Agenda

  • Financials
  • Board Elections
  • Secretary
  • Legal Affairs
  • Communication Coordinator
  • Drupal Project Legal Affairs
  • Infrastructure Manager
  • Fundraiser
  • Event Coordinator
  • Press Release
  • SFLC Spokesperson to DrupalCon
  • Fund Drupal Association Meeting at Drupalcon
  • Discussion around drupal.org redesign, budgets
  • Drupal.org Redesign
  • Budget

Attendance

Board members in attendance:

  • Bert Boerland
  • Dries Buytaert
  • Angela Byron
  • Jeff Eaton
  • Larry Garfield
  • Gerhard Killesreiter
  • Dries Knapen
  • Kieran Lal
  • Jacob Redding

All board members were in attendance, so the Board is able to make valid/legally binding decisions.

Financials

DriesK began by giving an update on financial changes since the General Assembly on January 15, 2008.

Not much has changed, but there were quite a few new memberships for a total of around USD $4,000 since the last financial update.

This does not include fundraising efforts around Drupalcon Boston, which has separate accounting. After Drupalcon Boston, we'll know whether this will result in a net loss or a net gain.

Board Elections

Apart from Dries Buytaert (President) and Dries Knapen (Treasurer), all other board positions are up for re-election this term. Each board member was asked to prepare a paragraph in advance to describe what their desired position was and why they felt they were the best person for the job. Members were able to ask questions of each candidate before and/or during the vote.

Angela Byron, Secretary

I am applying for the position of Secretary. I held this position throughout the latter half of 2007, and my peers have had good things to say about my notes' thoroughness and their timeliness. I would like to continue this in 2008-2009.

Vote: Do we accept Angela Byron as the Secretary?
Status: ACCEPTED (8 yes, 0 no, 1 abstain)

Bert Boerland, Drupal Association Legal Affairs

Bert Boerland, Legal Office, "external affairs" Prime contact and responsible for dealing all with all legal affairs that are non GPL/code related. These assets include amongst others trademarks, copyright on images or handbooks, domain names and hardware. Apart from protecting our current assets, I see it as a task to extend our assets by for example having more trademarks or have them in more countries.

Vote: Do we accept Bert Boerland as the Legal Office, "external affairs" ?
Status: ACCEPTED (8 yes, 0 no, 1 abstain)

Jeff Eaton, Communications Coordinator

I'm applying for the position of Communications Coordinator. It would entail managing the dissemination of Association positions, news and announcements to the Drupal community and the CMS/web development community. Also, coordinating Association press statements/responses to important events as necessary.

Vote: Do we accept Jeff Eaton as Communications Coordinator?
Status: ACCEPTED (8 yes, 0 no, 1 abstain)

Larry Garfield, Drupal Project Legal Affairs

I am applying for the position of Project Legal Affairs Director. It would involve legal matters relating to the Drupal Project itself, including ensuring that the Drupal project is in compliance with relevant licensing conditions, that its license is not violated, and establishing long-term strategy for Drupal licensing. Several members asked for further clarification on the difference between Bert and Larry's proposed roles. After some discussion back and forth, the division was essentially decided as:

  • Larry handles legal issues related to the Drupal Project (e.g., code licensing)
  • Bert handles legal issues related to the Drupal Association (e.g., trademarks).

Vote: Do we accept Larry Garfield as Project Legal Affairs Director?
Status: ACCEPTED (8 yes, 0 no, 1 abstain)

Gerhard Killesreiter, Infrastructure Manager

I want to continue to be the infrastructure manager. that means I coordinate the running od *.d.o with OSUOSL (and the board).

Vote: Do we accept Gerhard Killesreiter as Infrastructure Manager?
Status: ACCEPTED (9 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain)

Kieran Lal, Fundraiser

I am applying for Director of fund raising. I am proposing my responsibilities will be as follows:
* Help the association identify it's top priorities.
* Work with communications director to articulate those priorities.
* Work with treasurer team and infrastructure team to build fundraising operations and infrastructure.
* Design and implement fund raising strategy to achieve it's priorities.
* P.S. I've helped to raise ~$140 000 for the association and it's partners in the last 50 days, and I am just getting started.

Larry Garfield asked a follow-up question about how helping the Association to identify priorities related to the goal of fundraising. Kieran responded that fundraising depends directly on informing people what the money they're being asked for is being raised for.

Vote: Do we accept Kieran Lal as Fundraiser?
Status: ACCEPTED (9 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain)

Jacob Redding: Event Coordinator

I would work with as well as encourage local meetup organizers, drupalcamp organizers, etc. to ensure they had the tools and information necessary to run their meetup/camp/jam/insert-cool-name-here.

Larry Garfield asked for clarification on whether or not DrupalCon or other similar "mega" events fell under Jacob's purview. Jacob responded that he could help take proposals, organize a team, and coordinate with people to get things kicked off, but would not be able to dedicate full-time hours to this task.

Vote: Do we accept Jacob Redding as Event Coordinator?
Status: ACCEPTED (9 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain)

Drupal 6 Press Release

Dries Buytaert asked for a budget of $500 USD to promote the Drupal 6 release, $350 for a Drupal 6 press release, and the remaining $150 to act as a buffer. He also stated that next time, we should try to generate a lot more marketing for major releases and not be afraid to invest money in this.

Dries Knapen asked about our previous decision to not vote on individual expenses such as this, and instead to let them fall under members' respective budgets. Dries Buytaert pointed out that we do not yet have budgets defined, but given the imminent release of Drupal 6, this needs to be voted on immediately.

Jeff Eaton and Larry Garfield voiced concerns over the "next time" portion of the statement, and requested that further discussion be held about the goals of future efforts.

Vote: Do we want to spend up to $500 USD on a Drupal 6 press release?
Status: ACCEPTED (9 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain)

SFLC Spokesperson to DrupalCon

Larry Garfield requested a a specific amount of money to get James Vasile (our spokesperson and lawyer at the SFLC) to DrupalCon Boston.

Gerhard Killesreiter brought up again the subject of budgets, voicing concerns about the Board voting on each individual expense, and recommended that instead Larry be given a legal budget from which to pay for James's travel, as well as other expenses. Since there was no difference from a cashflow perspective, others agreed. The vote was amended accordingly.

Vote: do we want to pay for James Vasile's trip and let Larry work out the budget and logistics in the interest of the best interest of the Drupal Association?
Status: ACCEPTED (9 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain)

Fund Drupal Association Meeting at Drupalcon

Dries Buytaert requested money to be paid for food, drinks, etc. to facilitate a Drupal Association meeting for all members present at Drupalcon Boston from 6pm - 10pm on Wednesday, March 5, 2008.

Angela Byron asked for clarification on approximately how much money would be allocated. Dries estimated that at 30 USD * 20 persons or so it would be not more than $1,000 USD. Kieran Lal also brought up that due to recent fundraising efforts, it was entirely possible that the cost may be absorbed by Drupalcon profits. Khalid also offered to pay for his own share.

Vote: Do we want the Drupal Association to pay for dinner during the Drupal Association meeting at DrupalCon?
Status: ACCEPTED (9 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain)

Discussion around drupal.org redesign, budgets

The meeting was the final voting item, so the remainder of the time (approximately 45 minutes) was allocated to discussing the drupal.org redesign and the forthcoming budget proposals.

Drupal.org Redesign

The Drupal.org redesign was identified by the larger Drupal community as the #1 priority that they wished for the Drupal Association to have. Criticisms of the site range from the design feeling out-dated, to it not being a proper "showcase" site of what Drupal can do, to certain parts having just being neglected and left untouched for years.

There are essentially two different philosophies regarding the drupal.org redesign:

  • Top-down: Start by defining overall goals of the re-design, then start an RFP process with bids to hire a UX/IA firm to handle the overall site structure, as well as a design firm to handle the re-branding. Implementation will follow a solid plan, wireframes, and so on. The timeline for a solid top-down approach is probably 6 months or more.
  • Bottom-up: Start with the implementation things we know need fixing, and work within the community to start fixing them, starting now. Attempt to break down gargantuan goals like "Make the theme downloads section suck less" into more discrete tasks that can be taken on by eager and able individuals within the community who want to help, but need to be given a place to start.

It was generally agreed that certain things work well in a community-driven, bottom-up approach (fixing module bugs) and certain things clearly don't (creating overall navigational structure of the site). Some could fall into the middle; for example, paying for professional wireframes, but unleashing the actual design job to the community in the form of a competition, as Slashdot did. Another option is hiring these outside firms for specific questions that our community can't answer from within its own collective intelligence, but still handling the Drupal.org redesign project "in-house," since we all know better than anyone what our needs are and what our current problems are.

We also need to be very careful about the community implications of choosing one firm over another for the redesign.

In terms of funding, Kieran brought up that the money we're earning from affiliates could become an extremely viable option, given the preliminary success (so far, it has earned more in two weeks than Google's AdSense in three months, and Drupal requires more robust hosting than WordPress so we can target different, more expensive hosts).

The biggest barrier to the drupal.org redesign is that no one as yet within the Association has stepped up to "own" this critical piece. Whether we go with an outside firm for IA/design or even hire a d.o redesign-specific project manager, at the end of the day we still need someone "on staff" to help coordinate and monitor these efforts.

Further discussion will be taken to the mailing list.

Budget

Jacob Redding asked whether, when defining a budget, a single figure should be provided, or a set of figures (to cover good times, bad times, etc.). Dries Buytaert responded that a realistic budget should be proposed based on what you'd actually like to spend to accomplish your goals for the year, but to keep bad times in mind as things can come up throughout the year which might reduce a given budget.

Angela Byron asked whether not we could ask for budget allocations outside of our "official" board roles; e.g. the Secretary asking for funds related to community growth-related items (contests, etc.). Dries Buytaert responded that this was perfectly fine, and in fact the more people stepping up to take responsibility for things, the better.