Face to Face Meeting Boston 2017

= Meeting =

Face-to-face meeting during FOSS4G 2017 in Boston.

When and Where

 * Monday August 14, 18:00
 * location: Flagship B Room at the Seaport Hotel

Attendees
Board members:
 * 1) Maria Brovelli
 * 2) Vasile Craciunescu
 * 3) Helena Mitasova
 * 4) Jody Garnett
 * 5)  Sanghee
 * 6)  Mike
 * 7) Angelos Tzotsos (remotely)
 * 8) add yourself

Agenda

 * 1) Brief report from FOSS4G2017 LOC (important for the "future of foss4g" discussion item)
 * 2) appoint meeting chair, meeting scribe/secretary
 * 3) Approve f2f Paris meeting minutes?
 * 4) Payment of travel expenses arrangements, refund for free registration (vote needed on the later?)
 * 5) Discuss and approve pending MoUs and CLA
 * 6) * approve IGU-OSGeo MoU
 * 7) * approve GSDI-OSGeo MoU
 * 8) * discuss DOI-OSGeo MoU (waiting for the DoI legal review)
 * 9) * discuss LocationTech MoU
 * 10) Vote on funding requests
 * 11) * OSGeo Journal issue with FOSS4G Bonn papers: $1200 for layout and proofing
 * 12) OSGeo and FOSS4G Conferences
 * 13) * cost: Vasile report, discussion
 * 14) * scheduling
 * 15) * See also Finance_Operational_Notes (I'm not able to attend the meeting or conference but that would be my input. -Eli)
 * 16) OSGeo Project Status
 * 17) * Report from Maxi and Jeff, Jeff invited to present
 * 18) * Project by project recommendations
 * 19) * Project categories, see Comparison
 * 20) System admin committee coordination - invitation extended to Alex Mandel (move as needed when Alex comes)
 * 21) 2017 elections
 * 22) approve European local chapter

Goal
We invite board members not present at the Paris F2F Meeting to revisit their initial goals at elected representatives (to provide context for the days discussion).

The overall goal of the meeting is to coordinate two "hot topics" for the OSGeo community: event attendance costs and OSGeo project health.

We should leave this meeting with clear guidance for the subsequent board and affected committees on these two issues.

= Meeting Minutes =

Minutes were collected via a shared google doc, Jody acted as primary scribe to copy the notes into the wiki.


 * Attending: Michael, Helena, Jody, Sanghee, Maria, Vasilie, Angelos (remotely)
 * Guests: Michael Terner, Alex Mandel

Brief report from FOSS4G2017 LOC
Context: important for the "future of foss4g" discussion item.

Meeting minutes were not taken for this portion, slide presentation was provided by LOC.

System admin committee coordination
Discussion on SAC functionality and challenges:
 * SAC short staffed - in terms of both volunteers and paid contractors
 * Clarification sought on how to put up bids for SAC

Subcontract the sysadmin work: - no structure to make the decisions - no time to do sysadmin work

Q: How does SAC currently function?

Board asked all committees to write down how they function last November -- write down how SAC function so that volunteers know can be clear.

Q: When was the last SAC meeting? Notes do not list this answer.

Consider asking committee should meeting once a year? Alex felt that SAC should meet more often.

System Admin Committee Challenges:
 * lack of time to fix things and lack of time organize meetings
 * Demos machine is on is last legs
 * Dockers? Need contributor with expertise in this area.
 * machine needs to be retired
 * budgeted to replace machine with wiki, track and website
 * do cloud hosting for some of the stuff? attract more staff, not enough expertise in the current team.

recruitment of additional people
 * request board help with this
 * seeking people with expertise in larger systems, perhaps from service providers.

Decision with website


 * set aside some funds in case $3000 for SAC committee - enough for employment or on-going cloud.
 * Action: Alex talk to Jeffrey Johnson and provide feedback by the end of the weekend on what is needed to host the website
 * Action: Jody talk to Jeffrey Johnson to explore out what cloud hosting would cost

Appoint meeting chair, scribe

 * chair: Helena as vice president
 * scribe: team effort with shared google doc

Review and approve previous minutes
MOT1: Approve the Paris f2f meeting minutes
 * 5 yes, One abstain (Helena was not in Paris meeting)
 * Approved and moved to Loomio for confirmation.

Discussion:


 * Was progress made on setting up the account in Europe? Not yet, need two directors to attend a bank in person. Perhaps a trip should be planned for one board member to meet another to setup the account.

Payment of Travel expenses

 * Payment of travel expenses arrangements, refund for free registration (vote needed on the later?)
 * Vote not needed, travel was approved in the last meeting.

OSGeo European Local Chapter
We had a formal request to form OSGeo European Local chapter.

Maria has discussion about communication / competition for a European project (e.g. Horizon2020).
 * Letter of support
 * Participation as partner on a grant would get money for doing something:
 * concerned about local chapters getting in conflict with each other
 * Why is this a trouble for OSGeo board to decide on?
 * Because FOSS4G Europe made this as part of their goal
 * A group "partnering" with OSGeo-Europe would be viewed as having a stronger endorsement that one partnering with OSGeo-It

General discussion on the relationship between board and local chapters, other countries have not run into this issue (where country and state OSGeo chapters exist):
 * Maria discussed reasons for abstaining - there is a potential conflict between the new european chapter and regional chapters competing for 'european projects'.
 * What is a european project: Example http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/110312_en.html
 * The organization structure of osgeo-eu and other national osgeo chapters envision using funds from this program via partnering interested parties; the concern is that a osgeo-eu partnership would be perceived as being a strong show of support than an osgeo-fr partnership.
 * This is an important concern, we will have to trust osgeo chapters to communicate and coordinate as required. The potential to compete for funding exists between other osgeo local chapters but has not yet resulted in conflict.

MOT2: Recognize the formation of the OSGeo European chapter.
 * Approved: Jody, Michael, Vasile, Sangee, Angouls
 * Abstain :Helena, Maria
 * Passed, congratulations to the new OSGeo European local chapter!

OSGeo project status
OSGeo Project Status
 * Report from Maxi and Jeff, Jeff invited to present
 * Project by project recommendations
 * Project categories, see Comparison

Jeff's flight was delayed, Ask Jeff McKenna if he can present friday evening? 4:30 pm. Where: Meet down in the lobby


 * Action: Michael to ask Jeff McKenna to present project status report Friday 4:30 pm

Jody speaking as incubation committee chair.


 * I can take requests to the incubation committee for review and discussion.

Discussion on use of Incubation logo on new website.
 * This request runs across two strategic goals
 * Website is focused on outreach introducing visitors to open source geospatial software, adding an incubation badge distracts visitors requiring them to know "insider baseball" about our foundation functions internally.
 * Incubation committee is not finding the "incubation badge" motivating for projects
 * As chair Jody contacted each project in incubation, result is 50/50 for being upset with the change. This is significant.
 * Most positive response was that projects are proud to make the commitment to be part of incubation (even if they have not had a chance to work on it).
 * Note: several of our projects have not made progress since 2014 (easy to check if they have adopted graduation checklist passed in 2014)
 * This is a balance between projects being annoyed and incubation committee members being frustrated with lack of progress.

Incubation committee is voting on a motion to allow projects to use incubation logo on their own websites as a link back to graduation checklist. This should meet balance the needs of incubation projects and incubation committee members.

Ask that the board wait on the incubation committee to act via the above motion.

No request was made for the marketing committee to adjust the website.

2017 elections
Update from Jeff McKenna is CRO.
 * charter members elections for September
 * board elections in October, new board in November

We reviewed the record and found the following motion from the Bonn F2F meeting adjusting the election process:


 * To be elected a charter member need a nomination by a current charter member and at least one other charter member seconding the nomination.
 * Only veto can be raised by sending a private e-mail to the CRO that has to inform the board for an anonymous review.
 * If the veto is accepted by the board, then the CRO shall make it public and the charter member is not elected.

Discuss and approve pending MoUs and CLA

 * approve MOU_IGU
 * approve MOU_GSDI
 * discuss MOU_DOI (waiting for the DoI legal review)
 * discuss LocationTech MoU

MOT 3: MOU with IGU
 * Approved by acclamation

MOT 4: MOU with GSDI 2016
 * approved by acclamation

Michael Smith was able to attend the LocationTech SC prior to this meeting for a productive discussion. Two approaches were put forward:
 * Creating an MOU between OSGeo and LocationTech
 * Cross sponsoring each other allowing OSGeo to act as a participating, rather than guest, member

LocationTech MoU understanding
 * Would like an MOU that has some substance
 * Michael will attend more OSGeo meetings, invite LocationTech Norman Barker volunteered to attend OSGeo
 * MOU helps to establish the communication
 * Process of talking more is important, resulting MOU is less important


 * Action: Michael to invite Norman Barker as needed to identify meaningful areas for OSGeo and LocationTech to collaborate

Vote on funding requests
a) OSGeo Journal issue with FOSS4G Bonn papers: $1200 for layout and proofing

Apparently this was not handled, asked if possible to publish elsewhere.


 * Maria is contacting some of the academic contacts used for publish papers out of foss4g europe.
 * Previously academic chairs volunteered to perform this function, not sure why we are being asked now.
 * Q: Franz Joseph is he wanting to be paid for his time, or to contract it out to someone else.
 * 24 hours at 50 euro an hour
 * Action Venka: Ask Franz to ask in public on the board email list?
 * Action Helena: Ask Charlie if foss4g Bonn publication accept a few more papers?

Longer question is if assembling the papers can become a paid activity.


 * Perhaps if budgeted up front
 * Discussion about different ways of publishing …

OSGeo and FOSS4G Conferences
Items to discuss:


 * cost: Vasile report, discussion
 * scheduling
 * See also Finance_Operational_Notes (I'm not able to attend the meeting or conference but that would be my input. -Eli)

Vasile producing a long document about this

Research:


 * Selected most relevant discussion from 2008 (africa conference):
 * Foss4g africa event resulted in creation of foss4g-na event locally
 * Prices for all conference corrected from inflation
 * Pretty flat, Sydney was expensive (global financial crisis)
 * Korea was much cheaper
 * Chart of attendance numbers
 * As expected, europe and north america numbers are higher
 * Price of workshop is going up
 * fun story about workshops paying for 1 day (two workshops), and then next year assumed it was for 1 workshop and (doubled price). Need to put that in the handbook.
 * Discount for students
 * Price for Gala
 * Ideas: Cost to attend
 * Action: Michael to provide per diem costs to attend accommodation+food in each city
 * Sponsorship vs how much was generated
 * Discounts and grants
 * Economic
 * Students - ½ conferences had a discount for students
 * Volunteers
 * waive workshop Instructors
 * Discussion:
 * foss4gna did waive discount for PSC and committers
 * Action: Vasile to finish report, and publish on website after review by conference committee and osgeo board.
 * This is time sensitive to have on hand for the 2019 bid process
 * Ideas
 * Cost for airfair changes;
 * Cost of venue; changed a lot of time
 * Time of year
 * August is right out for Europeans due to vacations (not understood in north america)
 * Can we check airfare and accommodation
 * Money generated for OSGeo
 * We can dig back until 2007 in our budget records
 * Perhaps not revenue
 * Why do we run a profit?
 * If we get enough early sponsors and attendees you can reduce risk
 * It is about a risk - can we put in more money upfront to reduce the risk for LOC and take on more risk for OSGeo

Discussion on relationship travel grants:


 * Discussion about paying people for registration that they had done already
 * Ideas about balancing travel and local costs
 * Travel grants are intended to help with diversity, please do not view as a monkey patch for affordability

Conference committee functioning:
 * Q: does the committee have a chair yet?
 * Not yet, this is needed.
 * What happened with the -1 votes and writing down how all the committees function?
 * Check during AGM?

Working with regional / location foss4g conferences:


 * AGM prep shows we had more than 15 regional conferences!
 * Smaller, more affordable, etc..
 * How can we encourage regional events?
 * How can we help?
 * travel grant does this!
 * can we help provide seed funding, to make this less stressful
 * Make discoverable
 * Internally - email discuss
 * Externally - website highlights events on map
 * Scheduling
 * Regional foss4g europe in July, foss4g global august
 * Conflict with events SOTM and foss4g global august
 * Can we keep the regional events running, keep them small and focused; even when global event is in town?
 * for example run foss4g regional event in a different country when foss4g global is on that continent.
 * time offset (spring vs fall) and location offset (different country)
 * Action: Vasilie to take action to take this idea to the conference committee
 * Action: Jody to talk to David Bitner from the foss4g-na committee
 * North america is different
 * Not as active local chapter
 * Europe has rich chapters to run local events.

UN Committee Updates
Some funds for travel and hackathon.
 * Meetings of OSGeo UN, and hackathon
 * Hackathon happy, can we adjust budget to repurpose this money
 * Q: Do you need more money, some events are coming up so many.

Checked budget, $6000 is available (the details on what was intended is only of interest to the UN committee).

No action needed, responsibility lies with UN committee to manage funds.

Actions

 * Action: Alex talk to Jeffrey Johnson and provide feedback by the end of the weekend on what is needed to host the website
 * Action: Jody talk to Jeffrey Johnson to explore out what cloud hosting would cost
 * Action: Michael to ask Jeff McKenna to present project status report Friday 4:30 pm
 * Action: Michael to invite Norman Barker as needed to identify meaningful areas for OSGeo and LocationTech to collaborate
 * Action Venka: Ask Franz to ask in public on the board email list?
 * Action Helena: Ask Charlie if foss4g Bonn publication accept a few more papers?
 * Action: Michael to provide per diem costs to attend accommodation+food in each city
 * Action: Vasile to finish report, and publish on website after review by conference committee and OSGeo board.
 * Action: Vasilie to take action to take time offset idea to the conference committee
 * Action: Jody to talk to David Bitner from the foss4g-na committee about time-offset idea

Motions
MOT1: Approve previous board meeting minutes on 2017-07-18
 * Moved to Loomio for approval: https://www.loomio.org/d/Q5exMhnl/approve-board-f2f-paris-meeting-minutes-2017-7-18-

MOT2: Recognize the formation of the OSGeo European chapter.
 * Jody - 1st
 * Michael - 2nd
 * Approve: Vasile, Sanghee, Angelos
 * Abstain: Helena, Maria
 * Passed, congratulations to the new OSGeo European local chapter!

MOT 3: MOU with IGU
 * Approved by acclamation (all in favour)

MOT 4: MOU with GSDI 2016
 * Approved by acclamation (all in favour)