[Council Meeting] Minutes from 2021-02-01
Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg)
Missing: -
Meeting time: 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM CET
Minuter: Dirk
Motions:
- We approved a hiring-related motion.
- Berna and Dirk presented the revised public discussion motion from
last meeting:
The council should not make major strategic or organizational
decisions, including but not limited to restructuring the project or
significantly changing policies for public services or products,
without having had at least 7 days of public discussion regarding the
specific decision. These discussions are announced on tb-planning, but
can occur on any public discussion channel.
* Philip considers it important to release a statement about what
'major strategic and organizational decisions' are to us, to ensure
that it is clear what is - and isn't – decided on.
* Dirk agrees and wants to do that, maybe in combination with the
results of the next motion.
* Magnus considers it important to have a explicit exclusion of
'people-related' matters, to protect employment-related decisions.
General agreement, we settled to include 'confidential matters' as
exclusion criteria and make it clear that 'people-related' matters
as described by Magnus are a part of that in the accompanying
statement.
* Christopher wants to make sure that this motion cannot be
misunderstood in a way that would cause individual community members
to assume they would hold veto power; in a discussion we agreed that
this is unlikely and that 'discussion' is clearly not including
that. The final decision remains with the council.
* Philip plans to abstain the vote, as that this motion is matching
what we already do or plan to do, so it does not change anything.
* Magnus inquired what happens if a discussion derails (moves to a
different topic). Dirk, Ryand and Berna clarified that that would
mean that we had a discussion, and thus can go ahead with the
changes – but of course can consider to also work on the topic the
discussion derailed to (we already have a public discussion for
that!).
* Christopher shares Magnus' fear of derailing discussions, clarifies
that he fears getting cornered by giving us too specific rules. Less
specific rules give us more room to be flexible if the need arises
to do so. He is fine with this motion, though.
Dirk and Berna seconded the motion with the addition of "excluding
confidential matters". The motion has passed:
YES: Ryan, Christopher, Magnus, Dirk, Berna
ABSTAIN: Philipp, Patrick
- Berna and Dirk presented a follow-up motion:
The council requests the board to approve the following statement:
MZLA is committed to involve the Thunderbird community in its
decision making process and thus strives to enable a public discussion
before finalizing any major strategic or organizational decisions
regarding Thunderbird, excluding confidential matters. These
discussions are announced on tb-planning, but can occur on any public
discussion channel.
* Philipp does not think that helps us, as the statement can be read
as if the Council's leadership of the project is questioned. MZLA is
only a financial home. Christopher, Ryan and Magnus agree.
* Dirk clarified that the intention behind the motion is to give the
community a feeling of trust for MZLA / the Board, as they were not
present in the Council/Board meeting and thus have not had the
ability to get a positive feeling from the board on their own.
Christopher thinks that the core issue cannot get solved by a
statement, but would need to also capture the organizational
structure. So he would prefer to move these goals to strategy
meetings. General agreement that that would be good.
* Berna asked about the fictional situation in which the current MZLA
board is replaced. A statement from MZLA would then still be in
effect. Philipp clarified that there are no easy means to make a
statement that would survive a change in leadership. Ryan proposed –
independently of this motion – to discuss this with the board. Given
that the current board is motivated and firmly in favor of our
community, we might find better options to address this.
* Dirk is concerned that not getting any statement from MZLA might
enable mistrust against MZLA to continue to grow. Philipp thinks
we should not be that defensive, while Ryan proposes to do consider
something else that might make it even more clear how supportive the
board is, like a statement from the council about the board.
Christopher considers the root of the mistrust the opaqueness of the
organizational structure we're operating in, and thus suggests
concentrating on these issues. General agreement with Christopher.
* Dirk and Berna agree that a non-binding statement by MZLA is likely
not the best option to reach the motion's goals and might make the
board look bigger than it is, the motion is put into revision
without being voted on. Ryan clarifies that he would be in favor of
a joint statement of Council/Board.
- We approved two employment-related motions.
- Dirk wants to fix formal issues with the motion from 2020-09-28: “[ba]
Motion: Publish the complete voting record of all council members on
all motions excluding PII and confidential information in the regular
minutes” as discussed in the meeting on 2021-01-04 and not put into a
motion.
The proposal was to excluding motions containing PII and confidential
information, instead of only excluding the PII or confidential
information itself. This is equal to the way things are handled right
now and were intended back then (according to those who were present).
* Magnus proposes to also consider Council;DR and potential other
future communication channels, by replacing 'regumar minutes' with
public communication channels or something like that. Dirk wants a
concrete location to be specified and proposes 'tb-planning'.
Patrick adds that it is important for people to know what to
subscribe to.
Patrick seconded the motion as "Publish the complete voting record of
all council members on all motions excluding motions containing PII
and confidential information on tb-planning.". The motion has passed:
YES: Dirk, Patrick, Berna, Magnus, Christopher, Ryan
(Philipp was absent during the voting)
Financial:
- Dirk inquired about the status of the financial report, Ryan replied
that he now has a draft he is happy with which will get sent out to
the council soon.
Hiring/personnel:
- Magnus updated the Council regarding various topics related to our
employees and the hiring process.
Product / Strategy:
- Dirk inquired about the status of town hall meetings
* Magnus wants more feedback regarding his idea of combining it with
instances of the existing public bi-weekly status meetings and
regarding what he can expect from other councilors (attendence,
presentations, ?).
* Magnus would like to see at least some meetings at a time other than
European evening / US afternoon to permit people to get involved
that usually do not get to be involved because of their timezone.
Governance:
- Philipp updated the Council regarding the trademark agreement
regarding the Thunderbird trademarks between MZLA and the trademark
owner Mozilla Foundation.
Miscellaneous:
- Dirk would like other councilors to join the vision discussion on
tb-planning, even if there is not much going on there at the moment.
Christopher inquired whether that would be relevant for strategy
meetings. Dirk affirmed that.
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning