Meeting Minutes of Fedora EMEA NPO Meeting
by Joerg Simon
Hello Fellows,
The Board meeting of the Fedora EMEA NPO - founded in February on FOSDEM08 -
took place in Rheinfelden, there was much work to do and several bureaucratic
duties to fulfill.
I have the order and the pleasure to share the outcome of the "Fedora EMEA
Board Meeting" with you.
Cheers JoergSimon
= Fedora EMEA Board Meeting Minutes =
* Date(s):
1. Sunday, March 16th 2008, 14:00 - 23:00 UTC
1. Monday, March 17th 2008, 7:30 - 17:00 UTC
* Location: Rheinfelden, Germany
== Attendees ==
1. Gerold Kassube (President),
1. Fabian Affolter (Vice-President),
1. Jeroen van Meeuwen (Vice-President),
1. Robert Scheck (Treasury)
== Regrets ==
1. ...
== Meeting Chair and Minutes Secretary ==
* Chair is Gerold Kassube
* Minutes Secretary is Jeroen van Meeuwen
== Agenda ==
The “Meeting Topics” is a short list of items and topics that have come up on
mailing lists, etc., the separate topic “Meeting Topics” shows some more
details.
* Opening
* Assigning meeting chair and minutes secretary
* Assess Agenda
* Minutes from previous meeting(s)
* Meeting Topics
* Bank Account
* Foundation Accounting / Membership Registration Software
* A Budget Plan
* Web Page / Registration Form / Email Addresses
* PO Box / Mailing Address
* Factual Goals
* Use of the Board Mailing List
* What do members get from becoming a member?
* Store / How to make money? / How to generate revenue?
* Logo
* Templates for OOo
* Announcement on Membership Fees / ways to register / etc
* After-talk, Evaluation
* Propositions
* Any Other Business
* Next meeting
* Closing
== Meeting Topics ==
=== Bank Account ===
* Need bank account for financial transactions
* Optionally seek for ways to debit other accounts (credit card, Direct
Debit?)
* Ownership: Robert Scheck
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Credit card acceptance (MasterCard/VISA) not for free; 99 EURO/year, 25
EURO set-up, .3% of transactions, 5 year contract.
* Credit cards have booking periods (30-90 days)
* Other ways of making international transactions easier would be things
like PayPal (but not really PayPal)
* Don't really need to accept credit-cards
* Debiting directly is allowed, bank account is free for an NPO,
registration and sign-up is a matter of submitting the form.
* Possibly re-visit credit cards / paypal later
* Action Items
* Create bank account
* Needs registration number
* Gründungsprotocol & Satzung
* Gerold's signature and ID
=== Foundation Accounting and Membership Registration Software ===
* Ownership: Robert Scheck
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Available software costs money, ranging from 10-100 EURO/month, or
one-time fees.
* FOSS Software is old, unmaintained, or buggy/crappy. We do not have any
explicit requirements to administration / accounting.
* For now, a fairly simple spreadsheet should do, but with more members
you do need professional software to be able to keep track of mutations.
* Professional software has the advantage of being able to have
professional invoices and accounting as well.
* (Suggestion) Buy software or keep a spread-sheet, and look into linking
into FAS2, keeping the additional information downstream but using the
available information from upstream.
* Look into more sustainable software then professional / commercial /
proprietary anyway.
* Action Item:
* Robert Scheck buys professional software judging from what the bank
recommends.
* Requirements:
* Professional Membership Management [mandatory]
* Accounting [mandatory]
* Invoices / Bills [mandatory]
* Donation Receipts [mandatory]
* English version [optional]
=== Budget Plan ===
A budget plan to break down the actual spendings on events that are being
sponsored, and for overall expenses.
* Ownership: Gerold Kassube
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Lots of money being spend on events, but little to no budget breaking
down the actual spendings
* Little insight on spendings other then the general amount of sponsoring.
* Action Items:
* Break down the budget for LinuxTag (Gerold)
* Break down the budget for FOSDEM (Event Owner)
* Try and get some insight on actual spendings other then sponsorships.
=== Web Page / Registration Form / Email Addresses ===
For general operations Fedora EMEA e.V. will need a website with the
following requirements:
* Ownership: Fabian Affolter
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Website content:
* A membership subscription form [mandatory]
* Needs to be off-line as German law requires a real signature
[mandatory]
* Draft Proposed by Robert Scheck (Accepted with minor changes)
* A public email address to contact us [mandatory] (Jeroen)
* A web page that briefly explains who we are and what we do [mandatory]
* Possibly a brief explanation as to why it is we do not have a
full-blown website [optional]
* For normal operations, a suggestion was made we create
(personal) ...(a)fedoraemea.org email addresses.
* Action Items:
* Finalize Membership subscription form (Fabian)
* Use draft from Robert, Remove Fax number, add FAS account, make some
of the entries “optional”, others mandatory
* Create public contact email addresses (Jeroen)
* board@, press@, contact@, info@
=== PO Box / Mailing Address ===
This obviously applies to off-line “snail” mail. Gerold suggested we could
use his private address to being with.
* Ownership: Gerold Kassube unless decided otherwise
* Progress: Done
* Meeting Minutes:
* Can use Gerold's private address.
* Action Items:
* Using Gerold's private address.
=== Factual Goals ===
Rather then the goals set forth in the Statutes, what is in-scope for us
right now, what is in-scope for us in the (near) future, and what is
out-of-scope for us?
* Things in-scope
* Organizing/Attending events
* swag for those events
* hotel/travel expenses
* ambassador initiatives in general (EventBox, etc)
* Things maybe in-scope
* Hosting stuff the Fedora Project can't, but Ambassadors want.
* Localized spins?
* Offer services such as e-mail, fora, wiki for local groups?
* Getting an online store for selling swag and generating revenue in a way
that doesn't get in the way with the Fedora Store SIG, possibly even
facilitate what they need to get done by introducing resources they can't
get, or seek some other form of cooperation.
* Ownership: All
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Another factual goal is to train, educate users (not necessarily in
class-rooms). Fedora Gatherings.
* Like to see the a store in coorporation with the Store SIG be in-scope
* Action Items:
* Jerroen van Meeuwen coordinates with Fedora Store SIG
=== Use of the Board Mailing List ===
How should the board's list be used?
* Ownership: Jeroen van Meeuwen
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Use of the board mailing list is 1) private, 2) secret, 3) exposed/moved
to the public when appropriate / necessary. What we say reflects upon the
organization.
* Ways to contact the board or the organization in general.
* Action Items:
* Create public mailing lists
* Open for submission
* Subscription approved by list administrator required
* Same lists as in the "Web site / Email addresses" Meeting Topic
* Ask Joerg Simon to become the contact person / spokesman for the
organization
* The board asked Joerg right-away and we're glad he accepted this
position
=== What do members get from becoming a member? ===
* Ownership: All
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Chosen a welcome present for new members
* Order a few dozen for existing members, as well as new members
* Goodie will not be sold in a store, one-off and exclusive for members
* Members get to vote on what we do with money (or actually hold the board
accountable)
* “What do you think should happen for Fedora?”
* “What do you need to get done for Fedora?”
* Sending releases to members at General Availability is not sustainable
(time-constraints, last-minute changes and release date slips)
* Re-Spins is not viable either (burden on Fedora Unity, no time-based
releases there, too much uncertainties to start doing time-based releases)
* Of items we can sell / distribute, balance item's costs and value
* A membership card that can also be used as a badge
* Any revenue right now goes into producing new swag
* Cooperation / Co-existence Other Non-Profit Organizations and Fedora
Project itself
* Model for spreading revenue, assistance from and to other NPOs,
examples;
* Fedora France
* Fedora Unity (US)
* Action Items:
* Get a quote on mass-production of membercards with a one-off print on
them (name, number)
* (Again) Contact Fedora Store SIG and coordinate with them
=== Logo ===
Question: Does Fedora EMEA need a (separate) logo?
Suggestions:
1. No logo at all
1. Yes
1. Upstream (Artwork team)
1. Upstream (no separate logo, use upstream's logo)
* Ownership: All
* Progress: Done
* Meeting Minutes:
* Motion: If any, use upstream logo, unmodified
* Motion unanimously accepted
* Action Items:
* None
=== Templates for OOo ===
Creating templates for OpenOffice.org programs to use in official letters (to
members), etc.
* Ownership: Robert Scheck & Fabian Affolter
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Put the templates upstream first (Fedora Project wiki), then pull then
downstream and add Fedora EMEA specific stuff (if needed)
* Action Items:
* Robert Scheck & Fabian Affolter will look into creating templates.
Letter heads. Presentation Templates.
=== Announcement on Membership Fees / ways to register / etc ===
Where do announcements get send?
Where do we put them online?
Different Languages?
* Ownership: Joerg Simon
* Progress: -
* Meeting Minutes:
* Suggestions to distribute (amongst others?):
* fedora-advisory-board
* fedora-ambassadors-list
* fedora-announce-list
* fedora-users-list
* Linux Magazine / LinuxTag organization (including other press)
* Action Items:
* Gerold and Joerg to prepare announcements
--
Jörg Simon
jsimon(a)fedoraproject.org
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JoergSimon
Key Fingerprint:
3691 0989 2DCA 58A2 8D1F 2CAC C823 558E 5B5B 56
16 years, 1 month
Re: Need to do something about Freemedia India.
by Rahul Sundaram
Eugene Teo wrote:
> <quote sender="gopal das">
>> Thank you Susmith, thank you Siddharth. "Blank media and return envelop"
>> idea is good. We can make a decision if we make us available for a meeting
>> in near future at fedora-india irc. A long gap when we do not arrange a
>> meeting. And I also have some topic to discuss regarding some fedora
>> training program at schools. I have already started some initiative
>> regarding this but I like to discuss the matter with other Indian
>> ambassadors. So please fix up a date for a meeting so that we can made it
>> more prominent.
>
> Is it possible to work with the local Linux magazine publishers like
> LinuxForU to see if they can bundle the Fedora DVD with their magazine?
> I believe the magazine is affordable to most, and this can help lighten
> the media request load.
Linux For You already includes every release of Fedora the month after
it has been released IIRC. Fedora is pretty popular in India but LFY
doesn't reach everywhere and people are not aware of the magazine of
that it includes Fedora for that particular month. Pointing more people
to magazines like this is a pretty good idea and one I have done so
personally on a few occasions.
Rahul
16 years, 1 month
REMINDER French Meeting today 1830 #fedora-meeting
by Thomas Canniot
This mail is a reminder for today´s meeting for French ambassadors and
_every_ interested people.
2008-03-23 / 18:30 UTC
IRC: freenode
#fedora-meeting
Ce mail est un rappel pour la réunion des ambassadeurs francophones,
qui aura lieu ce dimanche (23 mars) à 20h30 heure de Paris sur IRC
(freenode) #fedora-meeting .
L'ordre du jour est disponible depuis cette page :
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/FrenchTeam/Reunions
N'hésitez pas à la modifier pour rajouter des sujets qui vous semblent
intéressants.
Thomas Canniot
16 years, 1 month
F9 Release Day - Fedora 9 Party
by Francesco Ugolini
I want to invite all the Ambassadors to organize something for the
upcoming Fedora 9's release.
The basic idea is to make something similar to Francesco Crippa's
"Fedora by Night": some speeches (I prefer a discussion between the
speakers and the public) and, after those ones, a party.
During the party you could set up some machines with F9 and invite who
want F9 to take with him a USB Pen and copy the live image on it (see
Live USB pen page for more informations), or, if you have a burning
device, you could burn some Fedora 9's Live Cd's and DVDs (remember to
make a copy of the source rpms, see GPL requirements).
If you have questions or if you need support don't esitate to ask
here, FAmSCo or me (you know my email).
The planned release date, according to
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/9/Schedule , is April 29th.
If you decide to organize an event feel free to add this one in the
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents : if we will reach a high
number of those ones I will create an event subpage.
Regards
Francesco Ugolini
16 years, 1 month
Out of Office: Tue 3/18 - Wed 3/26
by Matthew Cascio
Thanks for your email. I will be out of the country from March 18th through March 26th with limited access to email during this time.
If this is an emergency, please feel free to call my cell listed below. Otherwise, I will be in touch as soon as possible.
Best regards,
Matthew Cascio
Cell (703) 505-8700
16 years, 1 month
Out of Office: Tue 3/18 - Wed 3/26
by Matthew Cascio
Thanks for your email. I will be out of the country from March 18th through March 26th with limited access to email during this time.
If this is an emergency, please feel free to call my cell listed below. Otherwise, I will be in touch as soon as possible.
Best regards,
Matthew Cascio
Cell (703) 505-8700
16 years, 1 month
Re: Need to do something about Freemedia India.
by gopal das
Thank you Susmith, thank you Siddharth. "Blank media and return envelop"
idea is good. We can make a decision if we make us available for a meeting
in near future at fedora-india irc. A long gap when we do not arrange a
meeting. And I also have some topic to discuss regarding some fedora
training program at schools. I have already started some initiative
regarding this but I like to discuss the matter with other Indian
ambassadors. So please fix up a date for a meeting so that we can made it
more prominent.
Cheers
Gopal Das
On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Siddharth Upmanyu <siddharth(a)techbugs.org>
wrote:
> On 3/16/08, subhodip biswas <subhodip(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 10:51 AM, susmit shannigrahi
> > <thinklinux.ssh(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hi all,
> > >
> > > This is about current condition of Freemedia _India_.
> > > Saying in a line... It is badly messed up.
> > >
> > > Counting from Dec 2007 to March 2008 we have *17* fulfilled request
> > > and ~380 pending requests.
> > > That indicates only one thing, its going to shut down in near
> future.
> > >
> > > So lets do something about it.
> > >
> > > My suggestions are
> > >
> > > 1. Let's gather from contributors how many DVDs are available for
> the
> > > month and accept that many requests only.
> >
> >
> > +1 for that . Loads of pending request discourage users
> >
> >
> > > For that we can give contributors a week's time to declare and then
> > > open the request form.
> > > For a month if there is no contributor, there will be no requests.
> > > However, thats not going to increase the quantity of media.
> > > But this will ensure all requests are fulfilled.
> > >
> > > 2. Lets make posting of Blank Media compulsory for requesting
> Freemedia.
> > > Thats going to cost INR 20-25 at max.
> > > Well, that will create a negative impression no doubt, but the
> current
> > > situation is not bright either.
> >
> >
> > A suggestion may be is to have regional requests as as to break up
> > requests into modules .this actually lowers the load on free media
> > team .
> > Existing fedora ambassadors may help in this .
> >
> >
> > > For those who genuinely want to use Fedora but don't have that much
> > > bandwidth, it may be helpful.
> > >
> > >
> > > Any other suggestions?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Regards,
> > > Susmit.
> > >
> > > =============================================
> > > ssh
> > > 0x86DD170A
> > > http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/SusmitShannigrahi
> > > =============================================
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Regards
> > Subhodip Biswas
> >
> > GPG key : FAEA34AB
> > Server : pgp.mit.edu
> > http://subhodipbiswas.wordpress.com
> > http:/www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/SubhodipBiswas
> >
> >
> > --
> > Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> > Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
> >
>
> The Most obvious problem is contribution... we have very less active
> India Ambassadors and there appears no real solution in near future...
> as it is initiated.. to send a blank media .. should be an option not
> a requirement (my view) ..
>
> as i see it we first need a saparate freemedia request form where we
> can put proper information and restrictions.. i can work like this :
> 1. in the last week of every month we (India Ambassadors) decide on
> freemedia capacity
> 2. when the form open the decided number of requests are allowed .
> 3. when the limit is reached .. the users are given option to send a
> blank media with return envelop to get the Fedora Media
>
> Regards
> Siddharth
>
> --
> Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
> Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>
16 years, 1 month
GPL compliance
by Paul W. Frields
Giving out CDs/DVDs
--------------------
The Fedora Project Board wants our project to remain in
compliance with Free and Open Source Software licenses. We also
want to make sure our Ambassadors are properly following those
licenses when they distribute Fedora. By making sure we are
meeting our obligations under these licenses, we protect Fedora
and all its contributors, including you, our Ambassadors.
The Board asks you to do the following at events where
you hand out CDs or DVDs of Fedora:
1) Let people know that source code for everything on the
CDs/DVDs is available for download from fedoraproject.org.
Place at least a simple piece of paper on the table at the
booth, which states:
Source Code available on http://fedoraproject.org. Physical
media with source code available upon request.
2) Bring blank CDs, a computer with a CD burner, and a copy of
the SRPMS directory matching the Fedora release for which
you're handing out media.
Encourage anyone who asks for the source code to download it
from fedoraproject.org. If someone insists, burn them CDs
containing the source code. You will probably not need to do
this often, but this step is necessary to comply with the
licenses.
http://domsch.com/linux/fedora/fedora-8-livecd-srpms.txt
contains the list of SRPMS corresponding to the packages on
the Fedora 8 i686 and x86_64 Live images. Use whichever tools
you like to download and burn those to media.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, and thank you for
supporting Fedora!
Reasons Why This is Important
-----------------------------
The Fedora Project distributes its software under terms of each
of the licenses, including the GNU General Public License,
version 2. These licenses often have a requirement, such as in
GPLv2 paragraph 3, to make the "corresponding source code"
available to recipients of binary code. The Fedora Project
publishes the binaries, and source code, on the same web sites
for download. By that definition, the Fedora Project distributes
under paragraph 3(a). Refer also to:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Distribution
When Ambassadors hand out CDs and DVDs at events, they need to be
able to give recipients the corresponding source code on physical
media. One way to do this is to produce (or be ready to burn
on-site) a few CDs with the source code, as downloaded from
fedoraproject.org. At events, you could post a sign such as:
Source Code available on http://fedoraproject.org. CDs with
source code available upon request.
Now, if someone at the show asks, you can encourage them to download the
code themselves (and become a contributor to Fedora). If they insist on
getting source code on physical media, then provide them with CDs with
the source code. This is an additional bit of work on the part of our
Ambassadors, but it protects both the Ambassadors, and the Fedora
Project, from any undue criticism and future obligation under these
licenses.
Matt Domsch has started a project on fedorahosted.org, called
'correspondingsource'. The goal of 'correspondingsource' is to
make it easy to get the Source RPMs for any binary bits that may
be on any Fedora media. This facility would allow the Fedora
Project to start relying upon GPLv2 paragraph 3(b). GPLv2
paragraph 3(b) requires us to make the source code available for
at least three (3) years (from the last date anyone hands out a CD/DVD -
so quite a long time). This capability is not in place today -
the code is in the Fedora Package Source Code Control
system (currently CVS), but we don't hang on to the built SRPMS
indefinitely, nor do we have a way to easily generate an ISO
image with SRPMS on it.
Matt would welcome help with this project, and the Board
encourages Fedora contributors to get involved to help ease any
burden on the community.
Signed,
The Fedora Project Board
Paul W. Frields, Chair
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
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http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
16 years, 1 month