XSF Discussion - 2019-09-26

MattJ, after council meeting isn’t really going to work for me, I’m usually preparing dinner then. I assume weekends aren’t going to work for you?

Usually not, but I might be able to make this Sunday work

SMS-based 2fa is very convenient with MAXS ;-) (cc and thx @ flow)

jonas’: it's also reducing the number of factors.

Ge0rG, yeah

although that depends really

but in any case, I’m not fond of SMS based 2fa anyways

I don’t trust the phone or phone network with that

I agree, MAXS makes it easier

and it's not really removing a factor, it just means you have to have your phone or your laptop, the other factor is still the password

Unless you have the password saved on the laptop :)

Huh, we swapped rooms

MattJ: or in the app on your phone

test

toast

donkey!

5

_o/

Ralph is not joining, excused by email

Can someone else chair today, please?

Hi guys

MattJ - are you around?

Here

quorum

Hello, and welcome to the umptieth edition of the XSF board meeting!

1) Role call and agenda

Here

we've established that everyone is here, but Ralph that just sent an email to apologise

as usual, the agenda is driven by our Trello board at https://trello.com/b/Dn6IQOu0/board-meetings

Re. agenda: I propose we tackle some of the items we didn't cover last week, due to the length of the DOAP discussion last week

does anyone want us to address anything that's not on there?

and if we have time, we can revisit DOAP

Yes, I would also like to do that, MattJ

I have no preference either way.

(And I do not have anything for the agenda)

Unless nyco strongly objects within the next few moments, so it shall be then.

2) Confirm minute taker

Who would be so kind?

I object this objection! :)

I'll do it

Anyone? We'd be helped a lot by someone taking notes, compiling them and sending them on the members lists after the meeting. There's nothing more to it.

Thanks MattJ - if anyone that's not also taking part in the discussion would consider doing this next time(s), please!

3) Topics for decisions

3.1) Sponsorship request

Ralph isn't here, but indicated he would rather decline this unless we can determine their relationship with XMPP

we received this offer: > I represent a company called TheBestVPN.com and we'd like to make a sponsorship for XMPP. > Can you let us know if you're accepting any new sponsorship request and are there any perks associated with it?

Also, relatedly, I just searched my inbox to find the email from Peter

and turned up an email from someone at TheBestVPN.com to a Debian mailing list, which looked like a thinly-veiled SEO attempt

I tried to find some information about them on the Internet but it is not quite clear to me if there is a real support for XMPP or it is a "kind of SEO request"

I'm not sure if we should limit ourselves to sponsors that have a direct relation to XMPP

fine, so be it: it's no

I don't see anything particularly shady in any of it itself, but we've previously declined SEO-only sponsors, and I'm inclined to maintain this policy

do we need to debate more?

I do think we should not have sponsors that only want to use us for blatant SEO

they are bad SEO then, because you can some for free

Well, this guy didn't say/do anything to suggest that this is a SEO attempt.

Guus, I think we should not close the doors to any sponsors, either XMPP supporters or not, but yeah, not only SEO requests

He just offered to sponsor, and asked about the perks.

Indeed

I see no harm in pointing him at the website that lists the perks.

related: https://www.pcmag.com/news/367640/how-a-vpn-review-site-dominated-google-search-with-a-scam

Thanks Ge0rG - that's a troubling headline.

Based on everything I've seen so far, and the email to the Debian list, it's 99.99% likely to be SEO-related

Given that, I suggest that we reject based on the shady history of the company, and that we're reluctant to be associated to that.

I suggest to drop and not to reject.

yes, please, let's reject it

Ge0rG ?

don't reply at all, that reduces the risk of long discussions.

fine

He already sent a follow-up question. I'll try to formulate a response - that's the least we can do.

people who are good at SEO are also good at sending follow-up requests

so, we reject this offer due to the perceived SEO-nature and non-positive history of the company?

on LinuxFr, I usually reject kindly all ads, promoted content, links exchanges, partnerships... explicity, it helps I get a "thank you" almost every time

I'd reject based on non-relatedness to XMPP

Any kind of rejection needs to be well argued based on our public policy.

I don't want to reject it based on non-XMPP relationship. That's an excuse.

no one in that company has written XMPP software, no one is a member => correct assumption?

Writing a proper rejection will be some work.

I know why you would say "don't limit us to XMPP-related things only", but if someone wants to sponsor us who is not related to XMPP or aligned with the XSF's goals, what could their motives be?

no, it's quite easy and fast

Apart from SEO... Hmm

SEO is top of that list

Good people?

MattJ supporting OSS / Open standards?

:D ✏

Guus, that aligns with our goals, obviously

I feel we're wasting too much time on this

I tend to agree nyco.

Well, we're not just really discussing this request, but how to deal with requests of this kind (this is not the first and it won't be the last)

I'll draft a rejection reply, and share it with board.

+1

if there's no consensus via mail, we can pick this up again next week.

Ultimately we could provide Peter with some guidance on how to handle these himself

Instead of every inbound SEO request ending up on Board's agenda

which believe me, doesn't happen in any other sane organisation

given that this is our second request in as many years... 🙂

we get two or three such requests per month on LinuxFr.org

it takes 5 min each

Then maybe no general action is needed, let's just ask Peter to kindly reject with a one-liner

We would need to check if he said he would forward it to Board

I'll send the one-liner.

Let's move on

Ok, thank you.

4) Commitment for the week ahead

I'm skipping over the issues with Ralph's face tagged to it, as he's not here

which leaves

4.1) GSOC '19 evaluation

Nyco, I'm seeing your name attached to that

Do we want to do anything here?

yes, https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/GSoC_2019 or not... just asked the commTeam

sorry, it went out of my mind

No worries, I have a similar mind 🙂

we are closing the newsletter tomorrow, we'll send a PR on GitHub, for a publication on Tue 1st Oct

so either someone write a short piece

comms related to this is good, but not something that board is needed for.

or we forget it

agree

do we want to evaluate the process itself? Eg: flow organizing things for the first time?

he hasn't got time for this, I asked

I think I pinged him on that, but forgot his response, if I got any.

Ok - Is there anyone that feels an evaluation is needed?

We seem to hav had a successful gsoc?

maybe a summary could do, as a reminder for our newsletter readers

(and contribute to SEO as well...)

Ideally I would like someone related to it

that's comms again 🙂

(and: fine by me)

I'm not hearing anyone particularly wanting to go over this.

I'll try, low proba it will end up in the newsletter

Aren't there blogs kept by all participants? A summary could link those.

Yeah, I intended this to be not about comms

but more around the question: do we want to organize things differently next year?

I don't see any reason to, and as I'm having trouble getting this discussion off the ground, let's skip it completely and thank Flow and others involved for their effort.

That would require input from the people involved in it, I can't tell much, unfortunately.

5) Items for discussion

5.1) Publicize XSF financials

This is in response to a question I received from an XSF Member about the state of the XSF financials.

let me quote some stuff

Where they done public in the past? I've read that by someone but can't remember who :)

> Earlier today, a member had detailed questions on XSF financials (what do we spend money on, how do we obtain money, etc). He asked if/why data was private. > I had to admit that I simply didn't know. I feel that much of this isn't private data, but I don't think we publicly share information either. > There's a least one member that hinted at us being secretive about the financials. I don't think that's necessarily true, but since we've not been publishing any information, I can see how that can be perceived as being secretive. > Someone else mentioned that the XSF has been 'more open' about this in the past. I'm thinking that the lack of information sharing is largely caused by people being less active, and not so much a deliberate attempt at withholding data. What do you think? > I'd hate for people to feel that we're doing things in the dark here. If we did things differently before, can you share on what worked well at that time?

Just to know how things went previously, etc

that was all me, to Peter

Peter responded: > The board has never set a policy on this. If we want to open the books, it is easy enough to do. and > Well, "secretive" is a bit strong. In the far past we posted a kind of spreadsheet on the website, describing various expenses. I'd be happy to do that again, and even reconstruct expenses for all the years between then and now. Naturally it will take me some time to generate that information from file folders in my safe. 🙂

(that concludes my quoting of things)

I'd not mind taking Peter up on that offer.

That helps a lot, really

Is backfilling a requirement?

Which in my perspective is basically picking up where we left off.

floor comment: I suggest we don’t put too much load on peter in htis regard and do not ask for expense summaries since back then

I agree, I'd rather not provide Peter with more work if we can help it

agree, it's a question of RoI

I disagree. If we do make things public, it shouldn't have gaps.

ROTI, return on time invested

unless a majority of members wants that information, of course

MattJ: is as one of the people to ask about this, I don't mind if it's just from now on.

also, I'm guessing that the work involved is light, as he already should have administation

Guus, we make things public from today, I don't see the problem

He said himself it will "take some time"

Sure, doesn't need to happen overnight

can we easily track the board's decisions regarding spending?

but I think it's sensible to have a complete record.

I feel it's unfair to ask him to put in that time just to satisfy the curiosity of a couple of folks, when just general overview of current+future would be fine

also, he offered without being asked to.

We're over time again and I need to prep for my next meeting

I'm not seeing this as satisfying curiosity, but as a way to be transparant as an organisastion.

Ok, can we conclude this before you go?

I've no objection to transparency

yep, we are fully transparent with the board, holding meetings in public...

But I don't see that historical records are a hard requirement

I see them as a nice thing to have, but I think publishing our current financial state and maintaining that going forwards is plenty of improvement already

What practical purpose would historical records have, compared to current?

trust?

middle-ground: add a note (to whereever this is going to be published) that historical records are not available in digital form, but can be requested by any member at any time

How is a lack of trust currently presenting itself? ✏

not sure, people asking on written form?

In the interest of time, let's move this to next week

Kev, well, arguably I could have been colluding with Peter to siphon XSF funds into the Prosody project, hence my argument to keep the records closed :)

(guessing...)

Matt needs to go.

6) AOB (that are pressing?)

nope

I obviously haven't, but there is merit to having open historical records

7) Date/Time of next +1w?

wfm

+1

do we have DST changes upon us?

(it's that time of year)

we're all on the same switchover date, I think?

Yes, we are.

in a few weeks at least

nope

ah ok, not this weekend

Ok, we'll continue to use London time then, which should avoid us being affected at all

thanks!

26-27th Oct

Thank you :)

thx all!

Thanks!

I'll have to finish the minutes after my meetings today

Kev - I think the purpose of opening the books is to prevent a lack of trust manifesting itself.

not the other way around

Yes, and opening the books from now seems quite pragmatic and sensible. I'm not sure it's worth the effort of going back and reconstructing reports, given Peter's time is presumably not easy to come by.

But YMMV.

I appreciate that, but a) he offered, and b) it kind of comes with the role of being a Treasurer.

it's not that I suggest we pressure him into doing things

but as he offered, and I think it'd be good to have a full set of records, I'm inclined to take him up on that offer.

also, I'm happy for this to not be ready tomorrow.

I don't see any specific urgency on this, either. But I also do not expect members to request trust from Boards long time ago.

I'm envisioning this as nothing more than a simple table, right - not extensive details

I guessed so.

anything you publish, you might have questions around it

if not objections

then we decide to not publish anything

hehehe

(which I think is a bad idea)

hide and stop doing things

Guus, there appears to be a full set of records, it’s just not public

thus my middle-ground suggestion above

jonas’ which I didn't dislike.

same

/quit