Board Meeting 2021-04-26

This board meeting is scheduled Monday 26 April 2021 at 15:00 UTC through Jitsi, a record of motions is preserved on loomio and actions on osgeo todo issue tracker.

Current items

 * 1) roll call
 * 2) * appoint meeting chair, meeting scribe/secretary
 * 3) Review and approve past minutes
 * 4) * Board_Meeting_2021-03-29
 * 5) Update on FOSS4G 2021
 * 6) Response from SAGANA about letter for sponsorship
 * 7) Sponsors (ending soon: Mundialis, not renewed for this year: aon)
 * 8) Free Software Foundation - should OSGeo make a response?
 * 9) Rajat Shinde  Google Summer of Code discussion
 * 10) add your topic here

Minutes

 * Presiding: Till
 * Scribing: Till, Codrina
 * Attending: Angelos, Astrid, Mike, Michele, Codrina, Helena, Vicky, Till.
 * Guests: Rajat Shinde (Google Summer of Code), Maria Arias (FOSS4G2021) and Regina Obe (SAC)

Google Summer of Code organization payment discussion
(Maria offers "We can offer discounts at least for them"), pass the money to the projects and they decide.
 * participation on behalf of GSoC: Rajat Shinde - chair of GSoC
 * There is a need of incentives for the mentors to join GSoC, as there is a lack of interest now.
 * There must be 2 mentors (main and secondary) for each project. This year, there were 22 proposals received, out of which they must select 10, as there are only 20 mentors.
 * Question: What can OSGeo do for the mentors? Until now, Google payment goes to OSGeo. What should OSGeo do? Proposals: pass money from OSGeo directly to mentor, free pass to FOSS4G
 * ACTION: Rajat prepares email with opportunities and requests board for decision/recommendation.

Update on FOSS4G 2021 (Maria from BALOC)
payment (~15k $). check and change this.
 * Giving up venue (to make online FOSS4G2021) negotiating was closed with payment of 1/4 of the
 * Interest is good, normal no. of proposals for talks/workshops;
 * Few tickets sold (normal each year);
 * Passport info is needed when buying a ticket now in order to justify money movement to authorities. Maria tries to
 * The BALOC needs more help, as some of the team members are either infected with SARs-COV-2 or are taking care of an ill person.
 * The sponsorships are at a safe level, it may even allow to give more discounts to tickets.
 * There are discussions going with streaming providers to make sure that anyone from everywhere can participate;
 * There were some sponsors requesting participants' data - it has been completely denied.
 * ACTION: Till to push in the ConfComm to deny sharing participants data to sponsors for future conferences.
 * No action from the board needed.

Board_Meeting_2021-03-29

 * Motion on Loomio: https://www.loomio.org/d/CTMu0vRQ/approve-meeting-minutes-from-board-meeting-2021-03-29
 * Motion status:

Response from SAGANA about letter for sponsorship

 * Vicky talks about her ideas for getting more sponsors, i.e. having paid people to do that.
 * AE is interested to work on the topic.

Sponsors

 * ending soon: mundialis
 * ACTION: Till to contact mundialis so that they write a mail to OSGeo about what they are doing - sponsoring FOSS4G 2021 - so extending as OSGeo sponsor.
 * not renewed for this year - aon (Mike): aon has renewed for this year;

Free Software Foundation - vote passed to appoint Richard Stallman to a board seat

 * https://www.fsf.org/news/statement-of-fsf-board-on-election-of-richard-stallman
 * Should OSGeo make a statement regarding this matter?
 * Michele proposes to give a response from the OSGeo side (https://thenewstack.io/why-almost-everyone-wants-richard-stallman-cancelled/)
 * ACTION: Michelle drafts statement on Google Drive and shares it with the board for comments.

LDAP/WIKI accounts movement

 * Regina from SAC participated.
 * problems with merging old WIKI accounts to new LDAP for people with "_" in their username;
 * maybe more people have problems with merging their accounts due to other unidentified issues;
 * email to OSGeo general that explains the possible problems (Regina);
 * Astrid asks all board members to write write a mission for themselves, as it is possible now - and sets a good example.

IRC Log

 * meeting was held on Jitsi