response 125 of 137:

Sep 17 21:04 UTC 1995

Well, it seems like we are pretty concentrated (at least the staff is) on
getting the Sun-4 up and running.  That means still using PicoSpan etc. about
the way they are, just to ease the transition.  I doubt that we would go to
YAPP, which is not much different than Pico and might make us dump all
existing conferences :(.    WebSpan (a Web version of Pico) is being pursued
by Steve Weiss (srw), but not at the expense of his many other
responsibilities, although we might be seeing a read-only version before too
long.  I would hate to go an entirely Web based conferencing system, since
so many people already handle PicoSpan pretty well, and it runs better over
slow links than a HTML (Web) version might.

Now that we have a terminal server, we can get even more modems and run them
all faster.  More modems mean more phone lines, however, which are already
one of the biggest expenses.  An ISDN link might be possible before too long,
since prices seem to be dropping.  Using an ISDN link would dramatically
increase the telnet speed, which would help quite a number of Grexers (all
of those who can't make it a local phone call into Grex).

response 127 of 137:

Sep 18 07:24 UTC 1995

Webspan needs to run as a CGI program under the web server.
Our current web server was reprogrammed to disallow all CGI, and until we
replace it, the Webspan project (and others) are on hold.

Webspan is specified to be compatible with Picospan, so if we did have it, 
users could still use Picospan.

response 129 of 137:

Sep 19 04:20 UTC 1995

See co-op item 92 (or its link in agora).  We muddled through the last one
of these meetings without a draft budget, so I'm ready to tackle this one
without one, too.

What we did at the last meeting, which seemed to work well, was a three-
phased thing.

1) Figure out what money we have.  (Danr brought info that was very useful
here.)  We ended up with a dollar amount of money to keep in Grex's bank
account for a rainy day, a dollar amount that was needed to pay for Grex's
regular expenses (phone lines, electricity, rent, etc.), a dollar amount we
felt Grex could safely spend right away, and some guesses about how much
membership money we could expect to see in the near future.

2) Figure out what things we would like Grex to be able to buy.

3) Assign priorities to the things on the list from step 2.  The list was
about 7 items long; we felt we could afford the first 4 or so items on the
list.  Grex now has (or almost has) all of them, and we're ready to make
a new list.  That's what this Sunday's meeting is about.

response 131 of 137:

Sep 19 10:54 UTC 1995

Is anyone who is interested in attending welcome?  Maybe something
should go into the MOTD?

response 133 of 137:

Sep 19 16:47 UTC 1995

The budget meeting might consider things besides hardware and operating
costs. The newsletter will need some money for printing. There is also
the new handbook - and if people start thinking about it, maybe other
useful activities to further Grex's purposes, which could be expedited
with a little money. 

response 135 of 137:

Sep 20 06:10 UTC 1995

One factor is that we aren't asking users to become members in any
consistent (if not insistent) manner. A lot of people have to be
*asked* before they will donate to support an endeavor. In regard
to members not renewing - there is always "turnover" in all membership
organizations. One has to put in a lot of time to stay current on
Grex, and believe it or not that can become tiring (for those with
flighty attentions 8^>).

response 137 of 137:

Sep 20 12:31 UTC 1995

For lack of any idea where else to hold this meeting, how about here
at my apartment?  Type "!menumore /u/popcorn/directions" for info about
how to get here.