[OpenID board] February 13, 2020 Executive Committee Call Minutes

[Mike Jones]

February 13, 2020 Executive Committee Call Minutes

Present:
Nat Sakimura
John Bradley
Bjorn Hjelm
George Fletcher
Mike Jones
Don Thibeau, Executive Director

Visitors:
Mike Leszcz, OpenID Foundation


1.       Budget/Business Model Discussion
Don suggests raising some of the membership fees.  He presented some options.  Don wanted us to examine what he called the "loophole" - allowing individual memberships to employees.  George spoke up for the case where the company won't join but an employee is still wants to be a member.  George said that we could consider changing the voting model.  George said that if we raise the fees, we'll likely lose individual memberships.  Bjorn agreed with George's comments.  Bjorn said that we don't want to lose the developer community.  He asked for a problem statement.  Nat said that increasing individual membership fees is likely to just result in negative PR.  We agreed that individual members don't represent companies and we should clearly communicate that.

John said that need to be clear that individual members don't have rights for their companies.  For instance, Mike said that an individual member can't certify an implementation for their employer.  Don will review our communications in this regard.

The EC would be fine with the proposed moderate increases in corporate and non-profit membership fees.  We'd also be fine increasing the individual fee from $25 to $30.  Those options will be presented to the board at our meeting during RSA.


2.       Certification Program Strategic Review
Our certification revenues are not close to covering our costs.  A graph showing the shortfall was presented.  The UK regulators are reviewing certification guidance and should have conclusions in a few months.  FDX is pushing back on certification as a legal construct.  (FDX's sustaining business model is based on certification revenues.)  Nat said that he's fine with 3rd party certifications including OpenID Certification.

We don't have hard evidence or commitments from other organizations about their use of OpenID Certification.  So we can't predict future revenues.

The EC asked how certification money is being spent.  Some is support and bug fixing.  Some is developing new tests.  Some is the migration project.  All these are fixed-cost contracts - not payment for hours worked.  Mike Jones let people know that those doing the support often work more hours than they budgeted.

Nat asked for three-year projections with good, bad, and expected financial figures.  Don will work on that.


3.       Liaison Update
Nat reported that we are seeking ISO PAS (Publicly Available Standard) submitter status.  Tony supported it in the liaison committee.  The EC supports this.  Nat will drive this.

Bjorn is working to establish a liaison relationship between 3GPP and OIDF.  3GPP is a partnership between seven SDOs around the world.  3GPP has created an OpenID Connect profile.  Bjorn is making the case that this profile should move to the OpenID Foundation.  The EC supports this.


4.       Global Open Finance Technical Working Group
Gavin Littlejohn, the FDATA chairman, is advocating creating a new international finance standards working group.  This may be driven more by policy goals than technical standards goals.  Nat and Don will be talking with FDATA representatives next week in London.


5.       Reception during RSA Conference
We are changing the dinner format this year to be a reception were board members can invite colleagues and collaborators, instead of a sit-down dinner.


6.       RISC Working Group Rechartered
The RISC working group has been rechartered to be the Shared Signals and Events working group.  See https://openid.net/wg/sse/.  It now includes the Continuous Access Evaluation Protocol (CAEP) work as well as the existing Risk and Incident Sharing and Coordination (RISC) work.

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