Item 39. Minutes of the Board Meeting of November 16, 1994 John H. Remmers (remmers) Mon, Nov 21, 1994 (12:26). 253 lines, 2 responses. 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. 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