Plone Foundation Board Minutes March 6, 2025

Present: Rafahela Bazzanella, Eric Brehault, Brian Davis, João Henrique Gouveia, Martin Peeters, and Guido Stevens
Excused: Mikel Larreategi (arriving late)

Guido contacted Jens re: Alpine. More expensive than expected, but still within budget.
Mikel contacted Alec re: Bucharest. Mikel sent details to board mailing list.
Martin contacted kitconcept re: both Beethoven and Axolote. Not done yet.
Eric contacted Stefano at Red Turtle re: Salamina. Will get more detailed info later.
Brian contacted Astrid re: Marketing Budget. Astrid and Martin to talk. Will need to vote next time.
Martin contacted Victor re: AI policy. Just sent today. No news yet.

Pypi - New repositories added to the collective, updated terms of service, PEP 376 Deprecation notice
Github - Cancel of a sponsorship
Mikel - Key people for Bucharest Sprint
Jens - Additional criteria for strategic sprint funding

We need to vote. Please review candidates for the next meeting. https://opensource.org/about/board-of-directors/elections

Good news, we received initial acceptance. We are at the stage of waiting for project submissions. Beginning to recruit mentors, so we know what capacity we have to mentor.

Board reviewed Jens' email and recapped discussions from the Steering Circle.
Key issue is... community-building vs fulfilling PLIPs
Key criteria is... Every sprint needs to have BOTH key performance indicators: 1) solve PLIPS, 2) build community

Documentation and Marketing can plan to solve PLIPs that are included in Plone Roadmap

Key clarification is... base funding is for community-buidling, extra funding is for bringing in people who can works on PLIPs.

Brian: Please define? Martin: Base accomodations = having a place, having coffee, accomodations. Extra = paying for travel.

There is historical frustrations of past occcurances, so we want to make sure money is spent on the right thing that is allocated for.
Volto team is under pressure and think sprints are a good way to get things done that need to be done for Plone 7
But we can't just say sprints are for people who want to work hard, but not want to meet and socialize. Both are important.
If we follow community-based criteria, then most of our sprints are not strategic, because they are coding-based and invitation-based to recruit key people. It's also not fair to them to restrict their efforts.
In the end, both types of sprint priorities are okay. We want to support everything. Easiest way is accomodations and basic stuff are included in the base budget, then it's possible to ask for more funding to get key people there.
Guido: There are distinct discussions here: 1) about sprint priorities of plips vs community, 2) sprint budget. Those are different issues.
Martin: Yes, but let's have 1 basic rule for base funding, then have special rules for extra funding. If we want to have something that fits everying, it's impossible.
Guido: Ok, so let's decide... both are important and we will weigh both criteria.
Mikel: I always thought base budget was for PLIPs. Didnt understand the difference until just now.

It is agreed that we are funding both PLIPs and community-building as base criteria, so both sides are served.
Guido moves that board decides to allocate funding on 2 main criteria:

1) sprints MUST serve the Roadmap in forms of shipping PLIPs
2) sprints SHOULD help build community
And if you need funding for something specific, you can ask board and we will make decisions on allocating additional funds. Since we have information on the financial needs of all sprints for the year, we have the perspective to adjust budget accordingly.

Martin seconds. All in favor. Motion is passed.
Let's wait for the Board Meeting Minutes to get written and then Martin and Guido will contact organizers.
Mikel: So, how do we decide on funds?
Martin: That is on a case-by-case basis, we will see line items. We will ask what is the needed for base and what is the need for extra. Costs vary by country, so difficult to set a hard number. We will ask sprint organizers to send budget projection of expenses so we can decide overall budget for all sprints.
Mikel will write to Alec and ask him to prepare budget.

Perspective GSOC students are a burden, and the barrage of beginner questions is overwhelming.
But many good students come from that program, so it is worth spending time on this.
We are happy with our involvement in the GSoC program. But agree it needs better management to handle influx of beginners.

Frustration is global. Volto Team feels a bit alone and asking too much of them.

Python and Javascript are moving at different speeds. Volto team must remain competitive and follow trends. Pressure is to be with latest version of stack. Volto team has taken all their weight on shoulders.
However, when we decided Volto would be the next frontend, we did put that on shoulders.
Yet, it's not realistic that everyone work in both Python and JS worlds.

Where can we as a board help reduce load? What can we do specifically to improve the situation?

Mikel: Code-wise I dont think anything from Plone that prevents Volto from moving fast. And vice-versa.
Martin thinks talking is for the best and it helps hearing perspectives. Will contact some people.
All agree that for the betterment of the community at large, we would like to help find a peaceful solution.

Victor to respond. Martin said if help is needed for legal, code of conduct, anything like that, the board is here.
Handling those kind of PR should be driven by community.
Policy should establish some rules and procedures to check what will be compliant.

Had a meeting last week. They have prepared a logo and the repository for the website. Will launch soon.
Organizers have announced there will be Python day on Friday, the last day of the conference.

Brian: Steering Circle discussed publishing all teams meeting notes in community forum.

We already publish board meetings notes on plone.org. Should we also publish on forum and/or mailing list?

Martin: Mailing list was tried in the past, but then we stopped. No need to send to mailing list.
Mikel suggests we just make a link on forum pointing to plone.org where our notes are located.

Main reason for using community instead of plone.org was the ability to subscribe to topics.

There are other tools to manage meetings: imio custom product, Quaive, etc. Maybe worth considering in the future.