Index
Links: 2017 - All years
- Original The Apache Software Foundation
Board of Directors Meeting Agenda
June 15, 2017
1. Call to order
The meeting was scheduled for 1:30pm (Eastern) and began at 1:38
when a sufficient attendance to constitute a quorum was
recognized by the Chairman. The meeting was held in person at Capital
One's offices in Mclean, VA.
2. Roll Call
Directors Present:
Rich Bowen
Shane Curcuru
Bertrand Delacretaz
Ted Dunning
Jim Jagielski
Chris Mattmann
Brett Porter
Phil Steitz
Mark Thomas
Executive Officers Present:
Sam Ruby
Ross Gardler
Craig L Russell
Kevin A. McGrail
Guests:
Sally Khudairi (dial in)
Tom Pappas
Greg Stein
Tim Ellison
Chris Schultz
3. Schedule: 13:30 - 15:15
Apache in 5 years
- what will be different, what must be the same?
- Apache's culture: building & maintaining the connection with
our projects
Making it happen
- Managing growth: what will this mean for operation needs &
project acceptance?
- Fundraising: now, next, future
4. Executive Session
Notes were sent via email to members of the board.
5. Discussion Items
A. Apache in 5 years
Ross: Expect to see growth greater than now. e.g. Microsoft sees
the importance of open source. The Linux Foundation, the Eclipse
Foundation, and Apache all face challenges.
Phil: Demand for Apache products will continue. We need to
maintain what we are doing. The bigger problem is managing
what we are doing. We still need to absorb the growth we have
already seen.
Rich: The challenge is to find the next generation of people
to keep the organization running as it has been.
Ross: We see today the github generation. Young people think
Apache is old-fashioned.
Jim: The Linux Foundation is driving what people think of as
open source. We need to teach our members and outsiders who
we are. We need to take our leadership position seriously.
Phil: We need to start thinking about the context of what
we accept into Apache. The industry cannot survive on instant
gratification. Apache strength is in collaboration. We should
not try to attract people based on immediate gratification.
Rather, we should try to attract engineers who "get it".
Ross: We should change expectations of new members. For example,
don't just vote +1 if you're not willing to help. And members
should vote or leave.
Kevin: Should we consider charging a membership fee to discourage
non-participants?
Ted: The incubator is where we should instill values. It takes
three or so releases before most projects "get it". Incubation
should be six months to a year.
Shane: How do we get projects to understand what Apache is?
We need both members and podlings to understand.
Phil: Should we consider dividing the membership? Roy's advice
is to include everyone in membership who "has a stake" in the
foundation by contributing. But not all members contribute to
the ongoing foundation operations, just to their own projects.
So we now have a big growth in membership.
Chris: The symptom is a lot of inactive members.
Ross: One problem is that members are not expected to do anything.
They show up at the incubator and mentor projects without
understanding themselves what Apache is. At this point we
probably don't even know most of the proposed members.
Tom: How do we get new members to successfully onboard? Should
we make new members attend a webinar?
Shane: We do need to set expectations for new members. It's
obviously not enough just to send them email with links.
Jim: We are failing to instill our values into people during
the incubation process.
Bertrand: We could ask members to actively mentor existing
projects, not just wait until there is some crisis.
Brett: We cannot make expectations equal requirements.
Ted: Perhaps we should charge the IPMC with after-graduation
mentoring.
Rich: We tried to have Community Development take that task and
got pushback.
Jim: The incubator is an experiment that has failed to produce
projects that really get "The Apache Way".
Possible Action Items:
Develop a new member onboarding process with expectations
Provide active mentoring for new projects
B. Managing growth
Greg: We will need to forecast resource requirements for projects.
Maven tried at one point to keep a copy of every project, but
infra did not have resources for that. Maven needs to request
resources from the board.
Ross, Kevin: This might be an opportunity for directed sponsorship.
A PMC needs to ask for this; the board has already approved the
concept.
Greg: A large number of INFRA tickets are for new podlings.
Graduating projects also creates work. Infra is working on reducing
technical debt, primarily reducing owned hardware.
There is some work migrating projects to the Attic.
The plan is to reduce owned hardware and migrating to the cloud.
We expect automation of tasks related to new podlings and TLPs
to be in place within three years.
The current spend is $5K per project per year, but expect this
to drop a bit in the future.
Sam: Operations prefers bottom-up forecasting but the board
wants to do top-down forecasts.
Possible Action Items:
Communicate the option for directed sponsorships to PMCs
C. Fundraising plans
Including review re: Proposal to License Assets of the Foundation
Kevin: You have all seen the proposal to license assets of the
foundation to a for-profit corporation which would give us
income for continued operations. We are prepared to update it
based on feedback from the board and outside counsel. The proposal
is a compromise between charity and business.
Brett: One issue is that vendor neutrality is key to how Apache
operates, and we don't want to compete with businesses. Rather,
we create opportunities for businesses to exist.
Kevin: Competitors can all work on the same Apache projects.
Apache is vendor-neutral but we think the new corporation could
compete with others.
Ted: If there is money to be made, this implies that a third
party cannot compete with Apache. We are concerned about Apache
competing with our supporters.
Phil: Apache's core principle is non-compete. We provide an open
platform for developing projects.
Ross: This proposal will negatively affect our current sponsors.
Jim: We have tried to avoid blessing any third party with the
Apache brand.
Phil: Transparency is a showstopper. Using the Apache brand while
Apache did not produce the product violates transparency.
Ted: If the proposed corporation really only takes marginal
business (that others don't want) then is there really a business
opportunity for the proposed corporation?
Kevin: Is there anything in the proposal that can be changed
in order to make it more acceptable?
Ross/Phil/Jim/Brett: Probably not.
Ross: A PMC could develop training materials using "directed
sponsorship" funding, and the resulting materials would be
available to anyone.
D. Follow up plans
Kevin: Sponsorship of Apache is a bargain. We have not changed
sponsorship fees in 15 years. Time to increase them.
Brett: We should try to improve the sponsorship renewal process.
Bertrand: One thing to look at is to take Travel Assistance out
of the budget and have it be strictly sponsored.
Kevin: Fundraising is looking at having a "sponsorship drive".
Sally: The "Apache Ambassador" program has started. This program
gives sponsors an "executive" contact within Apache. It looks like
this program is adequately staffed at the moment. The ambassadors
should make regular contact with our sponsors.
Possible Action Items:
Increase sponsorship fees after giving current sponsors the
opportunity to renew at current levels
Take TAC out of budget and make it a sponsored project
Improve sponsor renewal process
6. New Business
7. Announcements
8. Adjournment
Adjourned at 5:00pm (Eastern)
------------------------------------------------------
End of agenda for the June 15, 2017 board meeting.
Index