The Apache Software Foundation Board of Directors Special Meeting Minutes July 9, 2007 1. Call to order The meeting was scheduled for 11:00 (Pacific) and was begun when a sufficient attendance to constitute a quorum was recognized by the chairman at 11:05. The meeting was held by teleconference, hosted by Jim Jagielski and Covalent: US Number : 800-531-3250 International : 303-928-2693 IRC #asfboard on irc.freenode.net was be used for backup purposes. 2. Roll Call Directors Present: Justin Erenkrantz J Aaron Farr Jim Jagielski Geir Magnusson Jr William Rowe Jr Sam Ruby Henning Schmiedehausen Greg Stein Henri Yandell Guests: Matt Hogstrom Craig McClanahan Craig Russell Davanum Srinivas Sander Striker 3. Minutes from previous meetings Tabled until next regular meeting 4. Executive Officer Reports A. Chairman [Jim] Tabled until next regular meeting B. President [Justin] Tabled until next regular meeting C. Treasurer [J Aaron] Tabled until next regular meeting D. Exec. V.P. and Secretary [Sam] Tabled until next regular meeting 5. Additional Officer Reports A. VP of JCP [Geir] Geir mentioned a recent conversation with Sun, gave an overview of the ongoing discussions proceeding on jcp-open and board@, and then the board proceeded quickly into discussion. As usual, formal report is expected occur at the next board meeting (9 days). 6. Committee Reports Tabled until next regular meeting 7. Special Orders None 8. Discussion Items A. New ASF/JCP Policy, including statements on NDAs, FOUs, as well as action/reaction schedules and timeframes. The intent is to come up with a clear policy, standards by which the ASF will continue to participate in the JCP, changes required for that participation and our course of action if such changes are not implemented. The board discussed the perceived and real NDA requirements on our committers, EC and EG representatives. These break down into four classes of restrictions, and the corresponding board positions. * NDA of contracts and contractual discussion There was some concern expressed over the private nature of these discussions being both unnecessary and reducing our options for addressing differences; but overall the board was willing to let these discussions continue in private, as all other parties in the JCP are doing. Geir identified that at least one reference license for the TCK should be shared prior to the conclusion and approval of a JSR, and recent commentary by other EC members appears to share this position. Geir identified that we have permission to share the (final) contracts with any 'interested party', although these would not necessarily be published on the website. * NDA of the Specification Development Process The Board determined that today, the ASF encourages but otherwise has no opinion on open specifications development processes vs. closed development processes. It was pointed out that perfectly reasonable specifications have come from a single individual or closed groups, just as perfectly irrational specifications have come from open groups. As such - the ASF will continue to put forward EG representatives to either open or closed specification development bodies outside of the ASF. This does not change the policy that all ASF development discussions occur on open lists, here. The Board reserves the possibility of revisiting this policy in future years. The important point, the ASF Board does not seek to impose a specific methodology on outside, non-ASF efforts. * NDA to Use the TCK The Board is concerned about the burden and additional paperwork that we require of our committers to obtain the ASF's copy of TCKs and other reference material. Some of these works are under commercial, non-open license terms. As such, we will investigate if the NDA agreement is redundant, and if there are other/better ways to inform our committers of their responsibility under the material's own license, without additional obligations. The Board remains concerned about the possible burdens that are imposed by these TCKs, and will work to achieve fewer burdens on the users of TCKs and reference material through the JCP processes in creating open source implementations of the specification. As such, the ASF will seek a change the JCP establishing a date beyond which there will be no new TCKs created with NDA requirements. * NDA of the TCK Results The Board was informed there is a great deal of confusion over the exact restrictions imposed on the TCK results, and the ability of committers to discuss these matters over public development lists. Geir has taken an action item on this to write up the actual constraints on the use of the TCK results, so that the scope of the actual restrictions are better understood by the community, and so that no unnecessary secrecy is applied to development discussion. This will be posted to the JCP area of the ASF website. The Board understands that the net result of the reasonable interpretation of the TCK Usage license does not result in NDA obstacles to open source development. * Copyright of .dtd/.xsd files and other Reference Material As an additional action item, the Board will research the scope of pieces of reference material which have been committed to ASF repositories, and to whatever extent possible, will try to provide guidance on the use of these materials on the JCP area of the ASF website. Examples are files from the Spec Lead that contain confidentiality or other absurd clauses, when compared the requirement of their use in implementing the public, published specification. 9. Review Outstanding Action Items Geir: update http://www.apache.org/jcp/ with: * A constructive summary of what discussions and progress we have had with Sun * A mention of the long term plans to remove the requirement for TCK NDAs. * A pointer to where the next steps will be developed (namely jcp-open@) * an authoritative statement on what TCK aspects can be discussed in public based on the TCK NDAs. Status: new Bill: coordinate with Geir, and see if we can engage our lawyers to assist us with the JCK/FOU contract dispute. Status: new Geir: draft schedule for the next two to three months outlining options and strategies by the next board meeting. Status: new Sam: Copyright/license of .dtd/.xsd files and other Reference Material Review (and possibly update) . Status: new 10. Unfinished Business 11. New Business 12. Announcements 13. Adjournment Scheduled to adjourn by 1:00 (Pacific). Adjourned at 12:42pm. ============ ATTACHMENTS: ============ ------------------------------------------------------ End of minutes for the July 9, 2007 board special meeting.