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Grex > Coop13 > #366: Minutes from Grex Board of Directors Meeting, September 26, 2006 | |
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| 25 new of 61 responses total. |
cyklone
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response 34 of 61:
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Oct 7 04:08 UTC 2006 |
What's the succession plan if STeve has a heart attack? Janc? Train more staff
on more stuff. Implement plans that further that goal. Is the status quo the
best way to increase staff? I doubt it.
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jep
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response 35 of 61:
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Oct 7 04:39 UTC 2006 |
The situation appears to me to have been resolved between steve and
spooked. Mistakes were made aplenty. That happens sometimes. With
good will it is sometimes possible to work things out. That has
happened, with some assistance from aruba and the couragement of the
Board. I see no reason why I should be unsatisfied with what has been
done to work out the issue.
STeve has been part of Grex since the beginning. He's trustworthy,
technically excellent, not as diligent as he used to be but geez it's
been 15 years and he's still here. We're lucky to have him. I think so
and I think almost everyone would agree.
Now, what should be done differently? And why?
About the request that they "discuss" the steve/spooked/cross thing...
when has the Board *ever* acted hastily on anything? I can't recall a
case. They deliberate and discuss and take their time. Usually by the
time they get around to doing anything, it's clear to everyone that it's
what they're going to do and most agree it's what they ought to do.
They try to do what the membership wants and what will allow Grex to
survive. I couldn't stand to be part of a Board that works that way
myself, but... well... I'm not *on* the Board. It doesn't keep me from
recognizing the way that it operates, nor from noticing it's worked
pretty well for 15 years.
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jep
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response 36 of 61:
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Oct 7 04:40 UTC 2006 |
re resp:34: What are your suggestions?
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tod
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response 37 of 61:
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Oct 7 04:55 UTC 2006 |
A technical committee and change control processes would be a good place to
start. The garage cf has some good ideas simmering and if people don't know
how to get them implemented then a technical committee should embrace that
challenge and document the procedures everyone on staff can agree to.
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cross
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response 38 of 61:
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Oct 7 05:41 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #35; I don't think it's been resolved. Mic quit from staff pending
an apology from Steve that, unless I missed something, never came. Let's give
Steve the benefit of the doubt and assume he's busy, but still...it's hardly
been "resolved."
This isn't a beat up on Steve issue. It's really not. It's about how to
prevent things like this from happening in the future.
Who cares when the board has or has not acted hastily? They have always put
things on the agenda that people have requested be on the agenda. They didn't
this time. What's up with that?
Regarding #37; That's a good start.
But, let's all be perfectly honest here: how many people think Grex is
actually going to change something that goes against the personal opinions
of either Steve or Marcus?
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aruba
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response 39 of 61:
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Oct 7 05:54 UTC 2006 |
THe board made a mistake by not discussing the question of when one staffer
should remove another staffer's privileges; it wasn't a premeditated mistake
- we just forgot to discuss it. So I apologize for that.
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mary
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response 40 of 61:
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Oct 7 11:51 UTC 2006 |
One example, Dan, is that both STeve and Marcus thought it was
a horrible idea to move to our new location and out of the Pumpkin.
Staff and board discussed it and the decision was to move.
That's a biggie and just one example. I've been present for a lot
of discussions where major (and minor) decisions were made and I
don't fault STeve if things went his way. There are a lot of people
involved in important discussions. They hold the responsibility for
all final decisions, not STeve.
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tod
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response 41 of 61:
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Oct 7 16:26 UTC 2006 |
re #40
That's why I'm suggesting a tech committee with change control
responsibilities because if something gets hung up due to someone on the
committee then it can be formally addressed in board meeting minutes rather
than buried somewhere in coop cf and garage cf like it currently is.
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cross
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response 42 of 61:
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Oct 7 17:02 UTC 2006 |
Regarding #40; I was referring specifically to grex's hardware and software.
What does colocation have to do with that? I suppose you could argue that
both Marcus and Steve wanted to go with more SPARC hardware, but in the end
we ended up on an AMD x86 machine anyway. Good for us. Aside from the
hardware problems from not buying server-class machinery, we've actually done
well with it.
But the fact of the matter is that, for the most part, if Steve and Marcus
want to make a change, they say, "I'm going to change this...." and go and
do it. Like Steve resizing the disk partitions so that we had less space on
/a and /c and more log space. I was on staff at the time; I don't remember
any forward discussion of that AT ALL. Steve just did it because it made
sense to him (and so that we could, potentially, back up user filesystems to
DVD instead of tape. To my knowledge, this has never happened once). Or
Steve buying non-ECC memory when *all* prior discussion had specified ECC
memory (which, it turns out, was pretty important). Or installing PicoSpan
after everyone had decided to go live with fronttalk - no one even knows if
grex can legally use PicoSpan, after all.
So I'll retract my earlier statement: some decisions have been made against
the better judgement of Steve and Marcus. Most have not.
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other
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response 43 of 61:
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Oct 10 11:03 UTC 2006 |
<aside>
Grex has a license to Picospan. We can certainly use it. What we don't
know is whether we can legally alter it.
</aside>
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cross
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response 44 of 61:
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Oct 10 13:42 UTC 2006 |
Really? Where did grex get a PicoSpan licence in 1991?
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tod
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response 45 of 61:
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Oct 10 21:41 UTC 2006 |
re #44
It was a work in progress.
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cross
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response 46 of 61:
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Oct 10 23:14 UTC 2006 |
Hmm. Yeah, I thought NETI was a non-entity by that point.
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janc
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response 47 of 61:
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Oct 29 01:13 UTC 2006 |
I remember that Mike Myers and Marcus Watts had an agreement with NETI
that allowed them to continue to distribute Picospan after NETI went
under. I suspect that that agreement was never formally terminated, but
presumably if they did sell a copy, then some payment would have to be
transfered to NETI, something which would at this point be impossible to
do, but probably would still have been possible in 1991. Of course, no
payment was made so far as I know. It's possible that Marcus got
approval to donate a copy from the same people who allowed Mike and him
to sell copies after NETI's demise. I have no way of knowing. I wasn't
associated with Grex in 1991.
If you really want to know if it's a problem, I suggest you contact the
former president of NETI. Larry Brilliant is now running the Google
foundation, one of the bigger charitable institutions in the world, so
he is easy to find. I think it's a pretty good bet that he'd tell us
not to worry about it.
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cross
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response 48 of 61:
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Oct 29 01:34 UTC 2006 |
I wonder, if the former president of NETI had no problem with open sourcing
the PicoSpan code, if such a thing could be done? Rather, *would* the
participants be willing to do so?
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tod
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response 49 of 61:
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Oct 29 03:08 UTC 2006 |
NETI was a fat bottom girl that made the rockin world go round
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cross
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response 50 of 61:
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Oct 29 03:26 UTC 2006 |
Yeah, but flat bottom girls never make 60 year old Sikh men dance to Bhangra.
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janc
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response 51 of 61:
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Oct 29 12:08 UTC 2006 |
I should also say that the person who supplied Picospan to Grex, Marcus,
has stated that Grex does have a valid license. Generally, when a
software supplier assures me that I have a valid license, I don't keep
worrying about it, and I don't feel morally obligated to run an
investigation into the supplier's business affairs to ensure that he
really had the right to make such assignments. Marcus says it's OK, and
it's plausible that it is OK. That's good enough for me. If the heirs
of NETI, whoever they may be, ever decide to sue Marcus for improperly
distributing copies of Picospan (I'm sure they could collect as much as
47 cents if they could prove it) then that would be between them and
Marcus. Cyberspace Communications has acted properly.
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nharmon
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response 52 of 61:
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Oct 29 12:22 UTC 2006 |
> Generally, when a software supplier assures me that I have a valid
> license, I don't keep worrying about it, and I don't feel morally
> obligated to run an investigation into the supplier's business affairs
> to ensure that he really had the right to make such assignments.
Where I work we have a policy entitled "Vendor/Supplier Due Diligence"
and it includes some of those things.
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twenex
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response 53 of 61:
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Oct 29 13:44 UTC 2006 |
Question: When a licensor goes under, who is responsible for enforcing the
terms of the licence?
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tod
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response 54 of 61:
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Oct 29 15:32 UTC 2006 |
I think a contract or license on paper is always a good thing to have because
you never know who is going to be around years later to know the facts.
re #53
That would be defined in the license as clauses. The only obligation they
would have is to ensure transfer of the digital materials to the licensee.
Any changes would have to be covered in the license as a clause or
specifically address "authorized users" and "limitations".
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cross
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response 55 of 61:
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Oct 29 15:41 UTC 2006 |
I'm really curious if someone could get the code open sourced.
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twenex
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response 56 of 61:
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Oct 29 16:39 UTC 2006 |
Re: #54. What I mean is, who is responsible for making sure that the licensee
abides by the terms?
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tod
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response 57 of 61:
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Oct 30 04:31 UTC 2006 |
re #56
The licensor of course! If you don't protect your licenses or copyrights then
you risk them going into public domain.
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twenex
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response 58 of 61:
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Oct 30 10:38 UTC 2006 |
In other words, if a licensor goes bust and no-one buys the rights to be a
licensor, they DO go into the PD?
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