#midgard

Currently @abbra @bergie @W_I @netblade @janto and @kaisajee are here, still waiting for couple of people to join us

@eholmila and @jlz arrived, so we can start now

Three options on the table:

• we don't do anything, current model as worked for 10 years
• we start an association that will completely run and own the project
• we apply to become an Apache project, and then create 'a supporting association' for sponsoring some Midgard activities

Apache would bring us more visibility, and a very well working project infrastructure. But also imposes some constraints on branding, release management, website infra. And licensing would need to be changed to ASL

@abbra 'then there would be no Midgard project by itself, we'd be just a small subproject within Apache'

@eholmila 'we can start with our own association now and choose Apache any time later'

@netblade 'why Apache Foundation instead of the GNOME foundation? Midgard is more GNOME software anyway'

Discussion about copyright assignments. Consolidated copyrights are necessary only for license changes, and Samba project did GPLv3 migration in one month even without copyright assignments. But Apache CLA or FSFE fiduciary licensing would allow the Midgard association to protect the licensing of the code etc

@janto 'I'm supportive of having one association that is Midgard, but do we have enough people to cover the overhead?'

@eholmila 'right now we need better documentation, Apache brand wouldn't solve that by silver bullet'

@netblade 'Finnish association model is flexible, we only need three people to starting it. Chairman and vice chairman have to have Finnish residency, but all other members and officials can be from abroad. There needs to be some bookkeeping and an annual meeting that members can attend either in person or over videoconference'

Discussion about membership model: proposal on table is that 'code speaks', contributors can apply for membership. Then there can be 'supporting members', like companies that could sponsor but not vote

In Samba if you don't commit anything in a year you become an 'alumni', which would correspond to supporting membership. With this model a commit today would get you membership this year and next year, and then you'd become an alumni

The association can gather money from members and sponsors, to be used for important Midgard activities like gatherings, project infrastructure and critical project work

all right, now to the nuts and bolts of actually founding an association since there seems to be a consensus for the direction we want to take

If contributors become members automatically, then there is some risk of the association getting hijacked. To safeguard against it we need clear definitions on how a contribution is accepted. @eholmila suggested that we could also have a maximum percentage of new members per year, compared to members of previous year.

Acceptance of a contribution would for instance be maintainer merging a commit to the 'blessed' repository, then the board could invite the contributor for membership

Officials of the association (core maintainer, mvc maintainer, gatherings coordinator) could be the ones who propose new members that the board then decides on

discussion about the purpose of the association: 'to further the development and usage of Midgard, a free software content repository, and to connect and educate developers of the software project.'

Three categories of members:

• full members, who have made an accepted contribution in the previous year
• alumni, full members who decided to suspend their activities
• sponsoring members, companies and individuals supporting Midgard financially

• Name: Midgard Project Ry (?)
• Location: Helsinki

Conclusions:

• There will be an association to run the Midgard project
• @bergie @netblade and @neithan will write a draft of rules on the week after Xmas
• Midgard software will be fiduciary licensed to the association
• Association will provide project infrastructure
• Association arranges gatherings
• Association looks for sponsors to support the project
• Goal is to have the association registered in Jan-Feb

The association will have several roles, including:

• chairman and vice chairman (@bergie and @abbra proposed)
• accountant
• Midgard core maintainer (@piotras proposed)
• Midgard MVC maintainer (@bergie proposed)
• Gatherings coordinator (@kaisajee proposed)
• Infrastructure coordinator (@rambo proposed)
• Documentation coordinator (focus on Midgard2)
• Webmaster (@neithan proposed)
• Membership coordinator (@netblade proposed)

Meeting concluded, next activity is to write something to the dev list explaining what was decided in the meeting. And then the rules

Thanks for the nice update. :)

Thanks for the summary.

Would you leave the maintainer and coordinator roles for the board to nominate?

@mandrl yes, the yearly members' meeting (at the spring Midgard Gathering) will nominate the board, and the board will nominate the coordinators.

Continuing with the copyright assignment discussion, Michael Meeks has an interesting post. Ping @abbra