[midgard] Midgard association yearly meeting 2000 minutes

[Henri Bergius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

Greetings!

Here's the English translation of the meeting minutes. It can
also be found from:
        http://www.midgard-project.org/article/8249.html

--
The Midgard Project Ry yearly meeting (June 24th 2000) 

Location: Aurora office, 69-71 Avenue Pierre Grenier, 92100
Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, France

Time: June 24th 2000, 14.00

Participants: Wouter Crooy, Emiliano Heyns, Ron Parker, Armand
Verstappen, Jean-Philippe Brunon, Cedric Musso, Christophe Dietrich,
Jean-Pierre Arneodo, Patrick Duplouy, Alexander Bokovoy, David
Guerizec, Henri Bergius, Laeticia Soderman


Meeting minutes

1. Opening of the meeting

The chairman Henri Bergius opened the meeting at 14.25

2. Choosing of the chairman, a secretary, two persons for checking the
meeting minutes and two persons for counting the votes if needed. 

Henri Bergius was chosen for the chairman of the meeting, Laeticia
Soderman as the secretary, and Emiliano Heyns and Wouter Crooy for
counting the votes.

3. Noting of legality and jurisdiction

The meeting was noted to be called together on April 14th in the
official mailing list of the association, thus the meeting was noted
legal and jurisdictory.

4. Accepting of the meeting items

The meeting items were accepted without changes

5. Finalizing of budget and accounts for previous term of operation 

Because the association was founded on April 6th 2000,there hasn't
been any annual report. Also the organization has not handled any
monetary transactions, so the budget and accounts of previous term
were left from the meeting scope.

6. Decision on freedom from responsibilities for board and acceptance
of budget and account items

Because of the youth of the organization, and lack of official
operations during the previous term, handling of budget and account
items in the meeting was not needed. 

The board of the previous term of operation was freed from
responsibilities.

7. Acceptance of operational plan, budget and membership fees for next
term of operation

A specific operational plan was not made, but it was decided to
continue the operations as defined in the charter of the association.

A specific budget was not made for the next term, but the board gained
jurisdiction for handling the associations budget decisions as defined
in the association's charter, for the good of the association.

Discussion about the specifics on the supportive membership was
postponed for the item 11. "We support Midgard" program.

For the supporting membership fees the personal fee was decided to be
lowered to 50 EUR and the organizational fee was decided to be left to
1000 EUR.

8. Choosing of the chairman of the board, the board and other
officials

It was decided that Henri Bergius continues as the chairman of the
association, and the same board continues. The board is: Eero af
Heurlin, Jukka Zitting, Laeticia Soderman

Armand Verstappen was chosen as the Documentation Branch Maintainer

9. Choosing of one or two accountants and vice accountants for both 

Henri Hovi will continue as the accountant of the association. Also
his vice accountant Johannes Hentunen continues.

10. Membership terms for the term 2000-2001

No changes were made in the membership terms.

11. "We support Midgard" program

For need of clarifying the supportive membership system of the
organization, Henri Bergius proposed a new branding program for
handling these memberships.

The program provides companies and individuals operating in the
Midgard space a means to fund Midgard by becoming supportive members
for the association. While this kind of contribution is not required
from any users of the Midgard software, many companies using it
actively have shown interest in helping the project monetarily.

While the members of this program would get no actual material
benefits from it, they would be able to show commitment to the Midgard
project by using a specific 'We support Midgard' label in their
marketing communications.

The actual benefit from their contribution would however be that the
association would gain resources for advancing the Midgard
project. The resources will be used according to the association's
charter wholly to the benefit of the Midgard project. Examples of such
usage would be acquiring of important server and connectivity
infrastructure for the project, and allowing project members to
participate in technical conferences and other important events.

The program was accepted by the meeting, with the requirement of
clarifying the actual meaning of the program and usage of the
resources gained by the program in the association's communications.

Trademarking the 'We support Midgard' label was discussed briefly but
was declined because of too high costs.

12. Needed resources

I. Project main server

So far the Midgard project has been using a server computer owned by
Harmaasudet Ry, and Finnish historical association as its main project
server. This server has however been noted as too unreliable and
resource poor for continued operation, and a new server is needed as a
replacement.

The decision was made to acquire a new, commercially hosted dedicated
server for the organization. The alternatives noted for this were to
either buy both the server and the connectivity needed, or look for
donations from supportive members of the association. Hard deadline
for having the new server in use was placed to before the final
Midgard 1.4 software release.

Requirements for the new server include Midgard association officials
having administrative access to the server, steady Internet
connectivity, and a regular, documented back-up system. Having
physical access to the server was also seen as important. 

Acquiring the server will be handled as a first priority item as soon
as the association has enough resources for it. The board was given
full permissions for handling the matter.

II. Business cards

Midgard association members need business cards for helping
communications in various trade shows and conferences where Midgard is
present. Because of this, having business cards available to all
project members was seen important as soon as the new project server
has been acquired.

13. Possible sponsorship contracts

Henri Bergius reported that some companies have been interested in
sponsoring the Midgard project by donating material resources like
computing equipment. To help with these contracts, there was
discussion on the sponsorship policies of the association.

The decision on these policies was that sponsorship deals may include
organization officials using sponsored equipment in conferences, and
making press releases on the sponsorship deals. However, the Midgard
association will not be able to make any commitments on any specific
additions to Midgard code base for the sponsoring organizations.

14. Copyrights policy

The copyrights and licensing policy of Midgard was discussed. Ron
Parker proposed the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) as the
license for all official Midgard documentation. The benefits of GFDL
were summarized briefly and this proposal was accepted.

The generic policy for all contributions for Midgard project is that
the contributions should follow the licensing used in that part of the
project. The copyrights can be either owned by the contributor, or can
be donated to the Midgard association. If a contribution does not
follow the licensing policies of the project, it can't be accepted as
an official part of the Midgard system, but can be referred to as an
unofficial addition.

The branch maintainers of the project were given the permission to
deal with possible issues with these matters, following the charter of
the organization.

15. Possible announcements

Laeticia Soderman will be handling sales and delivery of Midgard
Developer shirts that are used by contributors of the project in
technical conferences and other events. The arrangements will be
announced on the Midgard project's mailing list.

Envida, a Midgard hosting company from The Netherlands offered
discounts from their hosting services to all contributing members of
the organization, and offered to extend this discount also to all 'We
support Midgard' program members. The offer was accepted as a
unofficial membership benefit for The Midgard Project Ry members.

16. Ending of the meeting

The chairman ended the meeting at 16.30. 
--

/Bergie

-- 
-- Henri Bergius -- +358 40 525 1334 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] --
               http://www.iki.fi/Henri.Bergius


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