Notes from the November 2025 Governing Board meeting

The Governing Board (GB) call for November took place on Tuesday, 11 November. In attendance were members of the board: Bowrna Prabhakaran, Nemo, Swastik Banarwal, Shree Kumar and Bodhish Thomas. They were joined by Poruri Sai Rahul, Ansh Arora and Ashlesh Biradar from the FOSS United staff. At the meeting, six items were on the tentative agenda; four of the items were follow-up actions from the previous Governing Board meeting.

Tentative agenda

1. Volunteer reimbursement policy (High priority)
2. Technology working group charter
3. Charter modifications (suggested by Rushabh, Shree)
4. How to carve out staff time to run initiatives (e.g. Rupee Fund)
5. Grants WG Charter Open Questions
6. DEI Charter discussions

Volunteer reimbursement policy

Shree kicked things off with a discussion on the volunteer reimbursement policy at FOSS United. As a Co-chair of the IndiaFOSS conference, he observed first-hand volunteering at IndiaFOSS 2025, and he became familiar with volunteer reimbursements. He asked if it makes sense to have subjectivity when reimbursing the volunteers, i.e., partial or full reimbursement is a subjective decision. Partial reimbursement was suggested in the first place for IndiaFOSS 2025 because we were trying to be frugal. When Bowrna prompted for additional information, Shree mentioned that a few volunteers were only provided partial reimbursement this year, and most volunteers who asked for travel support were provided full reimbursement. But the decision to provide partial or full reimbursement was made subjectively, instead of being based on objective criteria. Ansh added additional context - that IndiaFOSS provides up to 10,000 INR in travel reimbursement, and that volunteers were additionally requested to travel by train if the travel time was less than 10 hours and by flight if the travel time was longer. In addition, only economy class flight travel would be reimbursed, and no additional fees, such as priority boarding, will be reimbursed. In the end, because IndiaFOSS 2025 had a budget surplus, we decided to go ahead with full reimbursement for all volunteers who requested travel assistance.

Shree asked what the criteria for picking volunteers was, and that if we wanted people from various chapters to volunteer for IndiaFOSS, we should settle on a reimbursement policy. Unrelated to the travel reimbursement, Shree highlighted that he observed a difference between expected effort and actual effort from some of the volunteers at IndiaFOSS 2025, which was communicated to them by the IndiaFOSS Co-chairs and Foundation staff.

Everyone unanimously agreed that we should not have subjectivity. Bodhi mentioned that an objective criterion could be whether or not the volunteer checked in to the expected duties on the days of the conference. Nemo highlighted that FOSDEM had a “number of volunteering hours” requirement to qualify for financial assistance during the event, and Ansh noted that FOSDEM does not provide travel support for volunteers. Nemo highlighted that objective criteria will be good, especially if the travel expenses are large enough. Nemo also brought up pushing for more local volunteers to reduce this expense altogether, but Shree also highlighted that this support could be a way to reward active volunteers from communities across the country.

For context, please note that travel and stay support should likely be extended to around 25 volunteers next year, apart from the 25 volunteers who reside in Bengaluru. Each volunteer travelling to Bengaluru will require at least 10,000 INR in travel support and 5,000 INR in stay. This comes out to 3.75 Lakh INR in travel and stay support for the out-of-town volunteers alone.

Rahul noted that emphasis should be placed next year on setting a higher bar for volunteering and to ask volunteers who are unable to meet the expected effort to respectfully step down. In addition, we need to gather feedback from volunteers about one another. Bodhi highlighted the need to blacklist volunteers who drastically underperform expectations, and that communicating this ahead of time would send a strong signal. Bowrna highlighted that city chapters with a large number of IndiaFOSS volunteers could plan ahead and coordinate internally, and Nemo highlighted the fact that volunteer trainings could address the trust barrier.

In the end, we decided that the Volunteer reimbursement policy for FOSS United events should not be subjective, that full reimbursement should be provided to volunteers who require travel assistance, and that the volunteer onboarding process needs to dramatically improve to ensure that such issues don’t happen in the future.

Tech Working Group Charter

Shree walked us through a draft of the Tech Working Group charter that he had prepared. He talked about the responsibilities of the WG, how the membership of the WG will be decided, how people could volunteer for the WG, and so on. When Rahul prompted for an example of what the WG could be responsible for, Shree responded that the WG could set the direction for the FOSS United Platform, e.g., what features should be added and what the priorities should be.

Nemo highlighted the need to consider access, security, and privacy when giving non-staff members access to data collected within the FOSS United Community. For instance, he highlighted the need to maintain an inventory of the individuals with access to servers, to databases, and other infrastructure, and the need to maintain policies on how access will be removed when a volunteer/member steps down. Rahul added additional comments about other infrastructure that the Staff currently maintain, where we would love to get help from the WG. Rahul also noted that a hierarchy of access could be set up where volunteers have access to the server with the least-sensitive information, e.g., the server that hosts Jitsi, to the servers with the most-sensitive information, e.g., FOSS United platform access. Bodhish noted the need to adhere to the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, and that non-Staff members who gain access should sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement with the Foundation.

Shree pointed out that members of the WG are different from volunteers, i.e., WG members determine the direction of Tech @ FOSS United, whereas volunteers execute. Bodhish pointed out that this felt like a CTO-like role, instead of a WG, but Rahul noted that this is similar to the Python Steering Committee. Rahul also pointed out existing precedent, i.e., Kaustubh (nikochiko) and Arya K are already members of the Community who previously or actively help maintain the Tech at FOSS United.

Rahul also elaborated on the kind of decision-making that the Tech WG could be responsible for, using our self-hosted Jitsi as an example. The Foundation experimented with meet.jit.si and Element Call for almost a year, before finally moving to a self-hosted Jitsi. The decision was taken after experiencing the issues that people faced with meet.jit.si, and looking into other communities that hosted Jitsi, e.g., FSCI.

Nemo highlighted the need to focus on changeability and maintainability of the solutions, e.g., being able to manage the servers without needing SSH access via Infrastructure as Code tools. Bodhi mentioned that FOSS United should consider contributing to the projects that we self-host. Bowrna highlighted that the city chapters and student clubs could use information about self-hosted services and the platform to train new volunteers, e.g., via workshops. It’s worth pointing out the /stack page and the server-setup GitHub repository here.

How to carve out staff time to run initiatives (e.g. Rupee Fund)

Shree posed this question, and Rahul responded that the best thing to do would be to set up time with Foundation staff. After an initial discussion with the Staff, specific people, expected time, and milestones could be identified to make progress. Nemo recommended restarting the Foundation office hours and merging them with Community calls, and such conversations could happen in these virtual calls. We settled on having at least two Foundation staff in every community call, and at least one GB member. Bodhish mentioned that they (Open Healthcare Network) have been running such community calls every week for many years with great success – a fixed timeslot and a date improves awareness and the likelihood of people joining the calls.

Grants WG charter open questions

Nemo asked how we wanted to compose the WG - members of the Governing Board, appointees of the Governing Board, Staff, members of the Community? Nemo posed that he expected one or two representatives from the GB, one or two members of the Staff, and at least a few members of the Community. He expected to receive nominations from the Community to join the pool of experts, and Rahul noted that we could observe participation of individuals from the expert pool over a few months and nominate them to become members of the WG. Please note that the experts will be consulted when making grant decisions, but the members will take the final decision.

DEI charter discussions

Bowrna highlighted that she was looking at Diversity in a number of different angles – diversity in geographic regions, representation from tier-2 and lower cities, participation from student clubs. She highlighted that she was incorporating the IndiaFOSS diversity scholarship process, e.g., what are the qualification criteria, into the WG charter. She noted that accessibility of events to physically impaired individuals, e.g., visual impairment, should also be a part of the WG charter. Finally, she added that event Code of Conduct-related work could also be incorporated into the DEI WG.

Shree and Nemo responded that the DEI WG couldn’t be held responsible for Code of Conduct work. This ideally belongs in a Moderation WG, but unfortunately, Swastik was unable to make progress on the Moderation Working Group charter due to personal and professional responsibilities. Shree and Nemo also highlighted the “horizontal scope” of DEI work, for instance, how the Grants WG and Tech WG will need to work with the DEI WG when evaluating grants, memberships, etc.

Nemo highlighted the need for the DEI WG, and the GB, to understand whether or not the community is moving in the right direction, with the help of quantifiable metrics.  Bowrna and Shree warned against the gamification of the metrics, but Rahul pointed out that the messaging will consistently highlight that the metrics are a crude approximation of the underlying culture. Bowrna highlighted the value that localisation efforts could have on improving the diversity of the community, and Shree, Nemo mentioned that the FOSS United platform could be localised.

Rahul highlighted that there are two key things for the DEI WG to focus on – who does FOSS United “endorse”, e.g., speakers at FOSS United events, and who participates in FOSS United events. Participant diversity at FOSS United events varies from region to region, and beyond a certain point, it is out of our hands. Who we choose to “endorse” on the other hand is fully under our control. The DEI WG should therefore look at FOSS United events, at all levels, and other FOSS United initiatives, such as Forklore, First Commit, to ensure diverse people are represented, in gender, age, region, etc. In addition, given the number of event grants that FOSS United disburses, the DEI WG could be involved in ensuring that grantee events live up to a minimum standard and are available to improve the diversity of grantee events, if possible. Ashlesh highlighted the need to consistently engage with the diversity scholarship recipients after IndiaFOSS.

Misc

Swastik asked for a report on the Season of Commits. Nemo asked for the observer report for IndiaFOSS. Staff will follow up and share these reports with the GB.

Next month

It looks like we’re on track to have functional Tech, Grants, and DEI WGs by the end of the year.