Board of Directors

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OSGeo Foundation Board of Directors

The board is elected by the Charter members as outlined in the Board Election Procedure.

Period: November 2018 - October 2020

Period: November 2017 - October 2019

More detailed information is available in the Board Member Profiles.

Board Activities and Meetings

Board Activities

Motions

The board is using Loomio to track motions and facilitate voting:

For motions with quorum taking in a meeting (bylaw 4.5) we make use of loomio for tracking / record:

  • Allow one week for a chance to review and respond
  • Maybe shortened if a time sensitive motion (require email to board members, example emergency event funding)
  • After one week consider motion passed based on quorum in meeting. Non responses will be considered as abstain (+0).

For motions taken purely by electronic voting (bylaw 4.6):

  • We still need 100% response rate, provide a week to respond so that board members have both a weekend and weekday to respond.

Actions

The board is an issue tracker for actions:

Board Meetings

Board meets on IRC the last Monday of the month from 16.00 UTC

Upcoming board meetings:

Kinds of meetings:

IRC Meeting
Internet Rely Chat meetings are held on FreeNode OSGeo channe], please note that due to spam you are now required to register with the FreeNode "NickServ" bot to verify your identity prior to posting messages on IRC. The FreeNode OSGeo channel is logged providing a great record of IRC meetings.
Face to Face Meeting
board will get together in person and work through discussions and tasks that are not easily handled in a 1 hour IRC meeting or via e-mail. For face to face meetings travel costs will be covered by the foundation.
Video call
board will get together for a video call and work through discussions and tasks that are not easily handled in 1 hour IRC meeting or via e-mail. May also consist of an informal "work party" of board members and officers to work on tasks and collaboration not easily handled in IRC meeting / email.
Member meeting
board meeting with OSGeo members at OSGeo events providing a chance to listen and discuss our community. May also consist of informal "party" to celebrate our community, members, and what we accomplish together

Previous meetings

2016 - 2015 - 2014 - 2013 - 2012 - 2011 - 2010 - 2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - Earlier.

Working Groups

While the board is focused on decision making occasionally there is a call for action. The following working groups are focused on accomplishing a specific 2-3 week objective and will report back to the board list when completed. This is in contrast to long term activities handled by committees.

2018 Working Groups

  • none at present

2015 Working Groups

Planning

2019 Planning

Documents:

Operational Budget for 2019

The board is dividing this years budget up by committee, initiative and project!

2018 Planning

Operational Budget for 2018

The board is dividing this years budget up by committee, initiative and project!

Sponsorship Opportunities for 2018

OSGeo maintains a sponsorship program recognizing financial contributions to our projects, initiatives and events.

2017 Planning

Operational Budget for 2017

The board is dividing this years budget up by committee:

Sponsorship Opportunities for 2017

The foundation recognizes sponsors who financially support our events, initiatives and open source projects.

The following has been published as the following blog post and how to sponsor page.

2016 Planning

Operational Budget for 2016

Thanks to our sponsors, and a series of successful events, OSGeo does has an operational budget for 2016.

The Board has divided the above budget up according to our priority as an organization. Please keep in mind that prior boards have taken this approach - and spent nothing due to lack of volunteers willing to lead the charge. The following is budget and does not provide a commitment to spend money on the actives listed - to do that we need your commitment as a volunteer!

Strategic Plan 2016

From Anne: See the parallel Skate-Boarding of Fedora at http://fedoramagazine.org/lets-talk-about-fedora-project-objectives/ - I really like the idea of having 18 months goals, that are measurable, backed up by community agreement. Let's discuss this at the first Sprint. There are also some thoughts on Ubuntu governance that can inspire us, but I haven't gone through the whole discussion yet, and there are many differences between OSGeo and Ubuntu; so I'm not sure on how much we can learn from it.

This section outlines OSGeo strategic plan for 2016 - this is a result of the vision, mission and goals established at the 2016 face to face meeting.

Strategic objectives for 2016:

  • S01: showcasing excellence in our communities
  • S02: proactively engage with external partners
  • S03: Fostering our mission, vision and goals
  • S04: Empowering our communities and extending our reach

These objectives were taken to the community for concrete / measurable actions volunteers were interested in tackling over the course of 2016.

Update: We did not receive enough feedback to form a strategic plan.

2013 Planning

Reference

Documents

Mailing list

The http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board mailing list is used for most public board discussions. There is also a private board mailing list used only for matters that are considered needful to be kept private.

History of OSGeo Foundation Boards of Directors

An interim Board of Directors with 5 members was elected on February 4th, 2006, by the initial members of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. On March 18th, 2006, the board has been completed to now total nine members:

FAQ

Q: What do board members do?
A: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Director_Responsibilities

Q: That doc doesn't say anything about meetings. How often to board members meet?
A: The foundation bylaws say the board meets after the after the annual members meeting and then at regular meetings on a schedule fixed by directors. In practice, the board schedules monthly meetings in addition to the annual face-to-face meeting after the AGM at the FOSS4G conference.

Q: How are board decisions made?
A: The bylaws (section 4.5) describe that a majority of members must be present for an event to be considered a meeting. At a meeting, each member present is given one vote. Strictly speaking (according to the bylaws) an affirmative vote by the majority of members present at a meeting constitutes a decision by the board. In practice, we don't consider a motion passed if there are any negative votes (see the page Board Voting Procedure that explains voting notations +1, +0, -0, -1).

Q: Is an IRC gathering a meeting?
A: The bylaws (section 4.4) say that an electronic medium may be used and an event will constitute a meeting if members can hear one another at the same time. In practice, we often have IRC meetings and then have a vote by voice if there are items that need voting on (TODO: document the convention on email voting if this is an alternative to voice voting).