Minutes of Grex Board Meeting 18 December 2003

Dec 19 01:58 UTC 2003

7:04 pm bhoward calls.
present: mary*, remmers, aruba*, other*, slynne, gelinas*, polygon, 
sgsk, flem*, bhoward (by phone)   
[* denotes current board member]

1. Opening gavel: 7:12pm EDT

2. $466 in, $499 out  - november.  
december so far: $470 in, $261 out [expected] (phone bill correction 
due to sbc screwup on centrex cancellation)
4 returning members, 2 new, 83 members, 82 current (paid up).
cafe press sent money.  woohoo.
sold a pc video board to someone in columbus, oh. for $10.
for more details, see treasurer's report online.

3. staff: gelinas: usual deletes, locks and a reap with 13000 user 
accounts recovered.
newuser moved to a/ partition instead of d/.
new user group "neighbor"
17000-18000 accounts remain current.
reap took about 14 hours, locking/cleanup is 2-3 hrs per week, but 
could be more.
        [doorbell - mdw arrives 7:23]

4.  will come back to it when STeve arrives [some 20min - 2hrs 
hence].

5. legal advice: other:  We've been offered a consultation by 
attorney Doug Mulkoff in Ann Arbor.

Discussion follows about the circumstances under which to actually 
make the first consultation.
Mary suggests that we should hold off until we have a specific 
concern, while mdw says we already 
have some, and flem says we should do it just to find out what to 
look out for.  
mdw:  we need to do our homework so we can know as much as possible 
going in.
other: the purpose of the first consultation is mutual education.
aruba:  let's form a game plan before going in, in order to reduce 
attorney time requirements 
in getting up to speed on us.

follow-up committee: polygon, gelinas, aruba, with input from other 
interested parties.
will develop document to educate attorney about Grex.
polygon will call attorney Mulkoff to inform him of our process on 
this.

6. trademark.  $335 per service for ten-yr period (US).  cannot use 
circle-r until registration complete, but circle-tm, and circle-sm 
can be used before then.  not only words, but the specific forms as 
well are covered.  renewal requires form but no fee (apparently).  
Next Step:  work up the application, and determine then whether to 
submit it and pay the fee.
There is not uniform belief in the necessity of this move among 
those present.
Grex is registered as a DBA.  
cyberspace.org domain is possibly our most valuable asset, and if 
trademarking is applicable and will protect us from loss of it, then 
it may be justified.

7. remote Bd mem access:  seems to be working.  speaking volume has 
to remain high enough to overcome sensitivity issues with the 
technology.  discussion covers differences in technology and user 
experience quality, primarily between full- and half-duplex modes.  
Question:  should we buy the unit we're using now, or something less 
expensive, or something.  Question answered.  mdw is making a 
donation to cover the cost of the unit we're now using [$140].

8. new business: aruba thanks currently departing board members for 
4yrs of service.
flem's mental meanderings: we've had an awful lot of stuff going on 
on the baff list.
how should we respond appropriately.  Basically how we've been doing 
it.
[8:30 - STeve arrives]

4. next grex: openBSD 3.4 has been installed.  ssh available for 
existing accounts.
docs in cvs.  meetings will be scheduled and online work can also 
proceed.

5. staff report cont'd:  STeve locked a bunch and none squawked.  
Board should address /var/spool/mail disk, because its lifespan is 
running out.  Should we replace disk on current machine or spend the 
time on next grex?  Answer: hopefully next grex will up before mail 
disk dies.  We have the hardware to replace it available, but the 
cost is time.

9. Closing Gavel: 8:51pm EDT

response 2 of 57:

Dec 19 02:07 UTC 2003

Correction: EDT times referenced above are actually EST.

response 4 of 57:

Dec 19 04:26 UTC 2003

Heh.  Fastest minutes ever. :)

response 6 of 57:

Dec 19 11:32 UTC 2003

You are most welcome, Bruce.

I think Eric must have posted these minutes before leaving the meeting
location.  It's going to be hard to top that. 

response 8 of 57:

Dec 19 13:33 UTC 2003

Were any of the decisions which were made (keep the mail disk if possible,
for example) actually motions which were voted on?

The minutes aren't clear on this, & I'm just curious; but if they were, the
minutes should say so.  If they weren't, fine.

response 10 of 57:

Dec 19 13:36 UTC 2003

(wow.  he even caught the EST/EDT error right away.  Eric's my new hero!)

response 12 of 57:

Dec 19 14:14 UTC 2003

Mailing list for board and staff.

response 14 of 57:

Dec 19 14:28 UTC 2003

Here is a list of some subjects of recent messages to baff, with dates:

        Nov 25          Certifying candidates
        Dec  3          Supercharge your sexual battery
        Dec  2          SPAM  (Greetings from Grex Candidate
        Dec  2          Account of Board Candidate Terminated
        Dec  6          Participation in Coop
        Dec  8          Programs to display excerpts from newuser text
        Dec 12          Ethernet on Next Grex
        Dec 17          Thursday Board Meeting Location Change
        Dec 18          OpenBSD 3.4

Some topics generated more messages than others.

response 18 of 57:

Dec 20 01:46 UTC 2003

Don't buy any new disks for old Grex.  There are about five 4 Gig disks
already connected to old Grex.  Turn one on, format it, and go.

response 22 of 57:

Dec 20 16:26 UTC 2003

Personally, I think Grex should maintain it's quirky tradition even when it
doesn't have to.  It'll add character to the system.

response 24 of 57:

Dec 20 22:55 UTC 2003

Why "bizarre"?

I don't know; I don't even know if thought has been given to the matter.