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_YRlCU4ywGoG40ouo3IK...) 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