Meeting Minutes: Board and BAC Monthly (2025-04-28)

Below are the minutes from the recent BAC and Board of Directors meeting. All members receiving this notification are encouraged to review the minutes and actively participate in the discussion. That's one of the opportunities to engage directly with BAC members by replying in the thread below. Your input helps us ensure the OpenSSL community remains transparent, collaborative, and responsive to your needs.

Attendees

@Anton Arapov, @James Bourne, @Jeff Johnson, @Jaroslav Reznik
Absent: @Katerina Micova, @Paul Dale, @Billy Brumley, @Randall Becker, @Tim Hudson

Agenda

1. Updates on the Business Advisory Committee.

2. Community engagement and feedback mechanisms.

Key points

• April is a high-impact month for OpenSSL, with active presence at RSA, ICMC, and a tightly focused internal engineering meetup. These events drive critical alignment across our technical and community roadmap.

• The previous BAC and Board of Directors meeting experienced access issues. That issue has been resolved.

Community Content and Outreach

• James Bourne met with Jon Ericson (Community Lead at the OpenSSL Foundation) to explore opportunities for strengthening community presence through educational materials and more effective use of social platforms.

• One example of recent community feedback is the suggestion to create beginner-level material—such as an “OpenSSL for Dummies” series—to make cryptographic concepts more approachable. This could serve as a starting point for a broader thread to identify educational resource needs.

Feedback and Wishlist Collection

• James Bourne has gathered early feedback regarding the use of OpenSSL in resource-constrained and small business environments. These real-world observations help inform our understanding of emerging user needs.

• Jeff Johnson proposed introducing a “wishlist” feature on the OpenSSL Communities platform to foster broader engagement and capture community-driven ideas.

• Jaroslav Reznik is actively gathering feedback from distribution maintainers, highlighting the importance of improving upstream-downstream communication.

Upcoming Releases and Transparency

• Jeff Johnson is advocating for a clear, early-stage roadmap using an “above-the-line/below-the-line” format to ensure transparency and active input across the community.

Future Actions

• Anton Finalize Brno meeting schedule with Tim. Help BAC to plan next steps and roadmap transparency actions.

• Jaroslav Coordinate with Katrina for Friday OSS community event in Brno. Continue distro outreach.

• Jeff Contribute wishlist discussion items.

• All Increase transparency through forums, roadmaps, and collaborative discussions across OpenSSL Communities.

Future Meetings and Events

• In-person meetings in Brno will focus on OpenSSL Corporation updates, Business Advisory Committee (BAC) activities, and project planning discussions.

• The upcoming BAC meeting will mark the first face-to-face gathering of its members. The agenda includes a review of progress since the BAC’s formation in October, an analysis of challenges encountered, and an evaluation of current priorities.

• A key objective of this meeting is to define a clearer roadmap for the OpenSSL Library, strengthening the BAC’s ability to provide structured and forward-looking advisory support.

• Jaroslav Reznik proposed aligning an Open Source Software (OSS) community meetup in Brno with the OpenSSL team’s visit, aiming to deepen engagement with the local open source community.