard is maintainer of the branding packages and thus will look at the license and work within the constraints of OBS as well as considering the legal requirements.
EFI name registration: At the filesystem level it's all the same openSUSE, opensuse, OPENSUSE. We will wait to see more responses to the thread on the factory list. Maybe we should register all three incarnations. Need to do some investigation. Vincent will follow up on this

Meeting 2013-10-07

Canceled

Meeting 2013-09-23

Agenda

Action Item Review
Devel process
Elections

Minutes

Present: Vincent, Andrew, Richard, Robert

Missing: Will

1. Action Item Review

Advocate Committee, Kostats is still fire fighting thus further discussion about proposed Advocate Committee has to wait. Richard will keep this item.
Mexican Academies, followed up, previous follow up was to wrong e-mail, waiting for reply. Richard will keep this item. (very brief description in minutes from 08/12)
Draft e-mail for oSC15 location done, no reply from news team. Post message to -project get news.o.o article out later

2.) Devel process

The discussion about the devel process document puts the board in a somewhat difficult position. On one hand this is clearly a technical issue and we as the Board should stay out of it. On the other hand those that created the documentation do not appear to take the requested feedback into consideration and appear to be ignoring the feedback provided by the community. However, non of the community members has approached the board directly to escalate the issue, thus it is not obvious if we should take an active approach or not. For now we will monitor this situation and see if any action is needed. As always we are all contributors and should participate in the discussion as factory contributors.

Vincent added a box to the wiki indicating this is a draft.

3.) Elections We have two volunteers for the committee, shall we renew the call for volunteers or shall we move forward with the two we have?

We will renew the call for volunteers and may reach out to individuals. Vincent will push the buttons.

Meeting 2013-09-09

Agenda

Action Item Review
oSC15 call for location
Trademarks use requests
Summit
Bug Hackathon
Board report for news.o.o
Upcoming board elections

Minutes

Present: Vincent, Andrew, Richard, Robert

Missing: Will

1.) Review Action Items

No action on Advocate Committee waiting for Kostas (Richard)
No action on Mexican Academies (Richard)
SELF invitation decline -> done (Robert)
No action on list for August-September OS events in the US (Robert)
IT requirements list for oSC venue -> done (Robert)

2.) oSC15 call for location

We are ready to get this rolling get the call out in the near future, keep open until end of year.

A.I. Robert draft e-mail proposal for -project

A.I. Contact Jos to get article to news.o.o

3.) Trademarks use requests

need to engage lawyer for one violation issue
no problem with 2 other requests
modification needed for 1 request

A.I. Vincent respond to all requests

4.) Summit

There was a kick off meeting
Board attendance, we have 2 members confirmed (Vincent & Robert) both will have their costs covered by their team travel budget

5.) Bug Hackathon

Yes, great idea, but we cannot help with organization. Help should be requested on -project

A.I. Vincent send mail to Jos

6.) Board report for news.o.o

Principally we would like to have the board reports for news.o.o. We propose to have the board report on a quarterly bases and start after the election. At this point we have a reduced board and thus we have a bandwidth issue.

A.I. Richard send message to Jos

7.) Board Election

Need to get call for election committee out

A.I. Vincent provide link to last years message

A.I. Robert modify or new sent to -project

Meeting 2013-08-26

Agenda

Action Item Review
TSP reimbursement for oSC13 sponsored participants
oSC15 time line
Summit 2014
oSC14

Minutes

Present: Vincent, Richard, Robert

Missing: Andrew -> UK Holiday, Will

1.) Action Items

Mexico Academies -> pending (Richard)
Advocate committee -> pending (Richard)
Foundation report -> pending (Robert)

2.) TSP reimbursement for oSC13 travel

Number of bugs have hit those that were sponsored for oSC13, thus there is an additional delay in processing, sorry
It is now possible to complete the process and get things to a stage where one can actually get reimbursed
Thanks to everyone who helped get this moving

3.) oSC15 Time line

Dates for call for location
- Call for location should go out mid September
- A.I. All review the location Requirements (https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Conference_venue_requirements)
- A.I. Robert ask Lars to add IT requirements to the page
- Call for location open until the end of the year
Location decision
- Decide by end of January
Announcement
- Follow same process as this year
- Announce at oSC14 and have oSC15 team give a presentation about location etc.

4.) Summit 2014

Summit in it's current form is very expensive to project, SUSE as sponsor, has limited impact, has generally single point of failure. Thus this is not sustainable
We have an open invitation to co-locate with SELF
- SELF 2014 is June 6-8, this is only 6 weeks after oSC14 and potentially in conflict with a Summit Asia
- A.I. Robert send message to Chuck declining SELF invitation
We need another location
- OSCON is on the West Coast, we might not want to go "that far"
- Potential may be to co-locate with Ohio Linux fest (traditionally held in September)
- A.I. Robert: Look at Open Source events in August-September in US and create list for discussion

5.) oSC14

University of Dubrovnik personnel is returning from their summer break and the dates and the specific location (3 possible locations within Dubrovnik) should be nailed down soon. We should announce this once the decision is made.

Meeting 2013-08-12

Agenda

Review of any outstanding action items
Advocates committee
Mexico academies

Minutes

Present: Richard, Andrew, Robert

Missing: Vincent -> vacation, Will

1.) Action items:

Vincent took care of getting the trademark request mail forwarded to him
Foundation report started draft

2.) Advocate Committee:

The board was approached with a proposal for an "Advocates Committee" to replace the "Ambassador Welcome Team"
With local coordinator program on the way it is a bit confusing why we would need an Advocate Committee

AI: Richard to follow up, we should not have two efforts with the same goal

3.) Mexico Academies:

Richard was approached about an idea of a structured way to promote openSUSE in Mexico
Generally OK, but we need more information

AI: Richard to send a message

4.) Miscellaneous

We also need to start thinking about the Summit for 2014. Timing, invitation from SELF for co-location. We should probably come to a decision by the end of September.
oSC14 waiting for confirmation of dates from team.

Meeting 2013-07-29

Agenda

oSC13 post-mortem

Minutes

Present: Richard, Vincent, Robert, Andrew

Missing: Will

1.) oSC13

Conference was a great event, team in Greece did a great job. We had some minor glitches:

Lunch late
Free give away T-shirts and Backpacks is not sustainable
Food for party was a bit over the top as far as amount is concerned
- partially cultural (it's all good)
- partially our fault in not communicating to not prepare food for all that registered

Late Lunches:
- For those attending it was not a big issue, everyone just rolled with it. It was difficult to relay the delay to those trying to catch afternoon sessions online.

Swag:
- Free give aways are nice, but in the end this is not sustainable. Given that no clear guidelines were provided in this respect this rests on the shoulders of the board

Discrepancy between number of people registered (300+) and those attending (~250):
- It was suggested that registration fee might decrease the discrepancy between registered and attending users
  - we would have to keep the registration fee low, thus it is not really a "deterrent" to registering and not showing up
  - the problem with the discrepancy of registered vs. attending is related to food for the party and give aways both issues can be resolved differently
    - we will not give away t-shirts, t-shirts are nice to have thus, we will investigate if we can have a button in the registration system and people can "order" t-shirts to buy at registration.
    - party food, plan for a 75% attendance, this is the historical number over multiple events

The conference shall remain free

Number of meetings:
- While our primary function is to interact with attendees and to be accessible to all it is unavoidable that some more "formal" meetings need to take place. The time spend in meetings was not considered excessive and was for the most part well worth it.

Board involvement in oSC organization:
- Prior to the conference and during the conference it was pointed out that the board should be more involved. While it is not possible to be involved in the day to day decisions we need to make a more conscious effort to be aware of the state of the organization.
  - encourage the team for oSC14 to have regular public meetings that make it easy for board members to attend and provide feedback
  - possibly develop a regular dialog with organizing team lead

Thanks again to everyone who attended, supported the event in any way and thanks to the local volunteers and organizing team.

Meeting 2013-07-15

Agenda

oSC13 are we ready
openSUSE Summit

Minutes

Present: Richard, Vincent, Robert, Andrew

Missing: Will

1.) oSC13 are we ready

a.) Board conference schedule

Meetings are set:

Friday:
- 11:00 - 12:00 Ralf, Agustin, Jos
- 12:00 - 13:00 Sponsors
- 15:00 - 16:00 TSP Team, Agustin

Sunday:
- 15:00 - 16:00 Yan Su, Jos
- 16:00 - 17:00 Agustin, Lars

Monday:
- 13:00 - 15:00 Board only

b.) Board town hall presentation

The initial proposal looks good. Lets put the finishing touches on the presentation in a meeting at the conference.

c.) Conference schedule does not include oSC14 presentation A.I. Robert to follow up

d.) Not yet seen the presentation for feedback from oSC14 organizing team

2.) Summit

We passed the initial hurdles, web site is up to date, OSEM is set up, news.o.o article is being published today or tomorrow

Meeting 2013-07-01

Agenda

Action Item review
openSUSE Conference 2014
Meetings during oSC13 (decide on time & topics)
1. Board face-to-face
2. With SUSE representatives

Minutes

Present: Vincent, Andy, Richard Absent: Will, Robert (vacation off the grid)

1) Action Items Review

No Action Items

2) oSC 14

Vincent and Robert have met with SUSE to make the case for our chosen location and encorage a quick decision

ACTION: Board to announce oSC14 at oSC13

3) Conference Meetings

Face to Face meeting was planned, as well as other meetings, including with Agustin (Head of openSUSE Team at SUSE) and Ralf (SUSE VP Engineering)

ACTION: Meetings to be had at oSC13

4) Requests for Copyright Permission

The board have heard some Copyright requests have not been dealt with in a timely manner

ACTION: Vincent to follow up with the appropriate team at SUSE

ACTION: Vincent to investigate whether requests to permission@suse.de could be auto-forwarded to board@opensuse.org

Meeting 2013-06-17

Agenda

Action item review
1. Face to Face actions
2. Message to SUSE about refund for local material through TSP (done)
3. Message to oSC14 potential organizers (done)
4. Lets enumerate everything that's open or we'll drop it
oSC13 (1 month away, everyone booked)
oSC14
1. We have to proposals and answers from both teams to all our questions, decision time
Summit
Local marketing material money
Subforum

Minutes

Present: Vincent, Richard, Andrew, Robert

Absent: Will

1.) Action item review

Vincent ready to send communication changes message to -project, feedback from all is now included
Other items remain open, since the face to face meeting we have all been swamped for whatever reason
All actions are still listed in easily accessible places, no new list needed

2.) oSC13

All booked travel and Hotel, no info from Will
We need to plan for time for a Board Face to Face meeting
We need to plan time for a meeting with TSP coordinator
We need to prepare the town hall meeting
- 5 or 10 min overview of board actions to date and planned items

3.) oSC14

Have proposal from France and Croatia/Hungary
Vincent check about blockers within SUSE for new location
Robert send message to oSC14 teams about decision after feedback from SUSE

4.) Summit

Decision of having the summit this year was in retrospect questionable as we have no one to pull the whole thing together, but we need to keep moving forward at this point
Current status
- Website content
  - Mostly updated (Robert)
  - Need to sort out github access
  - Need to sort out pull of sources to host
- OSEM needs to be set up for the Summit, registration and CfP (Robert)
- Need article to announce the Summit (Jos & Robert)
For next year we have an invitation to co-locate with SELF
- With independent event we obviously have big issues getting things organized, last year and this year we have a single point of failure
- We have to evaluate the situation, decision is postponed

5.) Locally produced material

Procedure to get money has changed
- While it has changed a while ago it was not well communicated
- There is confusion we have to straighten things out
- Vincent work out details of proposed temporary solution with SUSE, then announce

6.) Subforum for Cloverleaf

Everyone is OK with the creation of the subforum
Richard to send a message

Meeting 2013-06-03

Agenda

Action items
Board signed certificates for oSC
Responsiveness of @admin
Funds for Marketing Material via TSP
oSC 14

Minutes

Present: Andrew, Richard, Robert

Absent: Raymond, Vincent, Will

1.) Action items

Nothing new on the face to face action items. Message to oSC13 team has been sent.

2.) Board signed certificates for oSC

At the oSC13 meeting the idea was floated to provide board "signed" certificates to all attendees. Should we do this?

We agree that the board, as individuals or group, does not want to sign any "Attendee Certificate" for oSC. We think this is generally tacky and of no value.

3.) Responsiveness of @admin

Responsiveness from @admin is very slow. While we are aware that a Redmine based ticketing system is supposed to be implemented, the time line is unknown.

AI: Vincent follow up with Lars on implementation time line for ticketing system AI: Vincent follow up on potential decommissioning of Lizards

4.) Funds for Marketing Material via TSP

It has come to our attention that the TSP reimbursement for locally produced materials has somehow been changed and information about the program appears to have disappeared. There is confusion, it is the boards impression that based on the new shipping procedure and the launch of the new Coordinator this money is essential to handle smaller events. The removal of the information from wiki and message received from TSP coordinator do not match the goals.

AI: Richard draft message to SUSE follow up on marketing funds through TSP

5.) oSC14

Received official e-mail of interest from French team, we now have a choice of location. We still want someone from organization committee of oSC14 to be at oSC13 and we would like to announce the oSC14 location at oSC13. Thus we need to get this moving.

AI: Robert draft e-mail to both groups with required info

Due date is June 14, this gives us a few days to review and make a decision while leaving about 3 weeks for someone to make travel arrangements and prepare a presentation.

Meeting 2013-05-20

Agenda

Action Items Review
58 days to oSC13: Progress-Work done-Things that need to be done

Minutes

Present: Richard, Robert, Vincent

Absent: Andrew, Raymond, Will (Holiday)

1.) Action items

No progress on the action items from the Face to Face meeting, we need to double down and get these done

2.) oSC13

The board has been asked to be "more involved" in the organization of oSC13. However, we do not see the completion of tasks for the conference organization as a part of the board's function. If we were intimately involved with the organization of events we would never get anything else done.

AI: Robert draft message to oSC13 orga team and explain the board point of view, sent when we agree on the wording.

We agree that someone from the board should be present if the oSC13 committee has IRC meetings.

AI: Richard and Robert to participate in next oSC13 IRC meeting

Meeting 2013-05-06

Canceled, vacation and holiday's decimated the number of board members able to attend

Meeting 2013-04-22

Agenda

Meeting Time
Action Items Review
Trademark Approval Requests
New Merchandising Plan
Ambassador program revamp
Infrastructure Policy

Minutes

Present: Richard, Andrew, Robert, Vincent, Will

Absent: Raymond - Company Meeting

1.) Meeting time

With the time change we will move the meeting back by 1 hour, this works better for everyone

2.) Action items review from Face to Face meeting

Richard: Double check Summit Artwork for copyrights -- Done
Vincent: Follow up with Guillaume about French community organizing oSC14 -- Done -- They do not need help at this time.
Robert: Followed up on details about the current openSUSE store
- It is easy to manage, basically no work
- We get about $100 per quarter from sales
  - Need to chase where the money goes and this need to be integrated into the new openSUSE cost center
Andrew: Collected all names of people effected by very slow reimbursement process
- Vincent needs to follow up with SUSE to get the money out the door
All other Face to Face action items outstanding

3.) Trademark usage request

openSUSE Magazine (Online) - no objections will work out approval wording on ML
openSUSE Book - no objections
openSUSE T-shirt printing re-newel - no objections

AI: Vincent to follow up with all requesters and give go ahead

4.) New Merchandising plan

AI: Richard coordinate with Jos to announce new Local Coordinator program and new merchandising plan

5.) New Ambassador program

Basically ready to go, Richard work on announcement and coordinate with Jos

6.) Infrastructure Policy

AI: Robert to transcribe policy and pass back to Lars

Meeting 2013-04-06 & 07

Board Face to Face Meeting in Nuermberg

Agenda

How do we interact with openSUSE team
Event orginisation help
1. oSC13
2. oSC14
3. Summit
Roland joins board discussion
Agustin Presentation - openSUSE Team
Lars Presnetation - Infrastructure
Ambassador program revamp
1. Richard presentation
2. Jos presentation on SUSE Team supplied merchendising/shipping materials
Web store
Reimbursement
TSP
Foundation
Strategy

Minutes

Present: Richard, Andrew, Robert, Vincent, Will

Absent: Raymond - Business Trip

How do we interact with the openSUSE team and SUSE

With the reorganization of dedicated SUSE employees that work within the openSUSE community from the Boosters team to the openSUSE team with new leadership the dynamic has changed. This might call for different ways of communication.

The appointed chairman (Vincent) may be considered as a "more formal" way to communicate with the team
- but SUSE team members are members of the community like everyone else, thus a "formal/special channel" of communication should not be required
- board considers chairman as a communication channel to SUSE management
The directed team approach of the SUSE team under the new org will require the board to communicate to the community the changes in communication paths
- The directed team approach would provide a good opportunity to have the SUSE team send activities reports to the community
  - But SUSE team is not special, thus other teams should also provide activities reports
    - The Board is looking for individuals to help Bootstrap team reports, including
      - GNOME
      - Artwork
      - ARM
      - KDE
      - TSP
      - Board
      - Marketing
    - The long term goal is to have a project report on a monthly basis

AI: All make effort to bootstrap team activity reports by as many teams as possible

AI: Robert draft message to project concerning changes in communication with SUSE team using examples

Events

The board agrees with the premise that at most, if not all, events it is inevitable that openSUSE representatives receive questions about SUSE. We cannot expect community members representing the project and the community to answer these questions. This is an opportunity for SUSE to take advantage of the existing synergies. Thus, the board will ask SUSE to consider encouraging SUSE employees to participate in events. The advantage to the community is that we will have additional help at the events, the advantage to SUSE is the representation.

oSC13

Event organization appears to be on track and we expect a great event
- We did not have sufficient submissions by the deadline to fill the program, CfP deadline has been extended
- A preliminary schedule will be created an published in 2-3 weeks
- We need to schedule time for project meeting and reports
  - Live project meeting (90 or 120 minutes?)
  - Team reports (60 or 90 minutes?)
  - These should be scheduled in the middle of the core days

Summit 13

Artwork is mostly done (by Andi).
Bryen will take care of website.
New volunteer Steve Dorries will take care of local outreach.
Chuck Payne will work on finding a keynote speaker
Robert is running CfP plus following up with people
We will have an openSUSE booth at SUSECon

Problem

We have single point of failure for all activities
Not enough bandwidth to follow up and/or take over for activities left undone

Solution

Call for more volunteers (we do not expect success with a renewed call)
Trust the people now working on oSC will help with Summit once oSC work is wrapped up
Try to contract someone

AI: Vincent to double-check with Agustin he’s handling the request for the booth

AI: Richard to double check Artwork for legal

AI: Vincent to discuss with Kent about costs on openSUSE side for organizing the Summit

AI: Vincent to go to Agustin/Roland and see if there’s money in the openSUSE budget for contracting

AI: Robert to seek potential contract person

oSC14

No contact from anyone regarding hosting of oSC14 on board list
French community is potentially interested

Event Organisation Help

Concern that in the long run event organization in the present form is not sustainable for our own events
Organization of openSUSE presence at events is not well coordinated either

We agree that we want to formally request the openSUSE team develop the capacity to have an even organization person that can help with events such as CLT, Linux Tag and provide a rallying point for the community to organize oSC and the Summit.

If we cannot get a rallying point we have to continue as we do now, keeping in mind that we may not be able to pull our events together.

AI: Andrew to push Guillaume send mail to Board@ to start conversation

AI: Vincent to talk to Kent & Elisa to see if they can help french team in organizing oSC14

AI: Robert write draft e-mail of request

AI: Approach Kostas to give a talk at oSC about organizing oSC

AI: We need to ensure one person from next years local organization committee attends oSC13

AI: Vincent to contact SUSE event team to see if someone can join oSC and give feedback on organization, and participate in training session

Meeting with Roland

Roland Haidl is the Director Operations & Services at SUSE and the openSUSE team at SUSE works in his team.

The work of the Boosters is considered successful
- Contributions to the openSUSE project have been growing and this was a major goal of the unidirectional boosting the Boosters team was chartered with
The organizational change is intended to change the SUSE involvement in the community
- Goal is to have a more focused directed approach to have a more positive impact in areas of focus
- Spend effort in areas that are perceived to need significant improvement
An openSUSE cost center has been created
- There will be a budget and the board will have control over a certain amount of money
- Details still need to be worked out

Meeting with Agustin

Agustin is the manager of the openSUSE team at SUSE. The re-organisation from the Boosters to the openSUSE team is now almost a year in the making. The transition has not been easy, from a company and community perspective.

The openSUSE team lost a number of members that were well known within the community
- These members have taken on other responsibilities within SUSE
- New team members are new to the openSUSE community or new to open source communities, thus it will take a while to get the word out and have the team members establish themselves within the community
Statistics collection and data evaluation shows that
- our download number for releases is pretty stable
- non SUSE employed contributors to the project are experiencing a steady growth (>100% over the last 3 years)
- we can probably refine the data collected and the presentation to be more representative of the overall growth of the project and not just focus on Factory
- more details will be provided in a presentation at oSC13
Overall the vision is to transfer more responsibility to the board and the community
- Budget discussions are underway and a cost center for openSUSE has already been set up
- SUSE has to make some tough internal decisions
- Transferring more responsibility to the community and board is not easy and will require a period of time
  - to this point some responsibility has been transferred but not communicated properly leaving things in an undesirable state
  - communication will be key to the success of the transfer
The board will want to publicly account for the funds available
- SUSE has no issue with this and will leave it to the boards discretion
The openSUSE team does not want to be the "team of last resort" or the "default team" to ask for help
- this implies that communication paths within the community have to change
  - messages about things previously addressed by the boosters should probably be addressed to the board and or the revamped ambassador program leaders
  - board needs to address this and send a message with changes to the -project list

Meeting with Lars

Lars Vogdt is the team leader for the System Services Team at SUSE and his team is responsible for the maintenance of openSUSE dedicated hardware.

At present SUSE is the primary sponsor for the hardware that runs the openSUSE infrastructure
- cost is significant
- we need more hardware and we need to look for sponsors
- SUSE is happy to host any sponsored hardware in Nuremberg
We encouraged Lars to provide the information presented as a presentation at oSC13
- not many people in the community are aware of the commitment being extended on the hardware side
- not many people have an understanding of services available
The team will set up a ticketing system
- this will help resolve issues quicker
- help people that run services not controlled by the system team to be alerted when there is an issue with their service
Proposal of a systems team policy to be shared with the community
- allow people to better understand what is possible as far as running services on openSUSE infrastructure
If there are any questions about requests Lars will interact with the board

AI: board review proposed Infrastructure policy and get back to Lars

Ambassador Program Revamp

Richard presents the current state of affairs and why we need to change things up.

160+ ambassadors but we have no definition of what is expected of ambassadors, most are not active.
- Reason for inactivity is most likely that we have no definition about expectations.
Ambassadors should be members, for 40 or so ambassadors nothing changes, just apply for membership, for those that do nothing the barrier of entry increases
We should bootstrap a new program rather than try to re-work the existing program. We need a small team of people who would lead that (these people can also act as liaison between the program & the board, work on reports, etc.).
- reference: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Ambassadors_Steering_Committee

AI: Richard circulate concrete proposal for discussion

AI: Board create new framework

AI: Approach 3 or 4 members of community directly to help bootstrap the new program

Jos presentation concerning merchandising

We ship many items to remote locations
- Often shipping costs outweigh the value of the material
- It is at times unknown whether the material actually arrives in time or at all
- Often the event for which the material is shipped is not well defined
- We ship from various places in an uncoordinated effort
- Current state is not sustainable, cost and effort
Going forward we want to have "standard" boxes of promotional material
- boxes matched to event sizes (small medium, large)
- content to be determined
- eventually we can stop shipping "non-perishable" content such as banners
We need to track who gets boxes
- allows us to send only version specific content over time and reduce shipping cost
For smaller events we might want to create a general budget for local production of items

AI: Jos talk with Ancor about integrating promo materials tracking in TSP web app

AI Jos bootstrap list of events we want to send stuff to, and updated it based on feedback

'Web Shop

We want to be able to
- have a donate button
- sell additional items (community designed shirts, plushies)
But we do not want to create a lot of extra work
Open questions
- how to integrate with spreadshirt
- how to handle logistics
- how much do we sell currently
- how does money come back to the project from spreadshirt
- what is the agreement

AI: Robert initiate conversation with SUSE WebShop team (shop.suse.com) about using instance for shop.opensuse.org

AI: Robert follow up with Henne on Spreadshirt deal

Reimbursement

At present the reimbursement of costs for event attendance and other approved expenses is very slow, we need to find way to improve the process and shorten the time it takes to pay back the money.

It’s important to make sure that receipts are sent with the reimbursement requests.
There’s a TSP web app being developed by the openSUSE Team at SUSE that will help track everything, including reimbursement. Should make sure that nothing get lost/forgotten. The new app should go live at the end of the month.
Current cases need to be addressed on an individual basis

AI: Andrew & Richard to find who’s affected by issues.

AI: Vincent to follow up internally.

Travel Support Program

Izabel is a bit alone in there, and has mentioned several times she might move on. Would be a shame to lose her (because of all the knowledge she accumulated about people & events). New TSP web app should make it easier for others to step up, and should also help Izabel by making her life easier. (Note: Izabel has seen the web app and sent feedback already)

AI: we need to find new volunteers

Foundation

We perceive the primary drivers for a foundation to have been financial transparency/control and increased independence.

Independence implies more responsibility is to be carried by the community, this process is already underway, although it is under communicated
Financial transparency/control is closer to realization with the establishment of openSUSE cost center
Foundation requires paperwork etc. that no one really wants to do
There would also be an issue of trademarks with SUSE unlikely willing to assign trademark rights to a Foundation that uses the name openSUSE
Can we get a promise from SUSE about transferring the openSUSE brand should SUSE no longer be interested in the project or fall off the face off the planet?

AI: Robert write draft Foundation report to community

AI: Vincent explore with SUSE to create a promise about maintaining cost center and financial commitment to openSUSE in the long run

Meeting 2013-03-25

Agenda

Review action Items
Collect topics for Face to Face meeting
Bugzilla category for accessibility issues
1. Issue raised on board mailing list
2. This is a technical issue, but also says something about us as a community

Minutes

Present: Richard, Andrew, Robert

Missing: Raymond - Company Meeting, Vincent - Customer call, Will - Helping out at home, ill family members

1.) Review Action Items - No board report :( - CLT issues followed up

2.) Face to Face Meeting Agenda - Items collected, ready to post first draft of the agenda to the wiki

3.) Accessibility issue - The proposal raised on the board list is to add a new category to our Bugzilla to clearly mark accessibility issues as such.

There are two main concerns, one is that this is a technical issue and thus the board should keep its fingers out of this issue. The second concern is that creating a specific category may make it easier for people to "pass the buck" by expecting someone in the non existent accessibility team to fix the problem.

Having a separate category for accessibility (a11y) on the other hand will send a clear message that we as the openSUSE community care about people with disabilities. While we have no specific resources to address a11y issues it is important to acknowledge that an a11y issues can easily make the system unusable for a handicapped person.

While adding to the bug category list is definitely a technical issue, the a11y topic has a very large community component and thus the board thinks it is appropriate to act in this area. We can certainly not dictate any action, however a message will be sent to the -factory mailing list asking for consideration of the topic by the developers.

The argument was made that a11y bugs should fit into the categories we already have and that we might easier fall into a "pass the buck" situation with a new category. It is the consensus that we should be able to address the "pass the buck" issue with a policy/procedure. As far as using existing categories is concerned the problem might be that we get into a priority flip flop situation if we do not have a separate category. A person with a disability might mark a bug as Critical, but a developer not fully understanding the consequences might relabel it as category 2 or 3. Having an a11y category would address such priority flip/flop issues.

The board will, after additional discussion on the board list, send a proposal to the -factory list for consideration by the developer community. The proposal will recommend the addition of an a11y category to Bugzilla and a proposal on how to handle the bugs.

Meeting 2013-03-11

Agenda

Review Action items
CLT issues brought to boards attention

Minutes

Present: Richard, Vincent, Will, Robert, Andrew

Missing: Raymond, on a business trip

1.) Review Action Items

No progress on board report, Vincent will work on this today
No reply yet from events team on help request concerning Hackathon organization
Announcement concerning Pascal's resignation completed

2.) CLT issues

An issue regarding CLT has been brought to the boards attention. It appears that a few things went awry with respect to getting people energized to give talks, man the booth and have hardware available.

One of the underlying issues appears to be a communication and expectation issue. After the reorg at SUSE from the Boosters team to the openSUSE team we have not done a great job in setting expectations and communicated the new channels of communication. The board needs to address this and provide better information to the community. The board will make this one of the topics to be discussed extensively at the face to face meeting in April.

Robert to communicate with the CLT participants that raised the issue about the board discussion and next action items.

We definitely want community members to pick up the ball for events such as CLT and somehow there was an issue in getting everything worked out. We have to improve on the process and make things easier for community members.

Meeting 2013-02-25

Agenda

Review Action items
Face to Face board meeting
Events oSC13, Summit, oSC14
Lack of volunteers

Minutes

Present: Vincent, Raymond, Robert, Will

Andrew is participating in a seminar and could not call in

1.) Review Action items

Board report, no progress yet. Vincent will try to get this done ASAP
Hackathon organization
- openSUSE team will help with local organization
- message from Robert to -project did not result in any volunteers
Summit
- Andy is working on Artwork
- Robert asked Bryan to manage summit.opensuse.org, waiting for response
- Robert asked Peter Linnell to manage local outreach program, waiting for response
- Robert will ask Chuck about running keynote speaker search and organize the keynote

2.) Board Face to Face meeting

Everyone is still OK with the dates (April 6 & 7), funds have been approved by SUSE.

Everyone should make their travel arrangements, please arrive Friday PM or early Saturday morning. Inform Vincent of arrival dates so he can book the Hotel.

Meeting will be held in the SUSE Nuremberg offices.

3.) Events

oSC13
- looks as if everything is on track
- CfP was announced last week
Summit
- the wheels are starting to roll, see AI review above
oSC14
- we have a draft for a location search anouncement everyone needs to review and chime in
- should go out next Tuesday

4.) Lack of volunteers The call for volunteers to organize Hackathons has resulted in no response. The call for volunteers to help with the Summit had a low response and it appears that it is difficult to get people to step up and be more engaged with non technical issues.

Should we try to broadcast searches for volunteers to a wider audience then just sending things to the -project list. It appears that we always go back to the same group and always the same people step up (or not).
- Broadcasting these searches on news.o.o is definitely worth a shot.
- We should reach out to Universities and advertise the organization of a Hackathon as a course project to business students.

How can we get more people trained/enthusiastic in organizing events such as a Hackathon?

All Ambasadors should have a list of things where the openSUSE project is looking for help and show the list at events openSUSE ambassadors participate in.

Can we find a good place on the wiki or front page to show advertise a "Help wanted" list

Next meeting: 2013-03-11

Meeting 2013-02-11

Agenda

Review Action items
Face to Face board meeting
Monthly board report
Hackathon (how do we go about the organization?)
openSUSE Summit
Sponsor opportunity status update

Minutes

Present: Andrew, Will, Vincent, Robert, Raymond

1.) Review action items

Everything form last meeting complete, spare mediation follow up scheduled two weeks from now.

2.) Face to Face meeting

Waiting for confirmation from SUSE about travel fund availability

3.) Monthly board report

We announced the reports to be on a regular basis, what should "regular basis" be? Every month, every other month, quarterly?

We will stick to a two month report for now to see how things go.

AI: Vincent to send draft to board list by end of this week.

4.) Hackathon organization

The last event was organized by the openSUSE team at SUSE. This group of people does not want to be the main focus to organize Hackathons.

Such sprints should ideally be organized by individual teams, such as KDE, GNOME, etc. However, at this point we do not have the culture within the community to run these events. Until we establish a cadence and culture of hackathons we might need to lean on the openSUSE team to keep organizing the events for a while longer.

As long as Hackathons are on SUSE premises a SUSE employ must be present, thus the openSUSE team will most likely be involved anyway.

AI: Vincent to discuss with SUSE to have someone who enjoys organizing events and has expertise. This does not have to be a full time position.

AI: Robert send a message to -project asking for volunteers

5.) openSUSE Summit

We know that the event is scheduled. We have 3 volunteers at this point but we do not have anyone who is ready to step up and run the show similar to the way Bryan did last year. Robert is willing to run the program committee.

AI: Robert start kicking the tires

6.) OBS sponsorship

We will get 12 ARM boards for OBS, but sponsor will remain anonymous, i.e. their name will not be spread across opensuse.org pages.

Next meeting: 2013-02-25

Meeting 2013-01-28

Agenda

Regular board calls
Board communication
Board action and interaction to community
Mediation request
Face to Face meeting

Minutes

Board Meeting 01/28/2013: Present: Vincent, Ray, Andrew, Will, Robert

1.) Regular call schedule: This time appears to work for everyone, thus we will stick with :

Monday at 10:00 A.M. EST, 16:00 CEST, 15:00 UTC

Call every other week, cancel if not needed

AI: Vincent setup automatic reminder.

2.) Board communication Communication on the list has been slow at times.

We agree that everyone should respond to messages on the board mailing list within 3 days. If someone is traveling or not able to respond in a timely fashion the team member will notify the list accordingly.

3.) Board action and interaction to community During recent election campaign and prior to the campaign community voiced concern about visibility of the board within the community.

Board Activities page is considered useful by everyone and a good communication tool to the community. We currently do not see the need to have a shared action item tracker. The goal is to reach a level of cohesion within the team such that when a board member is away someone else can step in upon request.

We commit to have public board meeting minutes. Board will post minutes to a wiki within 3 day of the meeting.

AI: Robert will announce the activities page to the -project list this week

4.) Mediation request The board has been asked to mediate a misunderstanding.

Action has been taken and the consensus is to let things rest for a while and see how they play out.

AI: Robert send follow message to involved parties in about 4 weeks.

5.) Face to Face meeting of the board

We agree tat a face to face meeting would be very useful and that waiting until oSC13 is a bit too far out. We will try and arrange a meeting on the weekend of April 6 & 7 in the Nuremberg office.

AI: All members provide travel cost estimates to Vincent AI: Vincent discuss budget with SUSE

6.) Andrew has found a HW sponsorship opportunity

There is an opportunity for the project to get a considerable donation in HW for the openSUSE infrastructure. Review of the current process and some discussions revealed that we probably need to review our sponsorship documents.

AI: Andrew follow up with sponsor to understand their expectations

7.) Hackfest

The recent Hackfest was mostly organized by the openSUSE team at SUSE. It is the desire to have a number of Hackfests throughout the year. However, the openSUSE team at SUSE would prefer the events be organized by the community. We did not come to a conclusion on a good approach to this topic. The board itself cannot organize such events as we would quickly be overwhelmed. This is a topic for the next board meeting.

Meeting concludes 11:05 EST

Next meeting February 11, 2013

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