Minutes for July 14, 2011

Minutes of the Plone Foundation Board of Directors

Housekeeping

Attendance

Attending: Jon, Calvin, Mark, Steve, Matt (a few minutes late), Geir (late due to technology troubles; unable to connect to Fuze)
Absent: Alex
(Spanky and Liz unable to make it this week.)

Approve Minutes for June 30th, 2011 board meeting

   <http://plone.org/foundation/meetings/minutes/minutes-for-june-30-2011>
Mark moved to approve the minutes with corrections to his comments
Jon seconded
Approved unanimously

Committee Reports (marketing, membership)

(Matt joined call)

Marketing
Mark said he wanted to get something up about creation of roadmap team
Calvin will email OSL to request creation of a list with him as moderator
Mark will post an announcement.

Membership
Nothing new to report

Old business

Plone roadmap

Should the roadmap team take this up a first order of business?
General agreement that this agenda item has been resolved by creation of roadmap team

(Geir joined call)

Windows installer change

Matt hasn’t had a chance to communicate with Alan about this
There’s been some discussion on mailing lists.

Geir suggested that we be willing to provide links to platform installers when we can’t provide one ourselves.
Mark objected that this would be read as not supporting windows.
Geir noted that otherwise, we might not be able to do it at all.
Jon said he could support an exception for the Windows installer.
Steve suggested having the Windows installer be marked “(provided by Enfold Systems)” and be linked to Enfold’s server — or storage under their control — and not our Launchpad account.
Mark objected that this would be interpreted as “Plone is not supporting Windows” and would be a marketing disaster. Mark said he didn’t want to block action though.
Geir suggested that this is really up to the developer community (whether or not they can produce a Plone-controlled Windows installer)

Steve moved that we tell the release manager and Enfold that it’s OK to link to a Windows installer that may include non-open source components so long as it’s marked as provided by the vendor and provided on storage other than the Plone Foundation’s.
Geir seconded
Unanimously approved

General discussion that this is understood as a very specific measure. Also noted that we don’t expect this to create a blocker for Plone releases.

Steve will communicate this to Alan and Eric.

[NOTE: This action was rescinded via an e-mail vote July 22nd. See subsequent minutes for details.]

ZEA Indian Trademark Transfer

Matt consulted with Dave Powsner. Dave believes that the new logo looks enough like the old that they still have value. We could seek amendment for new version of logo.
So, transfer of Indian trademark to new holder is probably worth doing.

Discussion of desirability of pursuing a word mark. Mark advised that it may be terribly expensive. General agreement on asking Dave Powsner about this.

Possible trademark abuse
General agreement that we’re dropping this matter

Agreement to refer “viewlets” trademark issue to Nutter, acting as our attorneys. Matt will do this.

(Calvin needed to leave the meeting, asked Geir to have the Security Team provide a progress report on his requested improvements in patch policy.)

(Calvin left call; left proxy with Matt for licensing policy question.)

Licensing policy for Diazo themes
Steve moved we adopt the draft Plone Theme Licensing Recommendations as drafted by Steve and Jon.
Mark seconded
Unanimously approved (Calvin by proxy)

Plone Theme Licensing Recommendations

These recommendations cover the distribution of theming packages for use with Plone. Themes that are not distributed do not, in general, fall under the licensing restrictions discussed here. Note that the term "package" here is used in the sense of a bundle of functionality, and not in the narrow sense of a Python package.

It is the opinion of the Plone Foundation that Plone theme packages containing Python or page-template components that import functionality from Plone's GPL components should be regarded as derivative works and, when distributed, be licensed under the same terms as Plone itself.

Plone theme packages that do not import from Plone's GPL components — such as CSS, JavaScript and image libraries applied via Diazo or plone.app.theming — are typically not derivatives of Plone and do not necessarily fall under the GPL. They may possibly be distributed under other licensing arrangements, depending on the origins of the components. In such cases, the Plone Foundation encourages, but does not require, the use of open-source licensing such as Creative Commons licenses.

Any Plone theme package, whatever the license, may be listed in the products section of Plone.Org. Plone theme packages that are uploaded to Plone.Org for distribution must be licensed under the GPL, Creative Commons, or similar open-source licenses. Those wishing to use non-open-source  licensing terms should make other arrangements for distribution. All packages listed on Plone.Org should specify their licensing terms.

Copyright and licensing law varies over time and from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The recommendations here are meant to express the interests of the Plone Foundation, and should not be regarded as legal advice.

Adopted by the Board of Directors of the Plone Foundation, 2011-07-14.

 Meeting adjourned at 2:05pm