CentOS Board - meeting minutes - 2019-11-13

CentOS Board - meeting minutes - 2019-11-13

Attendees

Agenda

Actions

Minutes

Public minutes

Attendees

Jim

Johnny

Karsten

Carl

Mikem

Agenda

Any other topics aka What other things do you want on our master initiatives list?

Transparency initiatives

Stepping-up our meeting norms

Announcing Fabian ...

New Board members

New branding work underway

Actions

ACTION: Continue discussion about adding an RH technical leader onto the Board or in an empowered leadership position

ACTION: look for a visionary person to consider

ACTION: Karsten to write up meeting minutes, release by Friday

ACTION: All continue identifying how we can be more transparent, take action there

ACTION: All invited to work with RIch and Karsten on transparency initiatives

ACTION: Karsten to ask Fabian his wishes about how we release the news of his leaving the Board

ACTION: Jim to talk with Thomas Oulevey and Pat RIehicky about interest in joining the Board, to bring a historical-but-looking-forward perspective.

ACTION: All to look for a visionary non-RH leader to elevate to a special role for the Board or to be a Director; someone who sees the vision and strategy for the future of the project.

Minutes

New topics aka What other things do you want on our master initiatives list?

Carl: Is it time to swap Carl’s role as semi-Exec Sponsor for the BOD?

Evangelism & technology internal

One idea (eng leaderships side): Stef Walters

Another (on program side): Brendan Conoboy

ACTION: Continue discussion

Brian Exelbierd role

Owns community upstream ‘line of business’ role in Gunnar Hellekson’s team, champion of Stream from BU perspective

Announcing Fabian …

With new Directors?

Jim:  concern about Streisand effect, want to get Fabian’s clear wishes

Karsten: propose that we bundle in with an announcement about new Directors with simple ‘thanks for service’, no-big-deal language.

ACTION: Karsten to ask Fabian his wishes

New Board members

CERN

Thomas Oulevey

FERMI?

Pat Riehicky

QA person?

Akemi?

SIG leader

Bundle as one announcement?

ACTION: Who will talk with them?

Jim to talk to Pat, Thomas

ACTION: look for a visionary person to consider

New branding work underway

https://git.centos.org/centos/Artwork/issue/1

https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2019-November/018098.html

We’ve had loose standards up to this point for things we did (swag) and loose approval (Directors approving things)

Transparency initiatives

Working with Rich for how transparency supports the success of Stream, SIGs as key to future of project stability

Jim notes that the #1 requested item is Board meeting minutes

Johnny notes that work around 8 is way more open than before

Karsten notes that SIGs are working on transparency, we want to model good behavior for them

Stepping-up our meeting norms

Regular meetings, with rolling agenda

Report out from meeting

Move things forward incrementally

Integrate new Directors & look at increasing speed of adjustments

ACTION: Karsten to write up meeting minutes, release by Friday

ACTION: All continue identifying how we can be more transparent, take action there

ACTION: All invited to work with RIch and Karsten on transparency initiatives

Public minutes

On 2019-11-13 the CentOS Board of DIrectors held their first meeting following the release of CentOS Linux 8 and announcement of CentOS Stream.

As covered in this meeting, the CentOS Board are taking on an initiative to increase transparency of the working of the Board. This set of minutes for the community and wider public is the first instance of new, more transparent processes in action.

Topics covered in the meeting and email discussion are discussed below, and remain open on the Board’s rolling agenda for future conversation and actions:

Board membership:

The Board has been considering for some time adjusting the membership of the Board, in particular by adding new Directors. Discussions with potential new Directors will begin.

All discussed the need for future leadership of the CentOS Project to continue being able to straddle the project’s traditional footing on one side, and help drive a vision for the future on the other side.

Transparency initiatives:

All agree that the biggest need for transparency in the Project is at the Board level.

Other groups e.g. SIGs are generally following good transparency practices

Board Directors have been asked directly about this topic and the issue of the Board not releasing minutes from meetings.

The Board’s infrequent meetings have not been configured to easily generate public topics, since most technical and day-to-day leadership happens in the SIGs especially the Core SIG and QA SIG.

Next step -- improving Board meeting norms

AGREED: Publish (for next and future meetings) that there will be a meeting, and what the public portion of the agenda is, in advance of the meeting.

AGREED: Publish a set of public minutes within 48 hours of the conclusion of a Board meeting

AGREED: There will be a rolling element to the agenda so that items are not dropped between meetings but rather eventually addressed/resolved.

ACTION: Karsten to write and publish this set of public meeting minutes

New branding work underway - Karsten briefed the Board on the community efforts to consider the CentOS brand, logo, and overall branding in light of the addition of CentOS Stream.

https://git.centos.org/centos/Artwork/issue/1

https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2019-November/018098.html

AGREED: Board more actively drive approving/rejecting design ideas.

AGREED: There will be a reasonable time for discussion around the potential brand changes, and the Board will ensure the discussion concludes in a timely manner.