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• 2023-11-23

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Committee Meeting 2023-11-23 19:00 UTC

Inter regnum : The Elephant Case

The meeting will take place at 19:00 UTC at https://meet.jit.si/cacert If you do not have audio channel, you may try in the IRC channel #board-meeting on the CAcert IRC network.

Please note: The time will remain the same in Europe, please check for other regions of the world due to daylight saving time.

Feel free to add a business item within the acceptance period of 48 hours or your question to the board below. Non-committee members: the committee may choose to convert any business proposed as a question in the questions section.

Agenda

1. Opening
   1. Chair opens the meeting
2. The Elephant Case
   1. Recognise elephants that stand in our way,
   2. formulate concrete suggestions or variants in selected cases.
   3. All for the attention of the new Committee.
   4. Discussion will continue on December 7.
   5. First steps can be decided on December 7 if proposals are formulated today.
3. Closing
   1. Propose a date of the next Committee Meeting: 7. Dec 2023 19:00 UTC
   2. Agree on the following meeting dates: 4. Jan, 1. Feb, 7. March 2024, 19:00 UTC; 4. April, 2. May, 6. June, 4. July 2024 18:00 UTC (keep date free, can be changed if necessary)

Minutes

ELEPHANT MEETING, 23. Nov 2023, 19:00 - ca. 20:30

present: F.D., F.G., A.K., E.R.

PROBLEMS

• we do not meet in real life.
• different languages
• different cultures (e.g. D: processus, rules, say no; F: easy consensus)
  • "saying no" is good to protect structures
  • collaboration in different cultures
    • pick up phone and call versus
    • sending an e-mail and having an answer days later

TIME is not a question of a lot free time,

TIME is a question of motivation.

Today, there is not really collaboration. The situation is not toxic, there is no dispute, but it is acid, it is dangerous and is slowing everything.

1. There is no one from the starting people still with us (probably a group of friends in Australia)
2. There was a "war" ca. 10 years ago that rined a lot, people left or resigned.
3. There is nearly no renewal neither at the committee nor at the teams nor at the community.

If we are inefficient, our work becomes useless; the worst situation.

• We need a professional attitude
  • how do we interact with each other, our behaviour, our values
    • Under no circumstances should we make the work of others appear pointless.
      • e.g. code review does not happen = the coder's work is pointless.

TO DISCUSS

1. Reviews: How to get reviewers? How to get reviews done?
2. Resolve problems: May be once a month a Resolving Round Table (video conference) with all involved (e.g. infra, support, software, reviews, crit.) and do it together as much possible in one hour.
3. In critical situations, someone should decide, give orders. The others then carry it out. Brian, for example, has a lot of experience here.
4. Every week a work session of 3 hours online with an open window for each group, open mics only from my group:
   1. starting on time
   2. finishing on time
   3. split up the group in two, if two different things are to do
      • reward (monetarian or non-monetarian)

Even with volunteers, you can say: this is good, this is not good. That is helpful, that is of little use

Who is standing on the commando bridge? Who do we see, the people in front of us, when they think of CAcert?

TASKS TO DO UNTIL 7. Dec. 2023

• FD: Presentation
• FG: Motion
• ER: Minutes
• AK: List of most important technical issues

ANNEXE

• http://www.igaelic.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/SALT-on-a-Shoestring.pdf (resumee of a project with only a few people

• Link to open reviews: https://blog.cacert.org/2023/05/join-the-cacert-spring-offensive/

• Minutes

• "Sins" List

1. To remember: Goals 2021/2022 (propositions by board 2020/2021) - Each goal needs a responsible person on the board who keeps an eye on it and reports regularly, keeps in touch with the responsible people. obsolete / started / waiting for available time

   • push OrgA (Guy)
   • expand PR (Alex cannot do this, wants to hand over)

   • delivering the OpenID Connect integration, for which CAcert is funded by the RIPE NCC.

   • expand background check

   • remote assurance, if accepted by the community;

   • simplify the certificate creation (this enables the start of various projects from the pipeline)
   • software development and testing
   • New CSR software

   • support SecureU (find an active board member for them in Germany)

2. Not to forget: Staffing the teams
   1. Applicants to the Infrastructure team
   2. Applicants to the Development team
   3. Applicant to the Critical team

1. Access to local systems for board members

1. Tasks assigned to Board Members and others

1. Software Team

   1. Issue 1502: Adapt the UI at CAcert.org to deal with the "keygen" feature having been removed in browsers

   2. Issue 1482: Limit validity period of new HTTPS certificates to one year

   3. Issue 1444: PHP - Brian

   4. Issue 1417: Keygen / new CSR software - Bernhard

2. Organisation Assurance
   1. How to relance OrgA? (Guy)
3. Grant applications

   1. Protopype Fund https://prototypefund.de/en/ (mail to SW Board only)

      1. The Prototype Fund is a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). This is for residents of Germany only. We could create a group of people that work on a project for CAcert (with all support of the others in the background). It runs for two more years, every 6 month.
      2. Infra does not see any acute need at the moment, and does not have the capacity to provide qualified support.
      3. There are some ideas for software, but in infra's view there is still a lot of conceptual and preparatory work missing. What Infra could imagine is financing people to carry out a requirements analysis and write a requirements and test specification. This could then be used as a basis for a new implementation of the CAcert software (WebDB, Signer and perhaps other things like CATS). But these are just a few ideas of JanDD and he cannot currently recommend any people who would be suitable for this. Potential candidates would have to deal intensively with the existing software on the one hand and with the underlying policies on the other, and would have to identify a lot of missing information, ask for it and make assumptions for discussion. This requires very good analytical and communication skills and a high level of stamina.

1. Blockchain

   1. see here: https://wiki.cacert.org/Brain/CAcertInc/Committee/MeetingAgendasAndMinutes/2018-03-01/ideas#Blockchain (waiting for answer from IanG)

Motions

• https://motion.cacert.org/motions/m20230915.1 (Information of members)

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