Plone Foundation Board Minutes April 17, 2025

Call to Order

• Meeting started at 20:06 UTC.

Attendance

• Present: Eric Brehault, Brian Davis, Martin Peeters, and Guido Stevens
• Excused: Rafahela Bazzanella, Mikel Larreategi
• Absent: João Henrique Gouveia

Approval of the minutes of

• April 3, 2025: Brian motions to approve. Eric seconds. All in favor.

Action items

• Martin contacted people about Zope funds.
• Not sure if Mikel contacted AI team re board email issues.

Incoming Correspondence

• pypi emails
• Trademark in Europe (Will discuss next meeting.)
• Decision-making in the Plone Community

New Business

• None

Continued Business

• Sprint Funding
• Topics
• Sprint funding and the role of community building
• How do we actually run the community (in-person meetings or online?)
• Discussion
• Martin: Board is not here to run the community or push for anything. We are here to assist. However, it is true that we disperse funds.
• Eric: Agreed. But "not pushing" can be incorrect. Just by assisting, we are pushing.
• Martin: Yes, but we have no agenda, just moving things forward.
• Guido: So, how do we facilitate process and not have a stake in the outcomes?
• Martin: Steering Circle is the place for that. And also alot of decisions are made at Plone Conference.
• Guido: Exactly, that is part of the issue, the in-person meetings are problematic for including everyone.
• Martin: Seems like the place for decision making is Steering Circle.
• Guido: When the topic is funding it makes sense to bring it to Board, but also appropriate for Steering Circle. So which one should it be? If there isn't a venue to discuss that, then that's an issue for the community.
• Eric: Could we decide on budget at large and let Steering Circle decide on usage? Steering Circle could be the executive represenatative of the community.
• Guido: Like the idea, but split on it. Could it create more problems?
• Martin: Same opinion.
• Eric: In this proposal, we are not the ones deciding on sprint funding, it comes from Steering Cirle. We can validate and make the call when it's impossible to decide for Steering Circle.
• Guido: Our role is that we have an overview of everything and are able to evaluate individual needs that others don't have information on.
• Martin: Where is the middleground? We would like to have more input from Steering Circle on future years to know what is the priority for them.
• Guido: How about, given the requests, we turn that over to the Steering Circle. Then given their recommendation, we make budget. Basically, we deliver a draft and ask for Steering Circle to review. Then we finalize it.
• Proposal
• We create a draft on sprint allocations. But we have an extra round of consutlation with Steering Circle before we make the final decision.
• Resolution
• Guido to contact and cc: the Board and if the plan is to meet, we will arrange a date.
• Sprint Budget Total = 15.2k
• Alpine 1.5k
• Bucarest 1k
• Beethoven 6k
• Axolote 1.8k
• Salamina 4k
• Community 0.9k = 300x3
• 2025 Budget Review
• Anaylsis
• We took at look at this year's budget, last year's budget, and profit/loss evaluations
• Discussion
• Guido: Are we planning for a loss, planning to get to a balanaced budget, or are there year-specific incidentals?
• Martin: Plan should be to eventually get to balanced budget.
• Guido: We should reconcile that profit-loss run from conference-to-conference, and budget runs from year-to-year.
• Martin: We need to explore ways to increase revenue, either through sponsorship or avenues like EU funds.
• Guido: I'm concerned in looking at the numbers that we have a burn rate of 4 years if everything materializes. Next year, the goal should be to align budget with profit/loss statements, and perhaps adjust lines it is easier to compare the two.
• Martin: Agreed, it would be beneficial to have better reports. This should be co-ordinated with treasurer.
• Guido: Flow of sponsorship is a clear cycle. But hosting/marketing expenses are big. Those investments should be more visible to show people the benefit.
• Brian:
• Buffer (social media tool) costs are approximately 2.5k, but covered in-kind, and not included in Marketing budget.
• Google Ad Grants - there is a program for non-profits that includes discounted/free rates. We should explore that in the future.
• Resolution
• Guido moves to approve budget. Eric seconds. All in favor.
• Guido: Let's look again at the numbers soon and examine the differences in profit/loss statement vs budget statement.

• Zope Funds
• No news
• AI Policy
• No news. Mikel is not here.
• What forum is debating that? Where is the continued discussion? Mikel may know.
• Some softwares are saying no AI at all, since you must own the IP. Using AI you dont know if you're using someone else's IP.
• We need to our AI Policy to guard the process, so for legal concerns we are covered.
• GSoC
• Going well. Progressing.
• "Volto support for workflow editor" is especially good. Have some others.
• Paul did a great job, removing garbage proposals.
• There are also very interesting proposals. We'll see.
• Treasurer Search
• Steve agreed. He would like to do an interim. He's hoping we can find someone else before the next conference.
• Recommending that Steve help to document processes for new treasuers in the future.
• Eric motions to nominate Steve as Treasurer of Plone Foundation. Guido seconds. All in favor.

Review Ongoing

• WPD
• Things went well, overall a success. 20+ hours of tweeting.
• Marketing will have a WPD debrief on Tuesday. Should have a report for views, likes, video hours, etc. by next meeting.
• Marketing is working on refining processes and learning where Rikupekka is essential.

Adjournment

• Guido motions to adjourn. Eric seconds. All in favor.
• Adjourned at 21:20 UTC.