response 25 of 110:

Jan 31 21:19 UTC 1996

  #23...That is what I've been saying and why I said there should be 
more turnover on the staff side.  As long as the same people are on 
staff for longer and longer periods of time, they will become far more
entrenched and cliquish than the Board, which has term limits.  If
a Board member, as is current, has to sit out a year and let somebody else
serve serve after being there two terms, why then shouldnt staff be subject to
the same rules for the same reasons.
   As I understand it, there are term limits for Board members so otehr
people can get involved and have the chance to serve.  This is a way of
keeping the Board vital.  Surely the staff of Grex runs the same danger
of becoming too much of a closed and cliquish group, with less and less
inclination toward new staffers and ideas, as they remain unchanged for
long periods of time.
   There needs to be some sort of equality in the relationship between
Board and Staff, but this is impossible when one is far more entrenched
than the other.  I'm not saying that people like Steve Andre and Marcus
Watts shouldnt ever not be root, just that they may move on at some
point as will the rest, and without a steady staff turnover, noone will
be properly trained to take their places.  
   So why cant some of the old staffers gradually take more "emeritus"
type roles and let some of the younger users like scg and others
learn from them and assume operational responsibilities.  If a steady
rotation of members on the Board is healthy, then surely it would be
for staff!

response 27 of 110:

Jan 31 22:04 UTC 1996

I suppose that since Wernher von Braun and Einstein had been 
prominent in Rocket Science and Nuclear Theory for many years
before WWII, we should have not allowed them to help with the
Manhattan project?  I shudder to think how many people wouldn't
be here now if they had not continued to contribute to stopping
the War.  If we have experts here, why should they be forced to
go away.  We do have people here learning from each other.  It
would be ludicrous to take away knowledge from our leaders.  It
would also not be possible to leave people as root who were not
exactly on staff.  Would you want a big group af really smart
and really powerful people wandering about with no official 
title, and no responsibility to the board.  Our current system
works and it works well.  Why would we want to take something
that works better than most of the large corporations in this
country and make it more like those same corporations?  Staff
has a well defined purpose.  They have established and effective
procedures.  Grex works.

response 29 of 110:

Feb 1 03:10 UTC 1996

    Im NOT saying that marcus, gregc, srw, and steve should be thrown
out!  Im saying that grex is too dependent on them.  These people
are going to move on one day no doubt, and grex is going to be in a 
fine position unless its set up to function without them, and with
people who are trained to take their places.  Most of what needs
doing staffwise does not require a programmer's expertise.  And for
what does, they can always be called in when available, but Grex
should be set up so it can be run on a functional level by anyone
with the proper training.  If it is not, then staff does not see
Grex exsisting at a time without them, which is shortsighted at
best.  
  Either the creators and staff of grex are ever going to trust the
users of grex to run this without them or they are not.  But the idea
of having a separate board to create policy is a joke if the staff
has a permanence (even if by neccesity) that the board does not.  The
board may as well be dissolved as it is now, because if Grex cant be run
without current staff then the board doesnt have a damn thing to say.
  As long as the current programmers on staff are a phone call away,
there are enough other people around here with tech knowledge who
can run this place that there can be some sort of limited rotation.
  If not  you are going to have an ever increasing schism between
board and staff and users and staff.  Ten years from now you'll
have a board of newbies and an old and entrenched staff that doesnt
have a reason to listen to them, because they are needed too much to
be replaced.  
\.

response 31 of 110:

Feb 1 06:26 UTC 1996

Also, way back when Grex was founded, the founders wanted to have staff
"apprentices" who learned how to perform various staff functions, to gradually
take over one day, when other staffers moved on.  For several staff tasks,
such as cfadm, we have done this.  Though there are other guru-level staff
tasks that even today only our gurus understand.

response 33 of 110:

Feb 1 11:56 UTC 1996

I think the reason that there isn't "more turnover on the staff
side", as called for in #25, is a problem of scarce resources
that is very difficult to solve. In doing the kind of things
that they do for the system, STeve, Marcus, and Greg are drawing
on their years of education and industry experience in electrical
engineering, software development, computer science, etc. Those
are skills that have a high value in the marketplace, and the
number of people who are willing to contribute them to nonprofit
organizations like Grex on an unpaid, volunteer basis is quite
small.

Though people may be unaware of it, efforts *are* being made, and
have been for some time, to lessen the dependence of Grex on a
small cadre of old-timers--and, I believe, with the blessing of
those old-timers. And the efforts have met with some success--
Jan Wolter, Steve Weiss, and Scott Helmke have all been recruited
relatively recently (Jan and Scott *very* recently) and have been
making substantial contributions in the areas of hardware and
software development. (Apologies if I neglected to mention
anyone.) Given the scarcity of people with those skills, I'm
surprised that we've done as well as we have.

If anyone has some practical suggestions on how to speed up the
recruitment of staffers with a high level of technical skill, I'm
sure we'd all be interested. There may be some efforts that can
be made, but the reality you're going to bump into is that there
just aren't that many people out there with the requisite skills
who are willing to donate them for free.

As far as getting people who can "run Grex on a functional level"
is concerned--we've been making efforts there too, with some
success: Steve Gibbard, Rob Henderson, Dave Lovelace are three
relatively new staffers who do things like reboots and conference
management.

So it's not like we aren't trying. Maybe we could be doing better.
Any suggestions on how? Actually, a public "Grex technical confer-
ence", as Jan proposes in this item, might help draw in new folks.
I'm skeptical about how much this would help in reality, given the
scarce resource problem mentioned above, but I suppose it wouldn't
hurt to try it.

response 35 of 110:

Feb 1 12:02 UTC 1996

Rcurl, bless his heart, whipped that #33 in there ahead of me. Remind
me to be careful in the supermarket check-in lane if he is about :-)
Read with that in mind, thank you. <adbarr loves to play Silly Elaboration>

response 37 of 110:

Feb 1 13:08 UTC 1996

Every system needs both expertise & trustworthiness to operate.  Same
thing happens when you hire an auto mechanic.  There are cheap guys you
wouldn't trust with a screw driver.  Expensive guys you can't afford.
Expensive guys you definitely wouldn't trust even without a screw
driver.  And very rarely, inexpensive guys you'd pay gold to keep if you
could.

So far as access to the system goes, the board has ultimate control
anyways.  In theory, they could fire all staff without notice, change
the lock on the dungeon door, & reboot the systems.  Physical access to
the equipment = root access; and, in fact, while the system is booting,
there is a point where it is easy to obtain root access.  Hopefully,
this is extremely unlikely, and would indicate no end of problems have
already arisen including a complete breakdown of trust between staff &
the members & the board that is probably a much more serious problem,
this is almost an irrelevant detail at that point.

Indeed, at the moment, there isn't a bipolarity between the board & the
staff because there is a considerable overlap of personel between the
two.  The board would almost have to fire itself to undertkae such an
operation as adbarr proposes, which makes it an exercise in extreme
silliness at present.

Hopefully such will continue to be the case, but it is very definitely
not a good idea to confuse technical expertise with the details of the
system, with the ability to make overall policy.  In fact, ultimate
responsibility for the policy lies not with staff, NOR with the board,
but with the members of the system at large; and indeed, the bylaws
specifically provide that the board must keep the members informed of
such issues, & provides the members with various mechanisms to execute
this ultimate responsibility.

response 39 of 110:

Feb 1 23:12 UTC 1996

  It seems to me that the way to prevent future problems and reflect
the reality of the way things are set up here, would be to reduce the
number of elected board seats and say that all staffers are also by
definition board members.  Say that only those board seats that are
elected are subject to term limits, and that those who are appointed
as staff are also board members.  Set the board size  so that current
staff make up 2/3 of the board, and elections fill the other 1/3.
This gives less influence to grex's voting members in one sense, since
most of the Board will be permanent appointed members.  But   in
exchange for this reduced influence, the few board members that do
get voted in would also be  by defnition members of staff.

This would accomplish two things, eliminate any distinction between
board and staff, and provide a small (almost token) regular rotating
change in board/staff composition.  The current setup, where the
staff is permanent and can get as large as it wants, while the board
has term limits and size limits, almost guarantees a schism somewhere
down the road, particularly since there is no rule in place to assure
there will always be an acceptable overlap between the two.  Just
because there is now doesnt mean that will always be the case.

To say that some junior board member actually has more influence around
here than Steve or Remmers, because they are not on the Board anymore,
is a little silly.  As long as someone is a staff member of Grex, with
root access, charged with carrying out system operations, they should be
on the Board.  One who has responsibility should have authority, and
vice versa.  Having one board/staff would clearly make things less
complicated around here.

response 41 of 110:

Feb 2 02:04 UTC 1996

  #40...remmers, there is no way that someone can be on staff and avoid being
involved in policy issues.  Therefore staff members should be on the board
or there is no way of distinguishing board responsibilities with
staff responsiblilities.

response 43 of 110:

Feb 2 06:04 UTC 1996

Re 41: Grex is ultimately run by its members.  The members don't necessarily
want to keep up with every issue that comes up, so they elect a board of
people they trust to run the system.  The board keeps up with the issues and
makes informed decisions for the users.  The staff deals with day-to-day
operation of the computer, carrying out requests of the board.  It doesn't
make sense to me to put the whole staff onto the board, because staff isn't
elected by the members, so, on the whole, this would make decisionmaking
further removed from the members.

response 45 of 110:

Feb 2 11:31 UTC 1996

What Jan just said.  I sometimes go to board meetings, too, but in fact did
so more often before I was on staff.  I'm not backward about expressing my
opinions, but I don't think they get any more weight now at all.  I probably
*would* resign from staff if being on staff meant being on the board.  I've
avoided running for the board; I'm willing to provide input on policy but not
to be making policy (beyond member-wide initiatives).

We really do have two entirely different functions here.  Staff people
are there to implement policy, not to make it.  I think it's not only fine
but desirable to have staff members on the board - to aid in communications,
to help keep the board from ignoring technical feasibility issues, & for other
reasons - but that should mean that some people are willing to take on both
of these rather time-consuming jobs.

response 47 of 110:

Feb 2 23:52 UTC 1996

   I think John Remmers and others have wonderfully stated how we
are trying to open up the cadre of staff people.  I'm really glad
of the effort we've started, and think we can do more.  But, its
hard getting ahold of people who will stick with Grex for a while
who have the lower level knowledge.  At least, we haven't found
many to date.

   The idea that someone expressed with regard to "a few people
doing all the hardware stuff" (or however it was phrased) is pretty
much unavoidable, from what I've seen in organizations.  That we're
running Sun equipment as opposed to AT boxes is irrelevant: its
still finding the folks willing to do it thats hard.

response 49 of 110:

Feb 3 06:15 UTC 1996

   Hmmm.  That road leads to infinte rules, doesn't it?  I mean, if
we have to make "policy" for everything that staff does then we're
going to go the route of Arbornet and spend far too much time dealing
with that sort of thing.   Sure, everyday something new comes up
that needs attention and more importantly, thought.  But does that mean
that we need solid "policies" in writing for everything we do?  I hope
not.

   Staff is given the job of "keeping the system going" along with
the power to do that.  One has to either choose to let staff do things
as Grex does, or as Arbornet does.  I do keep on referring to them, I
know.  But it occurs to me that Grex and M-Net have taken radically
different approaches to the management of thir systems.  Both work,
both have problems.  I prefer this one myself.

   Staff does wear a "uniform"--that of staff.  It isn't nearly as much
like a policeman as that of janitor.  If we (staff) were to come up with
a graphic symbol for ourselves, I'd think a cleaning mop and a feather
duster would be the proper tools, becuase that is *most* of what we do:
clean up after problems.