Minutes, February 5, 2009

Minutes of the Plone Foundation Board of Directors

Called to order by Jon at 12:05pm (PST)

Formalities

Present: Alex, Jon, Steve, Matt, Nate, Geir
Absent: Darci (sick, excused)
Advisory Members Present: Roberto

Minutes for Jan 22

Jon moved, Matt seconded
Unanimously approved

Quick Checkins

New members

Have they been notified, workflowed on plone.org and added to the list?  Announcement on Plone.org?
Jon will follow up with Darci

Marketing Committee Reboot

Proposed members have been contacted. Responses nearly all positive so far.

New Business

Jon noted donation from Eagle Eye Consulting + Client

Per email that came in this morning.

Renewal of domains

Per Nate's email, he's renewed ploneedu.com, plonengo.org/com/info, and would like us to reimburse and have the Foundation assume ownership of the domains.
Nate noted that there’s probably to be use soon for ploneedu.com.

Nate will follow up with Wichert to find details for transfer.

Jon moved approval of up to $40 expenditure to reimburse Nate, Geir seconded.
Unanimously approved.

Discuss final draft of Plone.org hosting contract

Jon has been working with Calvin on publicity/recognition question. Terms have been agreed to that don’t require a logo in footer. Geir will get the language into the contract.

Jon moved board authorize Jon to sign contract with revisions. Geir seconded.
Unanimously approved.

Discussion: Financial value of our trademarks

Xavier Heymans has suggested that we research whether we can assign a financial value to our trademarks and recognize that on our books in order to more accurately report the true financial worth of the Foundation.  Discuss whether we want to spend some resources to pursue this research through our accountant + Toby.

Jon will do some research with other open-source organizations and bring back a report.

Jon moved authorization to spend up to $500 for tax advice on this. Steve seconded.
Unanimously approved.

Continue licensing discussions

Discussion: Can/should we "correct" licenses in Martin's projects per Hanno's suggestion?

General agreement that this was already decided by 2006 board. Our standing practice is definitely GPL. Fixing accidental mention of other licenses is expected.

Discussion: How to move forward consideration of general relicensing for selected components

Geir has drafted some language for a poll.

Separate issue: Identify needed clarifications to licensing FAQ (e.g. all new code written in the Plone repository should be GPL, authors don't get to choose), assign responsibility for doing this.

Hanno will be asked to work with Steve to clarify FAQ.

Discussion: possible procedures around selective relicensing to figure out what processes would be feasible, if the membership wants to head this way.

Board might be able to do this selectively for only packages that have no dependencies in plone.app. Procedure might be: 1) request made by interested pary like maintainer or author; 2) verify dependencies; 3) board considers. Only one license alternative. Package maintainer will need to agree to exercise care to make sure dependencies don’t expand.

Adjourned at 1:05pm