20:00 < schultmc> *GAVEL*
20:00 < schultmc> [item 1, Opening]
20:00 < schultmc> Welcome to today's Software in the Public Interest Board Meeting, which 
20:00 < schultmc> is now called to order. Today's agenda can be found on the web at: 
20:00 < schultmc> https://www.spi-inc.org/meetings/agendas/2024/2024-09-09/
20:00 < schultmc> [item 2, Roll Call]
20:00 < schultmc> Directors, please state your name
20:00 < schultmc> Guests, please /msg your names to zv if you wish your attendance to be
20:00 < schultmc> recorded in the minutes of this meeting.
20:00 < jesusalva> Jonatas L. Nogueira
20:00 < schultmc> .
20:00 < fungi> Jeremy Stanley
20:00 < schultmc> zv, do we have any regrets?
20:00 < schultmc> .
20:00 < schultmc> Michael Schultheiss
20:00 < milan> Milan Kupcevic
20:01 < fsf> Forrest Fleming
20:02 < schultmc> We need at least one more board member present to make quorum
20:02 < zv> Zach van Rijn
20:02 < zv> regrets from Joe
20:03 < schultmc> Thank you. Other board members can join if they're available but since we're quorate, we can move on.
20:03 < schultmc> [item 3, President's Report]
20:03 < schultmc> Martin, Héctor and I have been working with our auditor to get our 2023
20:03 < schultmc> financial statements audited. We are also working with the auditing firm
20:03 < schultmc> on filing our New York State and Federal annual filings. We have received
20:03 < schultmc> a 6 month extension for the time to file and are confident the filings will
20:03 < schultmc> be completed by the November 15, 2024 deadline.
20:03 < schultmc> .
20:03 < schultmc> I would again like to thank Stephen Frost for his many years of dedication
20:03 < schultmc> to SPI. Should his schedule permit, I would welcome him rejoining the SPI
20:03 < schultmc> board if a position opens in the future.
20:03 < schultmc> .
20:03 < schultmc> I would also like to welcome Katie McMillan to the SPI board. I had the
20:03 < schultmc> pleasure of meeting Ms. McMillan several years ago and look forward to
20:03 < schultmc> have her input on the SPI board.
20:03 < schultmc> .
20:03 < schultmc> jesusalva, do you have anything you would like to add?
20:03 < schultmc> </done>
20:03 < jesusalva> SPI contract's with Célestin was renewed until December 2025.
20:03 < jesusalva> An issue on Request Tracker caused almost 10,000 spam tickets to be opened and closed, it's now mitigated but if anyone sent a request and haven't heard back from it, feel free to bump the message.
20:03 < jesusalva> I also want to thank to Jeremy Stanley for his continued help handling prospective projects correspondence and membership applications.
20:03 < jesusalva> </done>
20:04 < schultmc> [item 4, Treasurer's Report]
20:05 < jesusalva> zumbi: ping
20:05 < schultmc> zumbi is unavailable. As I understand it, payments continue to be processed.
20:05 < schultmc> [item 5, Secretary's report]
20:05 < schultmc> zv?
20:05 < zv> I am resuming research and planning on the F2F meeting after some delays and changing circumstances. Please let me know how else I may assist the Board; I remain available broadly to help with housekeeping.
20:05 < zv> .
20:06 < schultmc> [item 6, Outstanding minutes]
20:06 < schultmc> The minutes for the 2024-08-12 meeting require approval.
20:06 < schultmc> They can be found at 
20:06 < zumbi> Héctor Orón Martínez (apologies for arriving late)
20:06 < schultmc> https://www.spi-inc.org/meetings/minutes/2024/2024-08-12/ 
20:07 < zumbi> I'll send Treasurer's Report to secretary in the upcoming days, FTR
20:07 < schultmc> Thank you
20:07 < zv> zumbi: thank you
20:07 < fsf> Voting started, 7 people (schultmc,fsf,zv,jesusalva,fungi,milan,zumbi) allowed to vote on Meeting minutes for Monday 2024-08-12. - You may vote yes/no/abstain only, type !vote $yourchoice now.
20:07 < fsf> !vote abstain
20:07 < jesusalva> !vote yes
20:07 < schultmc> !vote yes
20:07 < zv> !vote yes
20:07 < milan> !vote yes
20:07 < zumbi> !vote yes
20:07 < fungi> !vote yes
20:07 < fsf> Current voting results for "Meeting minutes for Monday 2024-08-12": Yes: 6, No: 0, Abstain: 1, Missing: 0 ()
20:07 < fsf> Voting for "Meeting minutes for Monday 2024-08-12" closed.
20:07 < schultmc> [item 7, Items up for discussion]
20:07 < schultmc> [item 7.1 Opening a New Contractor Position]
20:07 < schultmc> jesusalva?
20:07 < jesusalva> First I want to make an errata that I wrote in the PDF "doesn't require a board vote". I meant "doesn't require a board resolution", it still needs SPI board approval on this meeting to happen.
20:07 < jesusalva> I consulted our existing contractors about their availability, but do note that according to my estimate, SPI can currently afford only half of their hourly rate for this.
20:07 < jesusalva> While I think SPI stands to benefit more from bringing fresh blood in, existing contractors and former directors and officers can apply as well.
20:08 < jesusalva> It's possible that no one shows up, but I think it is still justified for SPI to take this action. If no one shows up, patience, we can always try again after securing more funding.
20:08 < jesusalva> The idea is not to replace any existing contractor, and the tasks are largely those no contractor does (often overlooked) and of a hopefully simpler nature (to justify the smaller payment terms).
20:08 < jesusalva> The contract I submitted to vote is only for three months - if we cannot attain our objectives or the efficiency ends up to be lacking, we're not required to renew it.
20:08 < jesusalva> The list of all tasks to be performed, paying rate, and schedule for this contraction are on the PDF attached by email. If approved, I'll post the PDF either on SPI website or a mailing list.
20:08 < jesusalva> For now, it can be seen in https://litter.catbox.moe/ux6vgw.pdf
20:08 < jesusalva> But the above version lacks the executive summary which was sent by email. I'm available to answer any questions the directors may have.
20:08 < jesusalva> </done>
20:11 < zumbi> I have no questions right now.
20:11 < zumbi> It looks fine to me as well.
20:12 < fungi> i do think it's worth pointing out the false assumption that the number of billable hours it takes to perform these tasks is constant, and that a new contractor with no history will do them just as fast as our existing contractors with established contacts and working knowledge of the organization
20:12 < schultmc> No questions from me. I look forward to reviewing any applications we may receive and think this is a good direction to head in if we find a qualified candidate.
20:13 < fungi> that said, i have no objections nor questions
20:14 < fsf> Thanks for putting this together jesusalva!
20:15 < zv> from my view, some or most of these tasks fall under what I would normally view as my "job" here, and I am happy to do these...it has not been clear whose responsibility these tasks have been, nor have I been as proactive on some of these matters as I could be, however my opinion is that this proposal is throwing money at a problem that is not well defined
20:15 < zv> would a contractor be helpful, yes, most certainly
20:15 < zv> but it may be needlessly wasteful
20:17 < jesusalva> Well, one could also argue all of Martin's tasks are "zumbi's job", no?
20:17 < jesusalva> Our officers are volunteers, so their time comes for free, but is limited. I believe a contractor helps us to manage better officers time.
20:18 < jesusalva> The "free" from officer time is only in payment, not in actual worth ;-)
20:20 < zv> no comment re Martin or zumbi. I tend towards not hiring contractors if other avenues are not fully explored. having a list of articulated tasks is something we can do better as an org, and this document captures some of these tasks nicely.
20:20 < zv> my position as of this moment is that this is not ready for a vote today but is a valuable contribution.
20:21 < jesusalva> Personally I feel SPI is over-reliant on volunteer time to get its tasks done, and this has a visible negative impact on our associated projects whenever they need something done by SPI.
20:22 < zv> I agree with your assessment of the symptoms I just disagree with the cause/treatment. In my opinion the issue is cultural, not a lack of available time. Maybe they are the same thing, I can't say for sure.
20:25 < jesusalva> I don't think I have anything else to say. I disagree with you knowing your arguments, and you disagree with me knowing my arguments. I don't know the board's opinion on this, but I'll respect Board's decision.
20:25 < jesusalva> Assuming the board rejects my proposal, do you have an alternative course of action?
20:27 < zv> My recommendation would be to first discuss and articulate a list of tasks that need to happen in the SPI household, identifying as many points of friction as we can (in addition to those that we're already aware of and working on), and figure out who can or should be responsible for each of these.
20:27 < zumbi> I believe zv needs more time to evaluate the proposal, and he might be willing to take those tasks in timely manner. I think it would be fine if we get back to this next month or the following and check how things are going. Some metrics would be nice to keep track of things.
20:28 < fsf> +1 to that. Also +1 to attempting to delegate internally. In places where lack of internal clarity is the problem, let's address that before spending money. And if it turns out that we don't internally have the resources, then we can hire external people
20:28 < jesusalva> I mean, I started working on this four or five months ago, so I'm confident that it assesses well the task list, but I'm fine with zumbi's proposal.
20:28 < fungi> from a budget perspective, if we have funds for an additional 30 hours at half the rate of our current contractors, then we have funds for 15 additional hours from one of our current contractors. i'd be interested to know whether they think they could perform those added tasks with an additional 15 hours
20:29 < zv> I share (and assume others do as well) your frustration that things here do not happen quickly, which led to the Communications Committee
20:30 < zv> I would rather solve the problem of first identifying and then delegating tasks to the most-efficient or most-capable parties before bringing on a new contractor.
20:30 < jesusalva> (That actually reminds me an AOB point I wanted to bring out later: Ticket 15489 arrived via board queue, but i have no idea which queue it belongs to.)
20:30 < zv> The final thing I'll say on the matter (for now) is to reiterate my interest and availability to handle many of these.
20:32 < schultmc> Thank you for the productive discussion - I'm fine with postponing this proposal until next month while we determine whether we can reprioritize existing resources.
20:32 < schultmc> [item 8, Any other business]
20:32 < schultmc> Anything to discuss?
20:32 < jesusalva> Yes
20:32 < jesusalva> The first I said a few seconds ago: Ticket 15489 arrived via board queue, but i have no idea which queue it belongs to. It's about payout from itch.io
20:32 < jesusalva> I'm unsure if this is treasurer or sysadmin queue.
20:33 < jesusalva> (I'm only sure that if I leave it at board queue, it'll never get done)
20:33 < schultmc> I suggest moving it to treasurer-incoming or treasurer-ar
20:33 < zumbi> yes, move it to treasurer queue
20:33 < schultmc> I'm not sure who handled the previous payout but it seems more treasury related than explicitly board related
20:34 < jesusalva> Alright, I'll do that. Second is that Perdu is planning to deactivate sfrost@ email, but noticed Chestek sent an email there... twelve hours ago or so
20:34 < zumbi> it is actually there in the treasurer-incoming queue
20:34 < jesusalva> zumbi: Yes, I moved it :)
20:35 < jesusalva> I believe it might be a good idea to inform anyone who is supposed to have it (Chestek, Aaron, not sure if anyone else) to use vicepresident@ instead
20:35 < zumbi> can we forward sfrost@ to somewhere sensible that it can be reviewed? i.e. board@
20:35 < jesusalva> zumbi: We can.
20:35 < schultmc> role addresses or RT queues would be better than individual addresses
20:36 < zumbi> or maybe you can fwd sfrost@ to vicepresident@
20:36 < schultmc> given Stephen's long term board membership it may be better to setup a forward rather than terminate the address in the near term
20:37 < jesusalva> I don't disagree, but where would we forward it to? It might also be prudent to let the sender know the message was forwarded though, so they may update their own contact address.
20:37 < schultmc> vicepresident or board@ seems prudent to me although informing senders to update their contacts should definitely be done as well
20:38 < jesusalva> Perdu: Do you think you can resolve that, or do you need more opinion from SPI Board to do this?
20:38 < Perdu> First, FTR, this address receives a lot of email from the Debian's microsoft account
20:39 < Perdu> So what's the conclusion? Redirect to vicepresident@?
20:40 < schultmc> redirect to vicepresident@ seems prudent - jesusalva can redirect further to other board members as needed
20:40 < zumbi> I am personally interested to follow-up on Debian cloud stuff, but we can solve that offline.
20:40 < Perdu> ok, will do
20:40 < zumbi> +1 vicepresident@
20:41 < jesusalva> LGTM. Slightly related, do anyone still have access to SPI's X/Twitter account?
20:41 < schultmc> I don't think I ever had access - iirc the header on that account lists who had access
20:42 < schultmc> zobel, Snow-Man and a third former board member I don't recall off hand
20:42 < zumbi> tpot maybe
20:43 < schultmc> yes
20:43 < schultmc> Twitter account of Software in the Public Interest, run by 
20:43 < schultmc> @zobelhelas
20:43 < schultmc> , 
20:43 < schultmc> @timothypotter
20:43 < schultmc> , 
20:43 < schultmc> @net_snow
20:44 < jesusalva> Alright. I'll ask Perdu to see if he can recover access to it and add to 1password. My last AOB is mostly informative.
20:44 < jesusalva> Our legal counsel advised us to revise our current Associated Project Framework to clarify the use of some legal terms and to ensure compliance in some minor topics.
20:44 < jesusalva> The current version isn't updated for over twenty years, but the same cannot be said about the laws supporting it.
20:44 < jesusalva> I emailed all SPI directors with my current notes and requested SPI's opinion regarding earmarked donations, but let me know if the board prefers to delegate this to liaisons instead.
20:44 < jesusalva> And on that note: I also noticed several liaisons aren't in spi-projects mailing list and/or aren't SPI members, so I'll already be emailing them individually. Including the APF revision on the message is effortless.
20:44 < schultmc> tpot and Snow-Man would likely be easier to get ahold of if needed
20:45  * jesusalva is finally done with AOB for now
20:45 < schultmc> updating our framework to meet legal and accounting advice (and/or laws) is definitely prudent
20:45 < waldi> Perdu: please change the owner of "debian-cloud-accounts@spi-inc.org". sfrost is currently owner
20:45 < schultmc> Anyone else have any further AOB?
20:45 < waldi> noone really needs to receive those email
20:46 < zv> nothing from me.
20:46 < milan> nothing here
20:47 < schultmc> [item 9, Next board meeting]
20:47 < schultmc> The next board meeting is scheduled for: October 14, 2024 at 2000 UTC.
20:47 < schultmc> Any objections?
20:47 < zumbi> Perdu: I support waldi's request
20:47 < schultmc> Works for me
20:47 < milan> works for me
20:47 < fungi> sounds good to me, thanks!
20:47 < jesusalva> Should work for me
20:47 < schultmc> *GAVEL*