Council Meeting 13th April 2022 – Minutes

1. Meeting overview and key information

Present

• Joel Addison (President)
• Wil Brown (Vice-President)
• Russell Stuart (Treasurer)
• Jonathan Woithe (Council)
• Neil Cox (Council)
• Lilac Kapul (Council) – joined part way through Admin Team report

Apologies

• Clinton Roy (Secretary)

Meeting opened at 19:35 AEST by Joel and quorum was achieved.

Minutes taken by Jonathan.

2. Log of correspondence

• Drupal – David Sparks (apology)
• Admin team – Steve Walsh and Mike Beattie
  • Linux.au and opensource.au claim requests lodged. Linux.au is contended by linux.net.au (Netregistry, have put in a claim) and linux.id.au (a Redhat person, no claim from them yet). Suggest we reach out to The Linux Foundation to get a statement that we are acting on their behalf to protect the Linux trademark in Australia. Then draft a letter (or possibly get a lawyer to do this) which states this, and provide it to the other contending parties.
    AI – Joel: Contact Linux Foundation about this.
    Opensource.au is uncontended, so that’s ours.
  • Q from Lilac: Linux Australia held some historical trademarks which have now expired. Should these be reconsidered in light of the domains we hold?
    A from Joel and others: The “Linux” trademark was allowed to lapse because of uncertainties surrounding the overlap of Linux Australia and the Linux Foundation. Whether these are pursued is up to Council.
    Lilac commented that we should have a strong case for most of the expired trademarks because we held them in the past. She has suggested that we should consider this, especially the more obvious ones.
  • Mail migration trial this weekend, the final one will be on ANZAC day long weekend.  A test plan has been devised.
    When complete, the president, VP, treasurer and secretary address archives will be accessible through webmail and so on (rather than just through the audit trail system). Archiving is at the start of the email chain.
  • Q from Lilac: What is the process for reviewing past conversations?
    A from Steve: Currently, the mailman archive is used.  Joel added that the query should be directed to Council.
  • Q from Lilac: How long does it take for the admin team to respond to requests for review of archived material?
    A from Steve: The admin team are all aware of the requirements to respond within a set time interval. There are sufficient resources to respond appropriately.
  • Admin team is planning a test restore of CiviCRM in the June/July timeframe. This will involve a mock election.

• Joomla – Patrick Jackson
  • They are not running events, so the need to attend event meetings is reduced.
• PyCon AU – Richard Jones
  • Not required to attend, as per the discussion at the last event meeting.
• Flounder – Ian Brown for Russell Coker
  • Ian will present at start of May about terraform in cloud platforms. A future talk (by someone else) over time will deal with OpenStack.
  • Matrix chat room is active (see “Social media” section of website).  File storage solutions are a focus at present. Concern about indexing on google. OSS Calendaring solutions are a challenge (Ian uses horde).
  • Chat rooms have 15 members currently. Attendance at monthly meetings does not require membership of the chat rooms.
  • Ian is happy with the way it’s developing at present.
  • flounder.linux.org.au is the URL for the group. It’s a WordPress site.
  • Website is run by Ian. Michael administers the Matrix chat. Another runs the mailing list. Russell Coker runs everything else. Ian (or Russell) will confirm how many are involved in organising.
  • Q from Russell Stuart: Who are the points of contact? This is required under the subcommittee policy.
    A from Ian: These are now on the website. Russell is happy with this.

3. Items for discussion

• Grant Application from Lyndsey Jackson for Big Sand Band – Regional SA
  • Jonathan outlined the grant application and summarised the information provided in the web presentation (link provided in application). Feedback from the community was also covered. The primary concern raised by the community  was the use of software which is not Open Source (but is free-to-use) for parts of the funded activity. This is one of several components to the activity, the others being outreach, inclusion and regional development.
  • Russell: It is difficult to square this with what Open Source stands for. The activity is worthy but he questions the alignment.
  • Lilac: The film festival is the showcase of the assets which can be reused. It’s also outreach. LA values mentions open culture/data/technology, which this grant works on.
  • Joel: Would be more comfortable if money was for producing the assets rather than travel. Is interested in the compilation of lists of resources and people who can do this sort of thing which is also mentioned in the grant.
  • Neill: It is the best grant application he’s seen. Is concerned about the technology being used. Would encourage a review of the platform for future events, or encourage them to use formats that can be easily used in OSS software.
  • Lilac: believes the overall grant application is consistent with the LA values statement. Not overly concerned with the travel component.
  • Russell: Where will the assets be made available? We should ask them about this.
  • Joel: We could offer to host the assets, put them on the mirror site, and so on. Funding travel is not necessarily an issue – conferences do this (The “outreach and inclusion” travel grants for example). Suggest we reach out to Lyndsey to offer to help with this.
  • Wil: The grant proposal is for something a little different. It’s inclusive, in a regional area, and is outreach in it’s purest sense. It aligns with what open community means.
  • Lilac: Could matching funding be pursued by Lyndsey from government programs?
  • Motion: That the Linux Australia Council approve the grant proposal from Lyndsey Jackson for the Big Sand Band event. Seconded by Neill.  Motion is passed (5 for, 1 against).
  • Suggestions to include in response: Matching fund options (Lilac to send information through after the Council meeting). Ask how the assets will be published. Suggest the possibility to use the LA website and mirror site to distribute assets in a way that’s open and accessible.  LA is happy to work with the event organisers on this.
• Wil – Use of Element/Matrix/IRC. Clarity over priority of usage.  General discussions vs only urgent stuff.
  • Use email for discussions generally as it’s a formal record of the communication. People can read it in their own time and it’s easier to incorporate into other documents if required.
  • Matrix/IRC is used for things that are time critical. Can have discussions on chat, but keeping context is a bit harder. It’s harder to minute if it turns out to be necessary.
  • Q from Lilac: What response timeframes are expected?
    A: There are no specific guides. Respond when you can. Chat is perhaps more time critical.

• Joel: Proposed Policy Change – https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/45
  • Suggest we approve and merge.
  • Joel proposes the change be accepted. The reasons behind the proposal make sense and are sound. Jonathan and Neill agree: removal of the line strengthens the Code of Conduct..
  • Russell: Agrees that possibly the COC should be a formal document. People often do not read documents so the change won’t necessarily deliver an outcome of altering anyone’s behaviour. Not opposed to the change.
  • Wil: The text proposed for deletion  doesn’t add anything to the document. The movie reference is irrelevant.
  • Lilac: Supports the change. The informal tone of the TLDR detracts from the rest of the document. When first proposed in 2017, the response could have been more timely and handled better.
  • Motion by Joel: that we accept the change and apply it to the repo. Motion passed.
• Joel: Old Proposed Policy Changes
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/40
    • Suggest we approve and merge  (formatting change only)
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/38
    • Leave open, for potential future vote
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/34
    • Decline, superseded by Subcommittee Policy v3
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/33
    • Decline, superseded by Subcommittee Policy v3
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/32
    • Suggest we approve and merge (formatting change only)
    • Need to consider how it works with already merged https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/35
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/23
    • Decline, paragraph has been replaced.
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/22
    • Content is useful, but I think this is the wrong repository. It would be beneficial to have a
  • https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/pull/42
    • Further review required, in line with Subcommittee Policy v3

Due to the lateness of the hour, it was agreed to defer discussion of these policy changes to the next Council meeting on 27 April 2022.

• Neill: status of Wise payments for rami.io and Mind’s Eye Creative
  • Russell has been in touch with Wise. They promised to do something today. It doesn’t appear they did. Russell will call again in a couple of days.

4. Items for noting

• Joel: Insurance renewal is being processed
• Joel: Google Cloud Platform has been shutdown for the most part. Some static files and container images still remain, to be cleaned up once appropriate replacements are in place. Costs have reduced to close to $0, too early to know actual projected remaining cost per month.

5. Other business

Other business carried to future meeting due to running overtime.

Meeting closed at 20:57. Next meeting scheduled for 27 April 2022.