TAB Meeting, March 2

The minutes of TAB meetings are provided for informational purposes only. Discussions and decisions described in the minutes should not be interpreted as official or definitive TAB or OSDL policy. While efforts are made to ensure their accuracy and completeness, we regret we cannot guarantee that they are. If you have corrections or additions, please contact tech-board at lists.osdl.org

Agenda:

1.Status of Tech Writer Fellowship (really just did Bill Von Hagen accept)

2.Status of the OSDL NDA program. It looks like Adaptec is suddenly interested again, plus Greg seems to have a few other interested parties

3.Expanding the TAB to include non kernel community people

4.Any items to raise at the Linux Foundation Board meeting on 8 March

5.What legal counsel can LF provide to an individual community member

Attendees:

Randy, Tom, John, James, Greg, Ted, Chris, Dan Kohn, Matt

Minutes:

Fellowship Fund

Discussed options regarding how we might disperse the Fellowship Funds for the tech writer position.

Dan: Does the TAB feel there is value to having LF hire a kernel programmer/hacker to work on kgdb? Greg has information from Andi Kleen that proposes a set of work. Consensus was “yes,” give it a try.

NDA

Adaptec - the NDA is out for review with outside counsel and is expected to come back by today (March 2). Tom will send a note to the mailing list when negotiation with Adaptec moves forward. Diane Peters also indicated that extending the program to include CPUs is fine. Greg will let LF know if he needs any help.

Expanding Representation on the TAB

It was proposed that the number of seats been expanded and then have certain numbers allocated to specific projects. Is the Kernel Summit the right venue for elections of the entire TAB?

Matt: Raised a concern that TAB representatives should not be targeted as representing specifics projects. This brings in a new level of politics. Better to have expertise represented but everyone should be focused on the greater good of open source.

Chris: We need better definition of needs and requirements.

Matt: We need to look at ways we can help projects that cross barriers, like dbus.

Dan: People view Linux as really the Linux platform that extends beyond the kernel.

James: Even the ones we've identified so far do not cover the entire kernel.

Ted: Maybe representation should be relevant to what The Linux Foundation is focused on. Think about what we are asking the Developer Advisory Council to do.

Dan: We can debate the relative proportions but we should look at other conferences to be nominating pools.

Chris: Maybe we should look at existing foundations that the TAB can interact with to get the right people together at the right time to discuss what issues transcend the stack.

James: KDE and GNOME may not be good candidates because they already have their own foundations. We should look for projects that don't have the resources they need to solve their problems.

Ted: Do we need to put this on hold for six months and let the LF do something and see where it needs help. We will be more helpful if we know what problems we need to solve.

Dan: Agreed with Ted.

James: Consensus is to monitor the situation to see what the best course of action is.

Legal Counsel

Greg: Can LF represent individual community members? Can this question be reviewed by the board?

Dan: Requested that Greg send email to James and Dan describing his specific problem. The board usually needs a specific example to make decisions. Greg will write a summary and send it to the list.

James: Will make sure the issue is raised at the board.