Board of Directors Meeting 2020-12-18

The Document Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting 2020-12-18
Meeting Minutes

Location: Jitsi

Session chair: Lothar Becker
Keeper of the minutes: Stephan Ficht

In the meeting:
     Board - Franklin Weng, Lothar Becker, Cor Nouws, Emiliano Vavassori, Michael Meeks, Thorsten Behrens
     Board Deputies - Paolo Vecchi, Nicolas Christener
     Membership Committee Deputies - Shinji Enoki
     Team - Stephan Ficht, Heiko Tietze, Florian Effenberger, Italo Vignoli, Guilhem Moulin
     Community - Michael Weghorn

Representation: Paolo for Daniel
(See https://listarchives.documentfoundation.org/www/board-discuss/ subject "Representation statements")

Chairman of the Board is in the meeting. One of the Chairman or Deputy Chairman 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 7 Board of Directors members are attending the call or are represented.

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 meeting is quorate and invitation happened in time. From now on, motions can be passed with the agreement of a simple majority of those remaining present. The majority threshold is currently 4.

The meeting commences at 13:03 Berlin time.

Public part

1. Q&A: Answering Questions from the community (All, max. 10 min)
    Rationale: Provide an opportunity for the community to ask questions to the board and about TDF.
    + any questions? (Lothar)
      + plans for tenders? (Heiko)
      + are there plans for the next tenders (Michael)
      + expect Florian to project back by two months and chase tenders
      + things should start about now.
      + would really like to start now - and be in good time.
      + Italo reached out to the community twice on this (Florian)
      + first email sent in november (Italo)
         + spreadsheet with requests for communities
         + that's the community marketing budget (Michael)
            + didn't see that for tech / development pieces.
      + if not done, push it now (Michael)
AI: + work on this (Heiko)
         -> see last year's list: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Budget2020
         -> tender roles draft: https://nextcloud.documentfoundation.org/s/6L5g786jwZSrzYQ
      + eg. German community call - PDF accessibiltiy situation (Heiko)
         + from Keil - responsible person, collect topics around the effort
         + find someone who is able to bring up a number & package a tender
         + need help getting a quote / ball-park here from Michael, Thorsten
         + some thoughts on tendering (Lothar)
             + estimation is not free
             + it's man-weeks of work to ball-park hundreds of things (Michael)
        + want a public discussion, to build this (Michael)
     + can cut down a wish-list of 100 to some that should (Paolo)
        + best to select with some ballpark idea of cost (Michael)

2. Discuss&Plan: tempPrio2 next/second decade manifesto, status of proposal/draft (Cor/Florian, All 10min)
    * see mail from Florian to directors/mc at 04th of December 13:52 Berlin time with the link
    Rationale: discussion about the current draft, status of discussion, feedback so far, launching next steps, timeline
    * document shared, not much feedback so far
    * proposal Florian: share draft with public, at least with members
    + feedbacks? (Lothar)
      + should share with members (Florian)
      + first discuss with board (Michael)
         + would like a little more time to check it out (Emiliano, Lothar)
      + good to have discussion on ml (Lothar)
      + prefer to have private discussion first (Michael)

3. Discuss&Plan: tempPrio3 LOOL from TDF - website menu item, BugZilla, OpenGrok etc. (All, Florian 10min)
    Rationale: discussing next steps, timelines, What to do with the LibreOffice Online website menu item, the BugZilla component and the listing in OpenGrok.
    * BugZilla component
    * linked OpenGrok repository
    * website menu item
    * own LOOL instance
    + explain some concrete questions (Lothar)
    + aftermath of freezing repos, questions came up during recent team call (Florian)
        + it is frozen, mirroring is setup etc.
        + but bugzilla still has the components - so can still file a bug
        + opengrok - where it points to ?
        + logical: have exactly the same
           + contributions on the source, then do the same in bugzilla.
           + freeze or lock places to create content.
           + proposal seems to make sense (Michael)
        + is it possible to differentiate in Bugzilla / OpenGrok ? (Lothar)
           + can we definitely divide Bugzilla between Desktop & Online ?
        + an Online component for that - freeze or make read-only (Florian)
           + old repo, or mirrored ? readonly but what output ?
        + what to do with website / menu item
           + still points to nightly builds that donm't make much sense
           + ask Mike to update the page
              + definitely (Lothar)
        + go to github website (Paolo)
           + LibreOffice Online shows up as Collabora Online
           + something we should do here, no clarity on this point.
           + been pointed out as unclear on the dev-list (Michael)
              + can point to Mike Saunders' page in our github for
                LibreOffice Online (Michael)
                 + seems reasonable to point to Mike's page.
              + not clear what's going on (Paolo)
                 + need to decide & work on that.
                 + why not create a new playground, and bring back
                   LibreOffice Online in those tools.
                 + contribute / play around / warning / experimental
                 + a proper link for this
                 + contention: this will create a competing project (Michael)
                     + and require Collabora to differentiate against that.
                 + got to give members a place to contribute to a TDF project (Paolo)
              + idea to evaluate another repo platform (Lothar)
                 + was there an evaluation task for the team ?
                 + only thing that is European (Paolo)
                    + github - try to avoid it as much as possible
                    + https://www.tuleap.org/ - the site, very cool tools
                    + why don't we use a small project like LOOL to create
                      a new playground, discover & test tools.
                        + so we move forward.
                    + ATM LOOL is one thing and COOL is a 3rd party product
                    + agree and need a playground to discover (Lothar)
                        + isn't it right to have an evaluation.
                    + setup a test platform - for team to discover new tools (Paolo)
                        + many of old contributors moved to 3rd party platform
                    + you want to fight while trying to improve & reconcile ? (Michael)
                        + want to have a project called LOOL and also COOL (Paolo)
            + how smart can we act as TDF (Cor)
               + to make best use of the ecosystem community members are doing
               + that's really our challenge as TDF.
               + bluntly starting with something that doesn't make C'bra flourish
                 as a member of our community - is not great.
               + take time until end of FOSDEM - have information from evaluation about these things/tools (Lothar)
                   + and discuss this at FOSDEM Meeting/End of January
            + whole COOL has showed us that TDF didn't look @ community (Emiliano)
               + didn't look at the community idea behind LOOL
               + even if I want C'bra to come back and collaborate around Online
               + would like to provide ground for the community to grow up
                 based on TDF before then.
               + not only a thing - how do I manage opengrok
                  + know in which direction we want to go
                  + try to provide some scenarios / hypothesis & evaluate that
                     + and see how we can go out.
                     + some ground for the community to go to TDF,
                       which can include C'bra.
                     + some support on community side
                     + ok with what C'bra did
            + two red-herrings (Michael)
               + this is a tooling problem: people left becuase ... github
                  + nothing very wrong the TDF tooling
               + simply re-visiting the vote we already had
                  + going in circles, compete or don't for period.
                  + not helpful to re-visit this continually.
               + shutdown is temporary (Emiliano)
                  + would take more than six months at least
                  + re-structure how the community interacts with the code
                  + yes decided to freeze that, need to decide how to move on.
                  + agree not in contradiction with freezing vote (Lothar)
           + is it six months ? (Guilhem)
              + clarification on what temporary means ?
              + more information on that - please give it, also its important
                to have a time.
              + also my understanding, some months (Lothar)
                 + right, not exactly mentioned in the vote, but in the understanding.
              + answered an earlier question on board-discuss (Thorsten)
                 + have something latest next summer would be my take
              + nothing specific decided (Paolo)
                 + what Emiliano says - may take 6 months to be ready.
                 + start creating a playground, using LOOL as an example of how
                   to deal with that, and ready for FOSDEM.
                    + lets all play together on that and see what we can do.
                    + doesn't matter, ready when tooling is ready.
                    + could be six months, or two.
                    + not changing tooling - because mistake that was made.
                    + some decision / non-decision that didn't clarify the
                      relationship in the ppast.
                    + fact of proposing, lets start evaluating these tools.
                    + changing / test things, see how it works.
                    + how people will react, like, not like tools ...
               + making the same mistake again (Thorsten)
                  + talking about tooling - which is not the problem
                  + start from the other way - think what we want
                     + then engage with the community - 95% C'bra
                     + the right way around.
                  + having a competing project with tooling just widens
                    the gap.
                  + not happy with that, most happy trying to reconcile.
                  + having this idea of C'bra not being community is dangerous
                  + prefer to heal & get people back into one place
                  + mistake that was made: collaborated for many years
                     + and then managed to deeply alienate some rather large
                       community member: perhaps that's the mistake.
               + experimenting with new tools is good (Paolo)
                  + proposals havn't been coming forward
                  + waiting for it - in the meantime open other avenues.
             + proposal: evaluate to discuss at FOSDEM (Lothar)
                + talk about tooling then.
                + we have thirty other projects, where we can experiment with tooling (Thorsten)
                    + look at tooling, look into gitlab
                    + GNOME & KDE have been doing this
                    + experience is broadly good
                    + lets not couple tooling with this rather delicate topic
                      + of course, trying new tooling is a great thing in general!
                + would like any inputs on tooling (Emiliano)
                    + would like some input from developers really.
                    + some had issues with gerrit
                    + get feedback from the community.
             + something we can work with (Lothar)
                => get information for FOSDEM
        => create a proposal to vote on for opengrok etc. (Florian)
        + what to do with own LOOL instance ?
           + happy to provide latest supported COOL and help
             de-brand it for TDF if you want (Michael)
                + Thanks Micheal for this (not voiced in the meeting, Emiliano)

4. Discuss&Decide: rolling release cycle (Michael, Thorsten, Florian, All 10min)
    Rationale: Discussion about the status of the rolling release idea/discussion, ESC feedback, next steps, anything else needed from the board?
  * status update from ESC
    + back and forth (Thorsten)
       + can do rolling updates
       + hard to impossible to pull it off until after 7.1
       + get the UX changes for the tag & string-changes
       + personally swamped, not checked if anything happened there (yet)
       + a rolling release could start at any time
       + would take a master, short freeze, release it.
    + many views on the ESC (Michael)
       + would like to think this through with the ESC
       + and come up with a more concrete master-plan.
    + Q' what needed from the board ? (Thorsten)
       + leave headroom in the budget to get the updater working on 3 platforms
    + aspect to agree on (Italo)
       + before announcing / releasing - how we manage
       + announcement of the rolling concept
       + normally - rolling, introduction of new features almost silently
       + cannot do this with LibreOffice, have to organize in a way
         that we can make announcements as we always did
       + once dev side is ok - need to plan marketing.
    + first clarify with dev / ESC / more concrete (Lothar)
       + then talk with Marketing.
    + no consensus yet at ESC, and some concerns there (Michael W)
       + good to discuss there further.
       + want to wait on ESC's take (Emiliano)
          + then we can include marketing etc. as a board.
    + hope it's possible in timeframe to 7.2 (Lothar)
       + no problem if not in 7.1 - even if it is not in the next major release (7.2) is ok too (Emiliano)
       + Let's do it when a proposal is ready and approved (from ESC/developers) then vote(?) and get to details in other AoO (e.g. Marketing)
    + to be clear 7.1 a normal release (Thorsten)

5. Inform: Status of tenders (Florian, All 5min)
    Rationale: information about status quo of different (re)running tenders
  * X-ray debugger: awarded
  * ODF 1.3 delta: in evaluation, can't share further details
  * development mentor: re-tendering in January, awaiting feedback
  + x-ray awarded two weeks ago to Collabora (Florian)
  + dev mentor, missing feedback
    + plan - go live in January, and ping again
    + highly critical to get this role filled (Thorsten)
    + ping sub-group, to get feedback (Michael)
       + should we rush it ? (Florian)
          + no agreed time last meeting, 2nd week of Jan (Paolo)

Public meeting ends at 13:54 Berlin time.

Agenda items of Private Part

6. Discuss: Discussion about status quo of wealthmanagement (Stephan, Lothar, Florian 10min)
    Reason why not in public: confidential information about finance decision making

7. Ad-hoc/last-minute: Update on UPC

Private meeting ends at 14:02 Berlin time.

Lothar Becker (Session chair)
Stephan Ficht (Keeper of the minutes)