-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Open Computing Facility Board of Directors Meeting 5 September 2000 Board of Directors members present: Stephen Callahan (calman) Eugene Chan (ceugene) Wayne Chan (wyc) Ivan Jen (ivan) Bem Jones-Bey (ajani) Devin Jones (jones) Wayne Kao (kaow) Jeremy Lin (jjlin) Eddy Lu (eddylu) Stephen McCamant (smcc) Akop Pogosian (akopps) Susie Tang (suztang) Others in attendance: Stephanie Hou (???) Eugene Kim (eek) John C. Tsai (jtsai) The meeting was opened at 6:30 PM. Administrivia Wayne K volunteered to be secretary which covered half the administrivia. Steve M says we now to decide when the next meeting is. Reports I. GM Report Steve M reports that the windows in the lab are now tinted. Security is present, but in the wrong places. The door connecting Heller to the lab locks automatically which is bad. The computers have the metal thingees but they're not locked to the desk. Steve C is wondering when the security guy will come to lock them to the desk; Steve M says we have no idea. Steve M says we have no lock on the server room door. There's no fire detector but Steve M says it's not as big a problem as long as no one sleeps in the lab (cause they'd see the fire). There was some discussion about the bike lock on the front door of the lab (which we can't remove). The things Ken was doing still aren't doing. Steve M says he's going to an SAS orientation. II. SM Report Akop thought the meeting was tomorrow so he wasn't ready to give a report. There's some stuff he wants to talk about next week. Lots of people have come in and want OCF to host .org domains, but it's not easy cause they have to go through an ISP. We have to be the secondary DNS and have to configure the web server. Akop says we're being passed a lot of responsibility by IS&T since we have to decide who's worthy. We've allowed ASUC and Decal to do this in the past because they're useful, but they're still not fully up. Akop suggested that people that want a free virtual host come in and explain themselves. Ivan's wondering if IS&T is being charged anything for this. Steve M says it costs them manpower to do this and Devin said time is a big deal for IS&T. Akop says IS&T might start charging for virtual hosting in the future but doesn't see why people wouldn't use IS&T services because it's free. Akop says we should be more selective about who we accept for virtual hosting. Devin asked if, for example, if CASA for Kids want to do a redirect to their OCF account, whether that would be ok. Akop said it sounded ok. Ivan says a Steve M says we need ports to open the lab. Devin says they're cheap. Akop suggested using 8 port hubs. Akop says Ken said we should archive our mailing lists. Devin says Jenny says they are archived. Akop says they're archived in the "sm" and "gm" mailboxes which the "sm" and "gm" can't access. There's a program called HyperMail that formats things nicely. Another program Mailman is just like Majordomo feature-wise, and it's nicer than anything UCLink offers, and it offers password protection. Akop said that someone complained that some mailing lists are private. Steve M says it'd be nice to have a staff mail tracking system. FAQ-o-Matic is a nice FAQ system we should install. Wayne K says we just need to install a couple Perl modules to get it working. Old Business I. When are we going to open? Steve M says we're in a dangerous "we're close" stage, and that we should focus on specific issues. Steve C is wondering, aren't we kind of open right now? Steve M says the main thing is people should be able to be able to be here when staff aren't here. Wayne C is wondering whether there's a deadline for when we should open, and Steve M says we don't really have a commitment to open anytime. We need to get hubs, which Akop will check on. We need to fix the locks on both doors. Akop's wondering what kind of locks we want. Steve M says a key lock would be best with the key in the key box, but we need another key box. We need to jumpstart the Ultras. Akop says we should be able to find a compatible Sun fan but it'll look different. He says Luns suggested we buy new fans but reuse the old Ultra 1 connectors. Steve M says we might need to sauter. Devin says this might be a lot of labor since we have 20 machines. Akop says it's hard to get the fans in and out of the computers. Steve joked we have ex Steve C said he's going to go buy Corel, probably tonight, and he left. II. CSUA in the motd There's a CSUA talk tomorrow which was publicized on the OCF motd. Steve M wasn't sure if it was appropriate for the motd. Traditionally it's always about OCF things, and there are other things going on in the world and there are other ways they can get that kind of information. Steve M says we have a special relationship between us and the CSUA, and the help sessions are also jointly run. Akop says people should talk with other staff members before putting things in the motd in the future. III. Help Sessions Bem says the CSUA wants to have 'em but no one wants to teach one. Bem says the CSUA wants to do more events and there's probably going to be a UNIX, Emacs, and a VI help session. IV. Room choice for BoD meetings Steve M says he'll find out if we get a meeting room when he goes to the SAS orientation this Friday. He announced that next week is the general meeting, and it usually takes the place of the Board Meeting. Steve said it'd be nice if it was somewhere other than in the lab. And in general, we should have a separate room for meetings so staff isn't distracted by games and so we don't disturb users (once we get users in the lab). He said we had a roundtable last semester in 104 Dwinelle and it feels more natural for a board meeting. We need to find a time for the meeting. Steve M didn't want it to conflict with CSUA politburo meetings, but Bem says he couldn't guarantee avoiding a conflict. Thursdays at 7:00 were agreeable to everyone present. The general meeting will be next Thursday. V. Noise: lab > study area Steve M says we could be disturbing people studying, but Susie says we haven't had any complaints. Steve M thinks Ken added this item to the agenda. There was nothing more to say. New Business I. Digits in Username Susie says we should allow digits in the username and that there was an informal decision last year. Steve C says we did pass it. Bem says nothing was changed in the approve script. Bem says he'll change the script. Steve M says it's a C program and Steve M says the latest version is in his home directory. Steve M said that as far as he knew, Luns might have graduated. II. Naming Committee Steve C says a lot of people volunteered to join, and asked everyone to email their suggestions, and would email back something and they'd meet if they ran into any problems. Steve C says the committee will make the final decision. III. Mars 2002 Susie asked about Mars 2002's co-location. Steve M says they need to come talk to us again and suggested they should send us an email. Akop says we should return the computer and let them run their site on our server, but Steve M says they told us they have custom software which requires root to run. Akop says their computer is causing him a lot of trouble. Devin says we've given them adequate warning and we didn't promise them that we can continue but Akop says he doesn't want to be "the bad guy." Bem suggested we boot the Mars 2002 people "to the moon." Devin says we would like to get rid of them because we spend a lot of time talking about them and it's causing Akop trouble. Bem motioned we give them a month to pick up their box or it becomes the property of the OCF. Bem will write the threatening email. Devin seconded. The motion passed unanimously by acclamation. Devin says they're not an SAS organization and evolved out of a Decal class but they can have web space on our servers. IV. On having an agenda Steve M says it's nice to have an agenda so people can start thinking about the agendas before the meeting so we don't make hasty decisions. Steve suggested people email the board if they want to discuss something at a BoD meeting. V. Officer candidates Steve says we have officer elections next week and there's the possibility that we elect 2 Site Managers since there are Windows boxes and Sun boxes, and the SM is overworked. Akop thought the SM oversees but he ended up doing a lot. Devin suggested that the SM ended up doing a lot by precedent because Kat wanted to oversee everything when she was SM. Steve M says the problem with 2 SM's is that things can fall through the cracks more easily. Steve M says the same overworking problem happens with the GM, even when there were two. Steve M says he felt a little burned out despite Ken still being "the lab guy" and doing most of the stuff he had done while he was GM. People relied on Ken for a lot of things. Steve M is hoping Ken will come back, but that isn't a great model for running an organization. Akop was disappointed by the fact that no one but GM has time and willingness to get the lab infrastructure completed and mentioned that Patrick was willing to help whenever he heard that there is something that needed to be done. Steve M's wondering who's going to tell him he has this honor. Steve M says Ken had a lot of patience. Bem suggested we have a "Meeting Facilitator" since Steve M loves chairing meeting, but Steve M says that's the only real job of the GM. Devin says the GM job as evolved in an "insane way" into a position that can be split up. He was hungry though so he suggested we do that online. V. What to do with old Suns Akops says the DECs are gone mostly and we have 4 or 5 working sun4c class machines that we did not want to scrap because "they still work." They are old and slow, the OCF certainly does not need them. I'd be happy to see them gone but hopefully not through E&S. Devin asked about the two Sparc5s. Akop says those are of more interest. The Sparc5s seem to be much nicer than the sparc10s that we have (80MB RAM/2GB disk vs 50mhz SS10 with 64MB and 1GB disk). We'll keep them for OCF if they don't take up too much space and keep the rest for ourselves. Devin says Elaine wanted some of the machines. Akop says it's fine if we use them for learning purposes. The machines would be hard to use at home because there's no CD drive. Eek suggested we have a second lab outside the door, but Devin said it might cause too much nice though we could do it if there was a lot of demand. Akop says an old staffer wants a SPARC Station 2. The meeting was adjourned at 8:07. Recorded by Wayne Kao (kaow).