26 August 2021

Minutes of a Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of NumFOCUS. All votes are reported in the form “(Y/N/A)” (in favor-Y‚ opposed-N‚ abstentions-A; e.g. “4-1-2” means “4 in favor, 1 opposed, and 2 abstentions”).

August 26, 2021

Participating:

Board Members: James Powell, Stefan van der Walt, Rosie Pongracz, Katrina Riehl, Logan Kilpatrick, Sylvain Corlay

Executive Director: Leah Silen

Not attending:

Email/Github Voting: N/A

Executive Director's Report: none

Discussion:

a. Sponsored Project Applications

i.  Vote(s) needed on:

    1.  CVXPY - (Stéfan)

    Vote to accept as an affiliate project: 6/0/0 vote approved

    Give them feedback specific by Stéfan in the GitHub issue.

ii.  PyData Sparse - (James)

    No review has been done yet, still waiting on signatories, we will try
    to review before the next round closes but might need to push it back.

    Broader discussion about the need to re-evaluate existing projects,
    doing so in a friendly way which supports the projects but also realizes
    the need for the projects to be active if they want to be part of
    NumFOCUS.

iii. Review Template Updates (if time)

    1.  Review of Affiliated Selection Committee's template

    2.  Review of website Criteria (from committee feedback)

        a.  Add having Contributor Guidelines as a requirement for both
            > Affiliated and Sponsored

        b.  Add language to distinguish between an active contributor
            > and one who has made a few commits when referring to the
            > number of contributors needed

b. Update on Admin Fee Increase - Overall, projects have responded > positively. What is the plan if a project's leadership doesn't > accept the increase?

i.  scikit-learn has asked if the increase can be conditional on NF
    > being able to secure or increase other sources of revenue

ii. We will wait and see what scikit-learn does. A big part of this
    > is fairness to other projects who will likely agree to the 15%
    > fee.

iii. Most projects have accepted the Fee increase and are on board.

c. A question has been brought up regarding project trademark usage on > paid courses from external vendors

i. Currently, courses use the project names without giving proper attribution. 
Discussion around ways to mke sure that NF and our projects are given the 
right reference.
11. We could ask courses to say: "some project" is a trademark of NumFOCUS, a US 501(c)(3) non-profit. Go to
https://numfocus.org to learn how you can support the project.*

d. Electing a New Board Member

i.  Table until next meeting.