Boost Foundation - a few updates

From: David Sankel (camior_at_[hidden])
Date: 2023-07-10 21:46:26

Hey all,

I wanted to give a few updates on Boost Foundation happenings.

First, for those who aren't aware, we're the 100% volunteer-led 501(c)3
non-profit behind boost.org, the C++Now conference, and the Boost C++
standardization effort. We originally were the Boost Steering Committee
under the Software Freedom Conservancy, but a couple of years ago formed
our own non-profit. We meet monthly (you can see our minutes here
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zMKUX3nfdcOXT6nUIU4M_YRlCU4ywGoG40ouo3IKydM/edit?usp=sharing>)
and our mission is library development, C++ standard enhancements, and best
practices (more about that on our quite ugly website
<https://sites.google.com/a/boost.org/steering/>).

Annually at C++Now, we elect directors to the Boost Foundation board. This
May we added three members to the roster:

   - *Kristen Shaker. *Kristen, hailing from Google, has jumped in and
   contributed heavily to the board over the past year. She joined our Code of
   Conduct team, was a major contributor in our most tricky cases, and helped
   interfacing with our lawyer. She has also used her extensive network and
   taken charge of moving our boost.org rackspace account to AWS. Kristen is
   an enthusiastic doer and I'd very much love to see what she does in a Boost
   Foundation director role.
   - *Inbal Levi.* Inbal is one of those who came to C++Now and immediately
   fell in love with the conference. She now serves as the conference's
   program chair, and it only takes a little browsing of this year's program
   to see what a fantastic job she's done. Inbal brings a lot of experience to
   the table as well: she is a co-founder of the Core C++ conference which is
   now one of the biggest in the world; and she sits on the board of the C++
   Foundation. I think Inbal's experience, network, and passion will be a
   great asset to the board.
   - *Jeff Garland*. Jeff is a long-time Boost author and contributor. He's
   also been highly active this past year in the Foundation. He created and
   led our C++ standardization initiative and has grown it to over a dozen
   members. Jeff's input is essential in revitalizing our Boost libraries
   effort and think he will be a solid contributor to the board.

There are a few ongoing initiatives that I'm excited to call out:

   - *Server cost reduction.* We currently have a heavy monthly cost for
   both the mailing list and the boost.org server. These used to be free,
   but vendors have started charging non-profits for this kind of service.
   We've been upgrading the website to a newer version of PHP which will
   enable a cost-saving move to AWS. Kristen has been doing a fantastic job
   leading this effort.

   We also, with huge lifting from Sam Darwin, moved our mailing lists from
   mailgun to SES. This unfortunately broke threading so we moved back. :(
   - *discourse.boost.org <http://discourse.boost.org>.* We've been getting
   an experimental discourse.boost.org forum up and running. Many other
   Open Source communities have moved to discourse (see discourse.llvm.org
   and users.rust-lang.org for a couple examples) and it looks like a great
   tool. We like the idea that an online forum lowers the barrier to joining
   our community, especially for Millennials and Gen Z. We also like the
   benefits of using popular Open Source software rather than something home
   grown that we'd have to maintain. So, we'll try it out. If it turns out to
   be awful, we'll take it down.
   - *Boost engagement*. Jeff Garland is leading a subcommittee that is
   trying to figure out ways to get more engagement in Boost, both from user
   and author perspectives. There's been a lot of great ideas thrown around,
   but it's still too early to say what this is going to look like. To be
   sure, there'll be more to report on here as time goes on.

That's all for now. If you have any questions feel free to reply to this
thread or ask me directly.

Cheers,

David Sankel
Boost Foundation Executive Director