---
# System prepended metadata

title: 'CentOS Board of Directors Minutes, 2021-07-14'
tags: [published, minutes]

---

# CentOS Board of Directors Minutes, 2021-07-14

*Scheduled to blog for Tuesday July 20th - https://blog.centos.org/2021/07/centos-board-of-directors-minutes-2021-07-14/*

## Convened 22:05

## In attendance:

### Board

* Pat Riehecky
* Thomas Oulevey (Secretary)
* Mike McLean
* Josh Boyer
* Davide Cavalca
* Jim Perrin
* Tru Huynh
* Rich Bowen (Chair)

### Guests
* Matthias Runge
* Jeffrey Osier-Mixon
* Ian McLeod
* Brian Stinson
* Alfredo Moralejo Alonso

### Directors Absent:
* Johnny Hughes
* Karanbir Singh

## Minutes

### Previous Minutes

June minutes are published [on the blog](https://blog.centos.org/2021/07/minutes-for-centos-board-of-directors-for-2021-06-09/).

### Automotive SIG Creation

The Board is asked to consider a proposal for the creation of an Automotive Special Interest Group. The proposal is [in the wiki](https://wiki.centos.org/SpecialInterestGroup/Automotive).

* Motion to approve SIG.
* Director questions/comments
    * Davide : Documentation on how to contribute is important
    * Josh : How will the infrastructure be used ?
        * Ian : CI can be used, Open Hardware to test
    * Several directors asked about relationship to AGL
        * Jeffrey : Discussion regarding [AGL](https://www.automotivelinux.org/) in process, yocto LF in use, community architect at Red Hat
* Motion approved

### Discussion: CL8 EOL messaging

Messaging around CentOS 8 End Of Life, as [discussed on the centos-devel list]( https://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2021-July/077098.html)

Bex (absent) provided this update via email : 
1. No one should be automatically migrated between distributions.  Even in the case of CentOS Stream being a "successor" distribution to CentOS Linux.  This should be a deliberate action on the part of the user.  Alerting users to the status of their current software and providing options is, generally, a good thing.
2. The end of builds for CentOS Linux 8 is still 31 December 2021.  If there is a slip in the build of CentOS Linux 8.5 code then that activity may continue after 31 December, within reason.  There will be no updates published beyond 31 December 2021, other than, if required, the CentOS Linux 8.5 release as noted above.  It is important that the expectations do not get changed.  The slip allowance is here so that engineers are not asked to do super-human work to meet the 31 December deadline.
3. The final builds of CentOS Linux 8 should be stored and managed per the Project's decisions.  In general, so long as that code is not modified after its final update as stated in #2 above, it can be actively mirrored, vaulted, or otherwise handled as the project deems appropriate.  Again, reasonability applies.

Josh indicates that we *will* ship the zero-day updates to 8.5, and he will take this discussion back to Red Hat to ensure that this happens.

Proposed: January 31, 2022 to retire/archive content (Approved by consensus).

In the event of a serious bug in this time window, we should immediately retire/archive the content. Tie this to a specific CVSS v3 score (9+)? (Approved by consensus)

Davide : Motd update ? dnf plugin ? print a message if the mirror is missing ? This was discussed and there are concerns about whether this would interfer with automated workflows that parse dnf output. Historical precedent was offered for my auto-updating motd may be poorly received.

Thomas : advertise C8 -> CS8 procedure

Jim : point people to the FAQ

Action: Rich will draft EOL messaging, run by board, and then socialize on centos-devel before promoting further.

### Academic RHEL offering?

Bex update: 

Red Hat is continuing to work on updates to our published Academic program, however the program, as described, has been very interesting to parties that have contacted us and we haven't seen a reason to make wholesale changes in response to the CentOS Linux 8 decision.  If the Board has additional information to share, please do so.  We expect blog posts from Red Hat to highlight this program this month, these should feature a change to help smaller institutions have an easier time consuming the program.  Those details are being finalized, but the core of the program remains intact.

Expect more info from RH in the coming weeks

### Open ticket review

#### [19] GDPR process needs 
 
[Rich] AIUI, CPE/Infrastructure have a GDPR process, and are willing/able to handle all of our GDPR needs. That said, we haven’t had any *legitimate* GDPR requests in more than a year. Closed ticket.

#### [11] Trademark guidelines review/audit - Feedback from Bex/Karsten needed before discussing it.
 
[Rich] I took the liberty to close this ticket, since we do not appear to be addressing a specific issue/concern, but, rather, just wanted some kind of review of the existing policy. I would be glad to re-open if someone has an actual expressed concern that we need to address.

####  [45] CentOS variant artifacts (ISOs, disk images, etc.) branding

I feel like we made a decision on this in our last meeting, but somehow it was not captured in the ticket. (Note: Confirmed: We minuted in June that we had decided, but not *what* the decision was) Would appreciate someone updating the ticket with that decision, if possible, or we can re-discuss.

Naming for variant artifacts / experimental live image from Hyperscale SIG

Davide : no confusion / spins

Define what is a Spin and list them ? guidelines

**Action**: Thomas and Davide to come back with a proposal.

####  [01] Shift Board to be more transparent
 
Aspirational, ongoing issue

Next step in this process is to open our board meetings to a wider audience. We discussed doing this after July. Are we still in agreement to do that? If so, what is “wider audience”?

IDEA : Send to centos-devel the invitation, rather than posting a URL publicly, possibly resulting in meeting disruptions.

Several directors offered corporate Zoom accounts and will look into that. Rich to follow up in a week or two.

Thomas : We need to set certain expectations of our attendees - Following agenda, no overtime, moderation 

Pat: remind folks to open tickets to get topics on our list, rathern than expecting that they can merely speak up.

Rich and Davide : hackmd for agenda.

Matthias : Explain how to engage with the community

Public video recording, though not streamed, to offer the possibility to edit before it goes public.

**Action** - Rich to draft messaging about this to send to list.

#### [03] Getting official CentOS images into Azure + AWS Cloud images status

No action

#### [13] Get an official CentOS image in to WSL

No action

#### [22] Draft all recent governance changes or ideas for Board discussion 

[Rich] I will move forward with socializing the new governance documentation in the coming weeks, minus items that are still being debated internally at Red Hat, so that we can finally make progress on this.

#### [27] Providing Official AMIs in Amazon CN regions
No action

## Community Manager report

Will be starting director interviews tomorrow, starting with new directors, for the CentOS blog/YouTube.

It’s time to start planning a September dojo - expect to see proposed dates and a CFP in the coming 2 weeks.

Rich will be out of office, and completely offline, July 29th through August 9th

## Other Business

### SIG reports

* [Kmod SIG report](https://blog.centos.org/2021/07/kmods-sig-quarterly-report/)
* [Hyperscale SIG report](https://blog.centos.org/2021/06/centos-hyperscale-sig-quarterly-report-for-2021q2/)


### Post-meeting IRC meeting:

Last month we discussed doing a post-meeting IRC office hours to answer questions. We did not take action on this.

**Action**: Rich will find the Doodle poll we did on this for preffered times, and announce this as part of the broader invitation to upcoming board meetings.

## Adjourned 22:55

###### tags: `minutes` `published`