BoD minutes from 2013-10-16

Hello,

attached are the board meeting minutes from the BoD meeting on October 16th.

This message is to be archived by the BoD and its deputies.

Florian

Minutes 2013-10-16

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting
Call Minutes

Location: Phone conference room

Keeper of the minutes: Thorsten Behrens (Board of Directors)
Session chair: Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board)

Attending: Michael Meeks (Board of Directors), Thorsten Behrens (Deputy Chairman of the Board), Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board), Cáolan McNamara (Board of Directors), Charles Schulz (Board of Directors), Björn Michaelsen (Board of Directors Deputy)

Representation: Björn Michaelsen, representing Olivier Hallot (Board of Directors)

Chairman of the Board is in the call. One of the Chairman or Deputy is required to be present or represented for having a quorate call.

The Board of Directors at time of the call consists of 7 seat holders without deputies. In order to be quorate, the call needs to have 1/2 of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4. A total of 6 Board of Directors members or their representatives are attending the call.

The board waives all formal statutory requirements, or requirements in the foundations articles, or other requirements regarding form and invitation, time limits, and for the topics discussed in this meeting.

The call is quorate.

From now on, a quorum can be reached with a simple majority of 4 votes.

The meeting commences at 15:07 UTC.

1. Vote on granting Cor Nouws a trademark license

Request: grant Cor Nouws a trademark license for the LibreOffice mark, as requested here: http://www.mail-archive.com/board-discuss@documentfoundation.org/msg03096.html. The license will be valid until 2014-12-31.

Result of vote: 6 approvals, 0 abstaining, 0 disapprovals. Approved.

2. Discussion on investing TDF money

Discussion: Florian outlines the options, proposes to wait for house bank offer initially. Investment horizon for the moment 6 to 12 months.

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The following items have been discussed during the private part of the call, and have been kept private until the final freelance job descriptions have been written. They are now made public in accordance with our statutes, as the need for confidentiality has vanished:

3. Freelance jobs

Florian proposes to seek for an administrative assistant. He sent an initial job description that will be reworded by Jean and undergo a review afterwards, to be published as soon as possible.

4. Vote on Italo Vignoli's proposal for certification

The board discusses to contract Italo Vignoli to establish the rules of certification by the end of December, in order to be able to establish certification in the market in the first quarter of 2014. A certification program is seen as critical milestone for further development, and has been asked for several years by TDF members as well as contributors to the ecosystem already. Given the amount of work involved, pure volunteer work is unlikely to cover this.

Basis for the vote is Italo Vignoli's proposal as mailed to the board on October 15th.
Italo Vignoli is not in the call.

Request: Accept Italo Vignoli's proposal from October 15th, with a total value of 20.000 ¤ EUR, including all taxes and other fees, on a freelance basis.

Result of vote: 6 approvals, 0 abstaining, 0 disapprovals. Approved.

5. OSBA meeting

Simon will attend on behalf of TDF and share the details afterwards.

6. Hackfests

After some successful events in Germany, the plan is to host more events in other countries. Cambridge and Montreal are opportunities coming up next year. Likewise Charles is planning a Hackfest in Paris, with Sophie and Jean-Baptiste helping. Details to be shared when available.

7. LibreOffice Conference

The 2014 conference should be planned earlier, to have some more time and a clearer roadmap.

Charles Schulz is now leaving the call.

8. Vote on Charles Schulz' proposal for website redesign

Now, a total of 5 Board of Directors members or their representatives are attending the call. From now on, a quorum can be reached with a simple majority of 3 votes.

The board sees an urgent need to finally move on with a website redesign. The current website is not representative anymore, some information is extremely hard to find, the design is not consistent, and the content is partially quite outdated and/or hidden in the wiki. All in all, we desperately need some new and fresh design as well as updated content, reflecting the quality and professionality that TDF puts in its other work. Given the time required for this task, and the urgency this topic has, it calls for having someone on a contracted basis to deliver a new website.

The board discusses to contract Charles Schulz for this task. The contract comes into effect only after November 1st, 2013.

Request: Accept Charles Schulz' proposal for the website redesign, for a total price of 20.000 ¤, including all taxes and fees, on a freelance basis. Included in the total sum is the contracting of a designer to handle the graphics part, on a freelance basis as well. The selection and coordination of this designer is Charles Schulz' duty, while TDF will handle the contract, and also support Charles with posting a freelance job opening for this specific task.

Result of vote: 5 approvals, 0 abstaining, 0 disapprovals. Approved.

The meeting adjournes at 15:50 UTC.

End of agenda, no additions.

Attending at the end of the meeting: Michael Meeks (Board of Directors), Thorsten Behrens (Deputy Chairman of the Board), Florian Effenberger (Chairman of the Board), Cáolan McNamara (Board of Directors), Björn Michaelsen (Board of Directors Deputy)

Meeting minutes approved:

Thorsten Behrens, Keeper of the minutes
Florian Effenberger, Session chair