X.Org BoD meeting minutes 2015-07-23

[Bart Massey]

Luc wrote:
> Let's not extend the oligopoly on the technical side to the .org as well.

The "oligopoly" on the technical side today consists of the people willing
to actually contribute to X development. It's hardly some kind of grand
cabal. Honestly, I don't think there's any major company in the world that
has the slightest interest in controlling the technical direction of X,
which is perceived as a dying legacy technology as far as I can tell. At
most, they want it to work on some of their hardware.

However, the state of technical development doesn't really matter. The
X.Org Foundation is at this point a purely service organization. As a
matter of policy, the Board does not influence the technical direction of
X. The Board's activities are mainly dealing with funds management and
legal details, running conferences and making EVoC work. It's kind of
terrible work that I am not particularly good at, which is why I finally
got frustrated with it and moved on: I am overwhelmingly grateful to those
who keep at it year after year. As far as I'm concerned, *anyone* who wants
a piece of that should be encouraged to apply, and any restrictions we have
on ability to serve should be hardcore grounded in desperate need. I see no
desperate need for a restriction here: the restriction that the Members
approve of a candidate by popular vote should be sufficient. I will happily
vote for the Board's proposed change, and would just as happily vote for
the change they are not proposing that would eliminate corporate membership
limits altogether. I encourage others to do likewise.

On Thu, Aug 6, 2015 at 6:17 AM Luc Verhaegen <libv at skynet.be> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 01:43:50PM +1000, Peter Hutterer wrote:
> > These are the meeting minutes the X.Org Board of Directors [1] meeting.
> > Minutes and IRC logs are published on the wiki [2, 3].
> >
> > The X.Org board meets every two weeks on Thu/Fri (depending on your
> > timezone) in the #xf-bod IRC channel on irc.oftc.net. Please refer to
> the
> > X.Org Google calendar [3] for time and date of the next meeting.
> >
> > For any issues that need to come to the attention of the board please
> email
> > me or board at foundation.x.org and we will add it to the agenda for the
> next
> > meeting.
> >
> > [1] http://wiki.x.org/wiki/BoardOfDirectors
> > [2] http://wiki.x.org/wiki/BoardOfDirectors/MeetingSummaries
> > [3] http://www.x.org/wiki/BoardOfDirectors/IrcLogs
> > [4]
> >
> https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=nl1n1fmvu091eqh35ldqspar80@group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Australia/Brisbane
> >
> > == Disclaimer ==
> > Best efforts are made to ensure the below is accurate and valid. However,
> > errors sometimes happen. If any errors or omissions are found, please
> bring
> > them to my or the board's attention.
> >
> > == Attendees ==
> > Present:
> >     Peter Hutterer, Rob Clark, Martin Peres, Alex Deucher
> >     Daniel Vetter, Matt Dew
> >
> > Absent:
> >     Egbert Eich, Keith Packard
> >
> > == Summary ==
> >
> > == Items discussed ==
> > ITEM: bylaw changes
> > Couple of minor changes discussed to the bylaws. We currently have a
> maximum
> > of 2 board members from the same company, this has on a few occasions in
> the
> > past been too small. Option to change it to 3 discussed (5 yay 1 nay),
> we'll
> > discuss again when Keith/Egbert are back.
> > This limit was put in place when companies had more influence on X.Org's
> > (technical) direction than now, it is unlikely to be an issue now
> > ACTIONS: Discuss/revote when Keith and Egbert are bck
> > STATUS: Pending
>
> There is enough diversity in the Xorg community that this should not be
> a problem. Perhaps the election committee should be more active in
> pursuing potential candidates. I suggest several almost every year (i
> seem to be the only one who even bothers to do so), only this year it
> actually worked as Egbert actively went and poked those that i had
> suggested.
>
> Perhaps it is healthy to only allow the intels and redhats of this world
> to have 2 seats on the board. Let's not extend the oligopoly on the
> technical side to the .org as well. Yes, i clearly disagree with the
> historical view and especially the very weakly worded supposed current
> situation.
>
> Luc Verhaegen.
> _______________________________________________
> members at foundation.x.org: X.Org Foundation Members
> Archives: http://foundation.x.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/members
> Info: http://foundation.x.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/members
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://foundation.x.org/archives/members/attachments/20150806/d93ec41e/attachment.htm>