remmers
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Minutes of the Board Meeting of November 16, 1994
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Nov 21 17:26 UTC 1994 |
Minutes of Cyberspace Communications Board of Directors Meeting, 11-16-94
Initializing gavel: The meeting was called to order at 7:13 p.m.
Board members present: Steve Weiss (srw) [chair], Dan Romanchik (danr)
[treasurer], John Remmers (remmers) [secretary], Rane Curl (rcurl),
Mike Smerza (morel). (STeve Andre (steve) arrived later in the
meeting.)
Board members absent: Meg Geddes (meg)
Others attending: Steve Gibbard (scg), Rob Henderson (robh),
William Hosman (wh), Valerie Mates (popcorn), Mary Remmers
(chelsea).
1. Treasurer's report (danr):
October was a good month -- $1100 in receipts from the JCC sale
plus $500 in memberships, giving us a bank balance in excess of
$4000. These figures do not show up in the online financial
report for October because the money was deposited in the bank in
early November.
November has been a good month so far, with two new memberships
and two renewals.
2. 501(c)3 Committee (rcurl):
No paperwork has been completed yet.
3. Computer Rehabilitation Committee (rcurl):
We are loaning a computer to a learning disabled person through a
community medical agency in Plymouth.
4. Publicity Committee:
Steve Weiss reported that Misti Anslin (mta) has resigned as chair
and raised the question whether we should continue to have a
publicity committee. Publicity efforts would appear superfluous
for the internet committee, but perhaps we still need local
publicity. Misti may be willing to maintain the publications that
have already been developed; Dan Romanchik will contact her.
5. Technical Committee (steve and staff):
This item was deferred pending STeve Andre's arrival.
6. Financial planning: how to spend our money, budgeting and taxes,
staff wishlist, staff discretionary budget, rainy day fund (all):
Steve indicated that we should investigate our obligations re tax
returns. Dan Romanchik repeated his recommendation that we rejoin
the Accounting Aid Society and consult them on this and other
financial matters.
Motion (danr, morel): To join the Accounting Aid Society and
allocate $25 to this purpose for one year's membership.
Passed unanimously (5-0-0).
STeve Andre thinks that an improved backup system using modern
technology (such as an 8 mm Exabyte system) should be a high
priority, and that the cost would be around $700.
We should have a face-to-face staff meeting before the next board
meeting to put together a wish list for other equipment.
There was discussion of the concept of a "rainy day fund" and how
formal it should be at this point. Dan will review the discussion
in Coop and talk to the Accounting Aid Society about it.
5. Technical Committee (steve and staff):
STeve Andre arrived at about 7:45 p.m. and presented the Technical
Committee report.
Disk problems -- it's believed that the old ROMs on the Sun-3
can't talk to the new controller successfully and that this is the
source of the file lossage problems on the new disk drive. STeve
has found a source for more current ROMs but believes that the $50
asking price for two ROMs is excessive, and wants to try some
borrowed ROMs from Greg Cronau first in any case. Steve W.
expressed the opinion that the amount of money involved is not
worth a delay.
A new kernel was installed two weeks ago. The system crashes and
has to be restarted about once every two days under this kernel,
due to memory problems. It is believed that new ROMs will fix
this also.
Security -- there was a root breakin Monday night, somewhat unlike
previous ones. An attempt by this person to cover his or her
tracks was unsuccessful.
The chmod program on /usr/local/bin is not functioning correctly,
but /bin/chmod works.
The search for a new 386 motherboard for the PC route box
continues. A Grex member (name unspecified) is helping with the
search. The difficulty is that we must sure that the motherboard
is capable of running the Net-BSD version of Unix correctly so
that improved throughput on the internet connection will be
realized.
STeve recently deleted about 1300 old accounts, and restored about
a dozen that shouldn't have been deleted. The deletions have
resulted in system performance improvements due to the much smaller
password file.
The desirability of improved tape backup was discussed again, and
it was decided to consider authorizing funds for it under new
business.
Mail software -- the current mail delivery program, smail, handles
load spikes very poorly, resulting in high load averages and poor
system performance when backed-up mail from other systems starts
to be delivered to Grex after a period of downtime. Staff
believes that smail should be replaced by sendmail, which has a
better queuing mechanism that should level out the spikes. Steve
W. expressed the belief that eventually we really need a separate
machine to handle mail.
Marcus Watts (mdw) has been putting a lot of work into the shadow
password system recently, including development of a better
program to add and delete accounts.
We are now running on our own ALM-2 serial card; the borrowed card
has been returned to Greg Cronau.
Valerie expressed thanks to STeve for all the time and effort he's
been putting into the system lately.
7. Dungeon issues -- moving, construction, centrex, etc. (popcorn,
steve, carl)
Nick Contaxes would like us to find the original lease contract.
The view was expressed that if the concern is that it could show
up unexpectedly at a later date, this could be addressed by
language in a new agreement stating explicitly that any previous
agreements are superseded.
Wiring hasn't been done yet. When it is, it would be reasonable
to schedule a "volunteer day" to do painting etc. This needs to
be coordinated with Ian. Once the drywall is being done, we can
schedule things with the phone company.
8. Staff membership policy (srw):
John Remmers read his proposed policy for procedure for adding new
people to staff. After some discussion and friendly amending, a
formal motion was made and voted on.
Motion (remmers, srw):
Staff with permanent root access may at its discretion grant
specific resources to qualified individuals for the purpose of
performing work that is beneficial to Grex. Examples of such
resources would be write access to selected directories in
order to modify data files or to install software. In the the
event of an emergency, temporary root access may be granted by
any permanent root.
Permanent root access, access to the staff conference, and
access to the "baff" mailing list shall be with the advice and
consent of the Board.
Passed unanimously (6-0-0).
9. Grex liabilities to individuals:
There was discussion of the need for a procedure on loans of
equipment to Grex. It was agreed informally that when we accept
an item of equipment on loan basis, that the lender and the person
accepting agree via email on a value for the item, with a copy of
the mail to go to the treasurer for tracking purposes.
a. Reimburse danr for a rubber stamp.
There was general and quick agreement that the treasurer's request
for a rubber stamp to facilitate handling checks was eminently
reasonable.
Motion (rcurl, morel): To authorize the treasurer to purchase a
rubber stamp.
Passed unanimously (6-0-0).
b. Verification for Usenet use (new policy):
A volunteer to handle verification for Usenet posting access is
needed. There was discussion of how much leeway the verifier
should have in deciding what to accept, and concern that the
process be fair, impartial, and non-age-biased. It was agreed
that we should come up with a list of items acceptable as id, but
that we shouldn't attempt to do it at this meeting. Mary Remmers
agreed to prepare such a list and a proposed verification policy
for the next Board meeting.
c. New phone line deal from Ameritech.
We decided that it wasn't for us.
d. Authorize "Grex" public access terminal (rcurl):
Rane reported that the idea had originated with TS Taylor, who
plans to undertake installation of such terminals in locations
such as restaurants as a commercial venture and is offering to let
Grex be involved with the effort. There was some discussion of
the desirability of becoming involved in a commercial venture of
this nature, and of liability issues. Rane will request more
information from TS on the role envisioned for Grex.
e. Representation at HVCN meeting (remmers):
John R. reported that the old Huron Valley Freenet project is
being revived with new organizers and under the new name of Huron
Valley Community Network, and that they are interested in working
with existing organizations in the area that provide online
services. A public meeting is being held this Friday, November
18, at 5 p.m. at the Ann Arbor Public Library. Several people
expressed their intention to attend; no formal delegation was
formed, however.
f. Policy for dealing with imposters (popcorn):
Valerie reported on some mail she'd received from someone who
claimed that he was being impersonated on the system by another
person. The secretary, being exhausted by this time in the
evening, doesn't quite remember what the outcome was, but in any
case no formal action was taken.
10. New business:
STeve listed reasons why we need more modern and convenient tape
backup: (1) ability to restore for security, (2) ease of use for
daily incremental backups, (3) ease of use for file restoration.
Cost would probably be no more than $700 for a reconditioned unit;
2.3gb capacity tapes sell for $11 each. The tape drive would go
in the spare bay of the storage unit that houses the new disk
drive.
Motion (morel, srw): To authorize $750 for purchase of a suitable
tape drive and 5 to 6 tapes.
Passed unanimously (6-0-0).
Terminating gavel: The meeting was adjourned by ceremonial
gavel-banging at 10:09 p.m. Everyone lived happily ever after.
Respectfully submitted,
John Remmers, secretary
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