Board Minutes 2005 May 26

Board Minutes of May 26, 2005

This document contains minutes from the phone conference Board Meeting of May 26, 2005. Corrections, suggestions should be sent to Joseph and Mary Miles.

It had previously been agreed that the board minutes would be posted to a public board for review. A page has been created on Confluence and will be updated as appropriate. This will also be sent as an informational item to the SEPP mailing list and a link will be created from the Sakai website to this page.

Joseph Hardin announced that Jutta Treviranus has agreed to accept the invitation to join the Sakai Board, bringing the total up to 10 members. At last year's conference the board committed to expand by including more SEPP partners, and this is a step in that direction. Jutta has just been released from some of her administrative duties and given time to work on open source issues and Sakai. A significant press release is planned to announce her addition to be board and she will attend the board meeting at the SEPP Conference in Baltimore. Mary will send a note to her requesting a bio and other press release information.

Mike Elledge provided project updates:
¿ Version 1.5.1 is very close to formal release. It is being given a very quick final review with an eye toward releasing it tomorrow. David Haines and Carol Dipple are working on this. After this review, all resources will be moved to Version 2.0. This effort is not harming the 2.0 QA effort. It becomes a bit of a credibility factor for Sakai to finish this release and get it out the door.
¿ Version 2.0 has been released for formal QA testing with the exception of SamiGo integration, which is still undergoing some work. There was a problem with too many threads in hibernate. In integration last week the decision was made to do things right. The problems were caught and are being worked.
¿ The bug fixing for Gradebook has been completed and they have fulfilled their requirements for a stand-alone version. There is not a substantial effort being applied to the testing of Gradebook at this point.
¿ Initial work has begun on Version 2.0 in terms of accessibility. Recommendations are being made for 2.x. Refactoring has improved but there will be some challenges ahead in the portal and wrapper to the tools. Mike will prepare a proposal for completing the accessibility work on 2.0 with a goal of making it 508 compliant by December.
¿ Oracle and MySQL will be available next week for testing.
¿ The question will really come down to which items have to make it into the 2.0 release and which will not. It was suggested that we simply draw a line and release when we release. We can always do a 2.x release. Unlike the 1.5.1 release, we will be very much in control. This is different because the configuration has been completely redone in the 2.0 kernel. Part of the complications in 1.5 and 1.5.1 was due to the fact that there was a large amount of packaging that had to be done. The 2.0 rewrite made the whole thing much easier.
¿ All of the "hell or high water" items are in Version 2.0. What was committed to in February is solidly there. The current wisdom is that 2.1 will go into code freeze in October or November for a December or January release; this is still TBD. The goals for that release will be set at the July 6-7 meeting in Boston. At that time, hierarchy, new resources tools, and other items needing effort will be identified.

Brad Wheeler reported that the press release with Sun, Harvest Road and Unisys did not get out, but several quotations did get out. Ostrakon from Germany will join and we will thus pick up affiliates from both Austria and Germany. The goal is for a press release next week, then one more right before the conference. Perhaps the 2.0 release announcement may be made as a prelude to the conference. Joseph noted that in the upcoming press release regarding the new board member he would also like to include something about the conference as well. It might not be a bad idea to release something during the conference.

The conference agenda continues to evolve. A technical track will be added on Thursday so that people who are not interested in governance issues or the Discussion Groups will be able to get together. This could be a place for people to drop in, in more of a BOF style than a didactic podium style. Current projections indicate that over 400 people will be attending the conference and serious thought needs to be given about engaging as many people as possible. A "facebook" has been suggested. An email would be sent to everyone registered, asking them to submit a photo in advance so that a booklet can be prepared. There will be lots of new faces at this meeting. The board members need to talk to as many people as possible, and also engage in the governance aspect as much as possible. The board was also encouraged to get involved in the governance discussion on Confluence. They should not simply stand back for fear of appearing to be a bully. The danger is that it appears the board is not interested, not engages, or aloof.

Joseph Hardin reported on a phone call with Ira Fuchs. This call was initiated because Ira was unable to attend the executive session and asked for a separate briefing on the conference, software, governance and other issues. A lot things were cleared up during this call. Ira appeared interested in all he heard and was very interested in all of the parameters around governance. Kevin Guthrie will attend the governance session.

John Norman just sent out an excel spreadsheet that tries to compartmentalize the strands and capacities of the conference. By using the "strands" (tracks) it ensures that the information is consistent with other topics. This would be helpful for people to understand that the overall "strand" is all about. John and Chuck Powell are putting together the complete agenda which will be posted as quickly as possible.

The July 6-7 "all-hands" meeting is confirmed for Boston. A discounted conference rate will be available at the hotel within 5 minutes of the meeting location.

With no further business, the conference call ended at 2:42 p.m. The next call is scheduled for Thursday, June 2, 2005 at the same time.