Minutes, November 29, 2007

Present: Jon Stahl, Darci Hanning, Geir Baekholt, Steve McMahon, Alex Limi

Absent: Toby Roberts, Joel Burton (sick),

Late: Nate Aune (representing Plone at Gilbane Conference)
 

Summary of Follow Up Tasks

Darci

  • Notify new members of membership committee
  • Update membership committee page on plone.org

Geir

  • Notify new members of the IP Committee (i.e. Paul!) - DONE
  • Communicate to Paul the Board's desire for a short memo about the Dave Powsner legal proposal, enough info for us to feel that we know who Dave is and have done due diligence on the idea that he is a good person to represent us. - DONE
  • Update IP committee page on Plone.org.  Delete Trademark committee page. - DONE

 

Alex

  • Contract with Cornelis Kolbach to do plone.org redesign work.  Be sure to include some process for gathering community feedback before finalizing any design decisions.

 

Jon

  • Send Nov 8 minutes to foundation members list  - DONE
  • Notify Toby of release manager payment approval - DONE
  • Amend bylaws, file amended copies in Collective, update on plone.org/foundation. - DONE
  • Notify new members of Plone Foundation via email - DONE
    • Add new members to foundation-members email list
    • Workflow new member objects in plone.org - DONE
  • Notify rejected Plone Foundation member applicants via email - DONE
    • Workflow member objects - DONE
  • Notify re-activated Emeritus members via email - DONE
    • Workflow member objects - DONE
  • Followup with Wichert about his interest in leading Zope 2 on Python 2.5 project. - IN PROGRESS


 

Routine Housekeeping

Darci called the meeting to order at 12:03 PST.

Steve moved to approve and publish November 8 minutes.

Jon seconded.

Approved unanimously

 

Officer reports

President: Nothing at this time.

Secretary:  Nothing not already on the agenda.

Treasurer: none

Other reports:

  • Alex reported that Google will be paying us $4000 from Summer of Code program in the next 30 days.  Money had been delayed because our 501c3 papers had not been on file there.

 

Membership Actions

Bylaws Changes

Steve proposed the following change to our bylaws to clarify the structure of the membership committee.

Current Section 6.10

"""

A Membership Committee is created to formulate and propose membership

policies and procedures to the Board of Directors, which body must

approve said policies and procedures before they take effect. The

Membership Committee implements current approved membership policies and

makes recommendations to the Board of Directors on new membership

applications and terminations.

"""


Proposed appended paragraph for Section 6.10:

"""

The Membership Committee will be appointed by the Board of Directors and

consist of at least three members, including at least one Director, who

will serve as the chair.  All other members of the Membership Committee

must be current members of the Corporation.

"""

Jon moved to adopt this additional paragraph

Geir seconded.

Approved unanimously.

 

Steve also proposed an amendment to Section 6.9, which addresses Project Management Committees, to allow any member of the Foundation to chair a PMC.

 

Current first paragraph of Section 6.9:

"""

In addition to the officers of the corporation, the Board of Directors

may, by resolution, establish one or more Project Management Committees

consisting of at least one officer of the corporation, who shall be

designated chairman of such committee, and may include one or more other

members of the corporation. Unless elected or appointed as an officer in

accordance with Section 6.1 of these Bylaws, a member of a Project

Management Committee shall not be deemed an officer of the corporation.

"""


Proposed replacement first paragraph (rest of section remains):

"""

The Board of Directors may, by resolution, establish one or more Project

Management Committees, which shall consist of members of the corporation

and a chair appointed by the Board of Directors. Project committee

chairs shall regularly report to the Board on committee membership,

organization and activities.

"""

Jon and Steve explained that the intent is to make a minimally-invasive change to the bylaws that will allow us to legally convene a new IP committee.


Jon moved that we adopt this change to the bylaws.

Geir seconded.

Unanimously approved.

 

Proposed changes to membership committee-related bylaws

Foundation member Chris Calloway submitted a set of proposed bylaws amendments to clarify the process for handling reactivation of emeritus members.  The board's intention is to clarify and reaffirm our intent that emeritus members will automatically reinstated upon request without need for re-application or re-evaluation by the Membership Committee.

The set of changes is documented at:

http://plone.org/foundation/meetings/minutes/amendments-to-bylaws-article-3/

Steve noted that applications for reinstatement will go to the Board Secretary, rather than the membership committee.

The board intends to further revise and clarify membership-related bylaws in early 2008.

 

Steve moved to adopt the changes proposed at the URL above.

Darci seconded.

Unanimously approved.


Reconstituting the membership committee

Jon moved to dissolve the current membership committee, so that it can be reconstituted "on the record" with all members officially appointed by the board.

Geir seconded.

Unanimously approved.

 

Steve moved to create a new Membership Committee, and to appoint the following individuals as members, with Darci Hanning as chair:

Geir Bækholt, Godefroid Chapelle, Hanno Schlichting, Chris Calloway, Tom "Spanky" Kapanka, Dorneles Treméa, Darci Hanning

Geir seconded.

Unanimously approved.

The board expresses its tremendous appreciation for the work done by current and past Membership Committee participants, including Godefroid Chapelle and Hanno Schlicting.

 

Approving new members

The Membership Committee recommended the following applicants for approval:

  * Andreas Zeidler          

  * Daniel Nouri             

  * David Siedband          

  * Luciano Ramalho         

  * Roberto Allende          

  * Takahashi Mike           

  * Fabio Rizzo           

 

Jon moved that we welcome these individuals as members of the Plone Foundation.

Darci seconded

Unanimously approved -- welcome new members!

 

Jon asked: What is the official procedure for notifying new members of their acceptance?

Geir: there doesn't seem to be one. :-)

Jon, as board secretary, will notify all new members and rejected members.

 

Jon moved to approve Alex Clark's application for PF Membership, even though there was limited input from the Membership Committee.

Geir seconded.

Unanimously approved.

 

  • Darci & Chris will update membership committee page on plone.org.
  • Jon will update all member records.

 

  • Geir and Darci have not yet moved on membership approval process, but will be tackling that now that the committee is officially reinstated.

 

The Membership Committee recommended against the approval of the following applicants:

* André Luís Amram Duque

* Zakhary Akulov  

* Gaël Pasgrimaud

 

Geir, Alex and Jon pointed out the Gaël has done a lot of technical work on Plone.net.  Steve indicated that he would be comfortable admitting him, as would Jon. 

It was subsequently pointed out by Godefroid that this was a case of mistaken identity, and that we were thinking of Gael Le Mignot.

Jon moved to reject André & Zakhary's applications, and to refer Gaël back to the membership committee for reconsideration before our December 13th meeting.

Geir seconded.

Unanimously approved.

 

Emeritus Members

Emeritus members who have reapplied and are thus reactivated:

       * Christian Theune      

       * Junyong Pan            

       * Ken Wasetis         

       * Nicolas Geissel   

       * Suveg Gabor      

       * Thomas Zeleny          

  • Jon will notify.

 

Plone.org Redesign (interjected to accomodate Limi's schedule)

(Nate joined the meeting at this point)

 

Alex is proposing to allocate $2000 to fund Cornelis Kolbach to do some redesign work on Plone.org, rough deadline of January 31.

Darci moved to approve $2000 to contract with Cornelis Kolbach on redesign work for Plone.org, Alex Limi to supervise/project manage, deadline January 31.

Jon second.

Unanimously approved.

 

Release Manager Payment

Jon moved to approve payment to Wichert.

Geir seconded.

"Awesome."

  • Jon will communicate to Toby.

 

Trademark/IP Committee (Geir)

Jon moved to dissolve the existing IP Committee.

Darci seconded.

Unanimously approved.

 

Jon moved that we establish an IP Committee as a Project Management Committee, appoint Geir and Paul Everitt to the IP Committee, with Paul Everitt to chair.  The IP Committee's role will be to advise the board on actions we need to take to protect Plone's intellectual property and trademarks.

Steve seconded.

Unanimously approved.

 

Update on Legal Representation for IP Issues

 

Paul Everitt has informally proposed that Dave Powsner represent us on IP issues pro bono.

Board is enthusiastic about Dave.  In the name of due diligence would like to see a CV and receive a more formal proposal from Paul and the IP Committee before making a motion.

  • Geir to communicate this to Paul.


Darci noted the need to update the IP committee page and delete the Trademark committee page.  Geir volunteered.

 

Marketing Committee

Jon move that we recharter a Marketing Committee as a Project Management Committee, with Nate as Chair and Jon & Geir as members.  Scope is to develop an agenda of marketing activities for Plone, and present recommendations for action to the board as necessary.

Darci seconded.

Unanimously approved.

 

Bylaws workteam (Joel)

Deferred until Joel is feeling better.  Darci reports that Joel is about halfway through review.

 

 

Old Business

 

Reaffirm PF Mission

is website updated?  Jon: yes?

 

Zope 2 on Python 2.5

Geir has emailed Martin about our interest in collaboration.  Ball is in our court to get a bounty process going.

Geir thinks that Wichert might be interesting in leading an effort.

  • Jon will followup with Wichert. 

 

Plone.net sponsorship plan

Deferred to next meeting.

  • Jon to solicit feedback from board members via email in the meantime.

 

Next meeting

Next meeting is scheduled for December 13, 2007 at 12 noon PST.