Instant Messaging Freedom, Inc.

IM Freedom Board Meeting 2017-09-07 01:30 UTC using a Google Hangout. All times listed below in UTC.

• Preamble and call to order 0150
  • Directors Present:
    • Eion Robb, President
    • Matthew Needham, Vice President
    • John Bailey, Secretary
    • Ethan Blanton, Treasurer
    • Gary Kramlich, Director
    • Richard Laager, Director (late join, 0215)
• Minutes from previous meeting read at 0151.
  • John moves to accept minutes as read at 0153. Matthew seconds. Carries unanimously 0153.

• Ethan delivers Treasurer’s Report starting 0153:

  2016:
  Opening balance:         27,254.17
  Closing balance:         29,195.82
  
  
  Income:
    Donations:              3,000.00
    Slashdotmedia:            164.49
    Spreadshirt:               11.59
    Interest:                   4.97
  
  Expenses:
    Delaware reinstatement:   704.00
    CT Corp (representation): 531.88
  2017 Year-to-Date:
  Opening balance:         29,195.82
  Balance 2017-09-06:      29,050.06
  
  Income:
    Interest:                   3.09
    Spreadshirt:               10.15
  
  Expenses:
    CT Corp (representation): 159.00
  

• Matthew moves to accept treasurer’s report at 0157, John seconds. Carries unanimously at 0157.

• Old Business

  • Eion discussed the proposal for linux.conf.au last year was submitted but not accepted. No proposal was input for this year, but may revisit next year.
  • Gary states no progress was made on the logos and t-shirts.
  • Gary says further follow-up is needed on the DNS records.
  • John never followed up with Sean and SFLC on address updates in the bylaws.

• New Business

  • Clarification on bylaws regarding directors
  • Gary mentioned that Jorge had tendered his resignation as Director due to conflict of interest with current employer.
  • Gary brought up a Pidgin meetup. A co-worker of his is involved with GNOME Foundation. They do periodic get-togethers. He’s been working with her and would like their meetups to include a Pidgin meetup. Gary has been checking into options–biggest problems are travel, accommodations, timing, and pricing. He will continue to work on this and report back as needed.
  • John mentioned that he can no longer continue as Secretary due to conflict of interest with his employment. This serves as his resignation.
  • Ethan moves to elect Gary as IMF Secretary at 0203, Matthew seconds. Carries unanimously at 0204.
  • Eion asked for ideas to expand IMF’s outreach beyond Pidgin and libpurple both in Directors and in “the rest of the world.” Work with other IM clients and reach out to them?
  • Gary pointed out Bitlbee.
  • Ethan points out that Bitlbee is another libpurple project.
  • Ethan mentions that we have reached out to other projects before. What do other projects need to do? Essentially nothing. Projects walk away. If we want to create interest, we need to come up with something to do. We have a small war chest of money that we could use to propose doing things, like travel grants, funding infrastructure, other things as discussed. These may help create interest based on IMF’s activity.
  • Gary suggests reacing out to the people behind the Conversations Android app. Ethan and Eion agreed.
  • Eion asked if anyone knew of meetups, conferences, etc. that IMF could sponsor.
    • Gary mentioned Hack and Tell in Milwaukee, IMF could sponsor a lunch or similar. It’s a meetup where people work on code for the day and present it to other attendees.
    • Ethan mentioned looking at linuxconf and other schedules for events
    • Gary mentioned CluCon in Chicago put on by FreeSWITCH. Involves SIP, Asterisk, etc. Not directly IM related but is communications related.
    • Eion said he could reach out to Miranda and Bitlbee people,
    • Gary said he could reach out to Robert McQueen, former Pidgin “Crazy Patch Writer,” who is involved in GNOME and determining what to do to replace Telepathy as their IM client. He could be a good board addition. Gary will reach out.
    • Gary mentions that he has started streaming his FLOSS work on twitch.tv, inviting additional commentary outside the meeting.
    • Ethan suggests reaching out to Adium’s mailing lists and people like Rob McQueen and others for board members and other ideas for projects to reach out to.
    • John moves that the board follow Ethan’s suggestion at 0219. Gary seconds. Carries unanimously 0220.
  • Richard mentioned that he’d be willing to cede his Director seat if someone better could fill it. Ethan suggested that most of the Directors would do the same.
  • Gary questioned the donations in the Treasurer’s Report. Ethan replied that most came from Google as mentor stipends that the mentors donated to IMF. Discussion about how to donate to IMF.
    • Ethan mentioned our Paypal is set up to accept donations but we don’t advertise it. Ethan and Gary will discuss outside the meeting.
    • Ethan mentioned that for donations to be tax-deductible there must be a receipt issued with certain information including a boilerplate statement and IMF’s tax ID number. He is willing to issue a limited number of such receipts for interested donors, but beyond a certain point there will need to be a process discussion.
    • Gary suggested Patreon as a method to accept donations. Ethan reminded us all that a formal motion to the Board would be needed to start a Patreon account.
    • Eion asked if the automated receipts could be altered to include the necessary tax information. Ethan said maybe for PayPal, not sure about Patreon. Investigation is required.
  • Richard and Gary brought up moving IMF resources to a cPanel instance donated by his employer (Wikstrom Telephone Company, a small ISP in Minnesota). This would be a simple month-to-month donation of service provided by Wiktel with no formal contract or acknowledgement requested. Would be on a standard cPanel instance so that it’s easily portable from Wiktel to any other cPanel hosting provider via backup and restore. If Pidgin decides not to run self-hosting anymore, IMF needs new hosting. Best to migrate before Pidgin does so. Ethan moves to take this discussion to e-mail with a hard deadline of year end (2017-12-31 23:59:59 UTC) at 0233, Gary seconds; carries unanimously at 0234.
  • Ethan moves to re-elect all current board members except Jorge and re-elect current Pres, VP, and Treasurer at 0234, Matthew and Gary both second. Carries unanimously at 0234.

• There being no further business, John moves to adjourn the meeting at 0236, Ethan seconds; carries unanimously at 0236.