Minutes for Dec 1st, 2011

Meeting minutes of the Plone Foundation Board

Meeting started at 22:00 CET

Everybody is present

Housekeeping

• approval of the minutes of 2011-11-17
  Carol moves to approve, Maurizio seconds. Unanimously approved
• Membership list
  The non-members on the Board should have access to the discussions on the Membership list, to do their Board tasks more efficiently.
• Legal details:
  With the change of Treasurer, the correspondence address for the Foundation will be changed; the legal address in Delaware (U.S.A.) will stay the same.
  We may want to get a PO box to make future changes in Board membership easier, Carol will look at costs.

Old Business

• ZEA India trademark transfer
  Matt received an invoice from Xavier Heymans to do the transfer. It will get sent to the Foundation postal address.
  
  
• Invitation to join OSI.
  A consultation of the Members has been held; the Members were overwhelmingly in favour of joining.
  Matt moves to join OSI, Paul seconds. Unanimous approval.
  Geir will follow up with them to deal with the details.
  Carol will contact Marketing, Matt will tell Members.
  
  
• OASIS WCMS standard
  This has not yet been discussed on the Members list.
  We can do a quick poll to the Members, but not just on the question of joining OASIS.
  If we want to be involved in the process of defining this standard, we would need a "champion" to step up and own this process, otherwise there is no purpose in us joining at this stage.
  In which case we can later decide to implement the standard, but won't be on the list of initial organisations involved.
  Matt and Maurizio will write the mail to consult the Members.
  
  
• Plone Conference 2012 Call for Proposals.
  Sjoerd and Érico have worked on this, and put up a draft.
  We'll adjust the timeline: proposals are due Dec 31st, the rest of the draft stays the same.
  The call can be found at http://plone.org/events/conferences/plone-conference-2012
  Mark will be pinged to do publicity. It will also be published onto the various mailing lists. (Paul)
  
  
• Plone Foundation seat in Europe.
  Xavier Heymans originally had set up a European seat for the Plone Foundation in Europe, which was ZEA. This was so we could own trademarks in Europe. The legal situation might have changed due to something called the 'Madrid agreement' that specifies that U.S. foundations can hold trademark in the EU. But even if so, an address in Europe for the Foundation might still be useful.
  There was a formal agreement between PF and ZEA in 2007 on this matter. The agreement included more than just the address; also some services like monitoring of the trademark.
  The Board needs to review that. Matt will look into it, to doublecheck what is actually wanted and needed.
  Decision postponed till next meeting.
  
  
• Marketing and request for funding
  (We have a guest caller from the Marketing Team, Mark Corum, for this agenda item.)
  Gabrielle and Geir have put together a preliminary budget for marketing. This will be sent to the entire Board for approval.
  A current question is about funding CMS Expo. The request is for a substantial amount of money, much more than is normally granted to help present Plone at conferences. Is it worth it?
  Last year's Board decided to not fund that conference; the returns on investment were just not enough, considering the limited amount of means available.
  After some discussion, the Board sees no opportunity to fund this event from the means available to us. Matt will follow up.
  (Mark drops off)
  
  
• Funding for good-py.appspot.com.
  The Plone community runs a Google Engine app on here, which is used to specify configurations known to work for specific combinations of add-ons.
  It has gained in popularity as people adopt newer technologies like Dexterity and Deco. This is a good thing, since it shows the community is using this very useful app.
  But it also means we have overstepped the boundaries of their free limit, and now some costs have occured. The Board decides that we should carry the funding as a community, and not rely on kind individuals to foot the bill.
  Matt moves to approve to fund good-py.appspot.com from Foundation means (to a limit of 500 dollars per annum)
  Sjoerd seconds. Unanimous approval.

New business

• Finances for the 2011 Plone Conference.
  The Treasurer has not yet received a final financial statement from the San Francisco conference, and some bills are also still outstanding.
  Carol will follow up with the organisors, so we can move towards closing the books for 2011.
  Current guesstimate is that there will probably have been a (relatively minor) loss.
  
  
• Membership Committee.
  
  A call has been put out to stand for this committee, that is responsible for judging new applicants for Membership; a total of 11 applicants responded.
  That is a big group, but in accordance with an ask from the applicants, the Board decides to appoint all 11.
  In accordance with the Bylaws, one member of the Board has to be the formal Chair of this committee.
  
  Matt moves to appoint all 11 applicants, Érico seconds, unanimous approval.
  The Board appoints the new Membership Committee:
• Maurizio Delmonte (formal Chair, as member of the Board)
• Jon Stahl
• Chris Calloway
• Clayton Parker
• Matthew Wilkes
• Roberto Allende
• Tom Kapanka
• Héctor Velarde
• Godefroid Chapelle
• Alan Runyan
• Balasz Ree
  
  
• All other business is adjourned until the next meeting.

Matt moves to close the meeting at 23:19 CET. Seconded by Geir. Unanimous approval.