Some of these issues have already been mentioned on this list recently,
but I wanted to summarize the items on our agenda for the board meeting
this weekend, Jan. 9-11, in San Francisco. These include:
*a recap of the fundraiser (this will obviously be very preliminary,
since the "thank you" portion is still running)
*more generally, a review of the overall financial situation
*review of the various existing committee structures
*the proposed process for discussing and voting on migration from GFDL
to CC-BY-SA
*preliminary discussions on developing a long-term plan for the organization
*steps toward filling the remaining appointed board seats, including
meeting with candidates
As usual, there will also be miscellaneous housekeeping matters like new
chapters, but those are the main topics. The committee system ties into
the question of the ombudsman commission as I mentioned before, but
that's just one example. In general, you could say we're looking to make
changes that will rationalize the system with how the foundation
actually works. Things that currently work well we would likely leave
mostly alone, but there will probably be changes where things aren't
working.
Some of you may be wondering about the long-term plan and what that will
entail. I don't have a lot of specifics right now because we're just at
the beginning stage, but I thought it was important to have this
initiative start out with the board. But I also intend for this to
develop by involving the broader community - editors, staff, supporters,
interested observers - so a plan will itself take some time, and there
will be many opportunities for input. And for some of the considerations
we will no doubt look at in planning, I'm sure you could find ideas in
some of the thoughts Florence occasionally sent out while she was chair.
The license migration will be up for discussion in the very near future.
You might consider that process a trial run for what we hope to do in
working with the community during the planning process. I definitely
encourage people to think carefully about these issues and get involved
in the discussion.
--Michael Snow