First report from the Matrix Governing Board

Hi all,

It’s been 6 months since the first ever Matrix Governing Board (GB) was formally elected & announced, and it has recently had its first official meeting. As such, we felt it was time that you, our constituents, had a report on how things are going and what we’ve been doing. We appreciate that the work of the GB is often in the background, and we want to be as transparent as we can.

🔗What’s been happening?

Since our election in June, the GB has mainly been focussed on internal structure. We began with the most basic part of this - getting to know each other! We have quite a large group, and we all needed time to understand what each of us would like to achieve, and to assist with. We also needed to get to know the Foundation better, and time spent with Josh has been extremely valuable too.

The other, even bigger, topic to tackle has been structure. We are a new board, and as such we need to lay down the processes and hierarchy that will govern our work in the near-to-medium future. There is ample inspiration around us in the many other communities we are part of, but we do have to write down our versions of these.

🔗What about the recent Governing Board meeting?

The GB had its first official meeting on Nov 15th, and the topic of structure took up all of our time - this is key since that structure is blocking the work we want to do in various topic areas (which we’re calling Committees). There are detailed minutes available here but here is a high level summary - you’ll note that these all relate to the structure and norms of the GB:

• We elected our first Chair and ViceChair - Greg Sutcliffe (gwmngilfen) and Kim Brose (HarHarLinks) respectively
• We discussed some of the core elements of the GB - voting processes, quorum, timescales, etc
• We discussed the organisation layout, Committees, and Working Groups - more detail on that below
• We talked a lot about norms as well - how we expect members of the GB to behave.

The last point is actually really important - while it sounds quite simple, it’s critical for setting expectations for us and also helps set overall policy when an explicit rule or process doesn’t exist. The culture that we set out with this first board will likely set the tone for the future, and we should get it right.

🔗Committees and Working Groups

Probably the decision with the biggest impact (thought we agreed it fairly quickly) was around the hierarchy of the GB, so let’s expand on that a bit.

As we reported in TWIM at the time, we have convened 4 initial Committees (Governance, Trust & Safety, Community, and Finance & Fundraising), and these are board-level subgroups with a focus on that specific area. Each Committee will have one or more Working Groups (WG) that focus on something related to that topic, and WGs must have a board member involved - but can (and probably should) involve more people from the community who wish to be involved in that effort.

Drawing on my own background in operating systems, this is somewhere between the CentOS model (which just has Special Interest Groups under the CentOS Board) and Fedora (which has a detailed & complex org chart). As an example, we’ll (probably) have a Website WG under the Community Committee.

Each Committee and WG will need a charter - this can be pretty short, but sets out the remit of that group. Committees will also need a Chair (and probably a Vice Chair, just in case) so that we can ensure things keep ticking along. Those positions are open for voting within the GB at the moment!

For the community, you can expect regular reports from the committees once they’ve formed, and we’ll bring those to you as we can - how we do reporting with transparency is also a topic we're discussing. You can also expect a process for people to propose new Working Groups - that is also under discussion!

🔗Reports?

Yes! So, as said above, the Committees will have an obligation to report on their activity. Since most have only existed for 3 weeks so far, there’s not yet much to say, but I hope that in the next few weeks we’ll be able to announce the Committees are up-and-running, and that we have a proposal system for new WGs.

We also have a report from the Spec Core Team which they’ve asked us to share with you - you can read that SCT report here.

🔗What’s next?

Right now, elections are in progress for the people who will run the Committees, and we want to finalise the norms and processes - these have had significant discussion already, and once we’ve tidied up the last points we can vote them in. Then comes the serious work of setting up WGs, and all that entails.

We know that this seems a very slow process, especially in today’s world of fast moving technology - but the work of discussion, negotiation, and consensus can’t be rushed. It’ll be worth it.

If you want to chat with us, we are always happy to chat! You can find us in the Office of the Governing Board room, but many of the GB will also be present at FOSDEM as well as being at the Friday Matrix event - please talk to us, bring us your thoughts, tell us your worries. We’ll do what we can to help.

Until next time!

Greg (on behalf of the Governing Board)