[H-ANNOUNCE] Minutes
Raymond Smith
raymond at humbug.org.au
Sun Sep 19 01:52:07 EDT 2004
Please find attached a number of minutes for the previous year.
Regards,
--
Raymond Smith
Secretary of HUMBUG 2003/2004 mailto:secretary at humbug.org.au
Home Unix Machine - Brisbane User Group http://www.humbug.org.au/
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MINUTES OF THE 27 SEPTEMBER 2004 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF
THE HOME UNIX MACHINE - BRISBANE USER GROUP
The President, Mark Suter, opened the meeting with quorum at 6:14pm and
took up the chair.
Minutes
-------
Greg blacked moved that the minutes from the last AGM be accepted; David
Seikel seconded the motion. The motion was passed unanimously by a show
of hands.
Reports
-------
President's Report
------------------
The President, Mark Suter, reported that the only major news this year was
the changes to room bookings. UQ's Room Bookings group had an auditor
go through during the year who found that HUMBUG did not fit into any
acceptable category and would have to start paying for the rooms it
used. We explored options including paying for the rooms ourselves, and
various other possibilities. In the end ITS came to the table on our behalf.
The main change that this means is that if there is another event clashing,
such as tournament of the minds, we will cancel the meeting rather than
negotiate access as we have done in the past. THis is because we do not
want to wear our our welcome with ITS.
Byron asked could we not move the room venue? Mark answered that it was
a matter of keeping the least hassle for ITS. We will provide them with
six-months worth of room bookings. If we had some particular date that we
really wanted a meeting then we might ask them again, perhaps offer explicit
sponsorship. Raymond Smith added that typically we are blocked out because
of large events such as ToM or Exams that book the whole University.
The upside of this is that we can do something different and social.
Mark introduced Sarah Hollings as the 'Event Coordinator'. She is organising
a Xmas event. We are looking at social events.
David Seikel asked, 'For the last two months only one meeting a month. Is
this because of ITS?'. Mark responded that it was because we happened to
have two events block us in a row.
Byron asked if the arrangement with Internet Access would be the smae? Mark
answered that it would be.
Vice President's Report
-----------------------
Clinton reported that he had even less to say than the president as, with
such a competitent and omnipresent president there was very little too
do. He spent the year acting as check and balance on the executive. The
good news was no hardware failures and all the executive have done a great
job. It was very scary when we did not have a room booking. He stressed
that being Vice-President was a very easy post.
He then asked for questions and received applause for brevity.
Secretary's Report
------------------
Raymond repoted that it had been a fairly quiet year sans room bookings.
He gave a short description of Linux Australia, the national linux group,
and how he had been interacting with them on HUMBUG's behalf. HUMBUG had
sixty-eight financial members as at the AGM. There were no questions.
Treasurer's Report
------------------
Mathew Sellers gave the Treasurer's report for two years.
In 2001 - 2002, we took in $1796 in memberships. Our major costs were
$814.00 for the switch, $41.50 for the PO Box, and $73.00 for a gift to
Bruce Campbell for services such as Zerglal and other things. The major
expenditure was the linux.conf.au $1019.00 primarily due to bookings that
did not go through. For the full year we lost $154.00.
In 2002 - 2003, we took in ??? in memberships. We did not have as many
costs. Highlights were @242.00 for a wireless access link, a new hard
drive for hydra, new cash box, and a resubscription to the Linux Journal
($124.00 US). We finished the year with a surplus of $1024.63 and cash in
the bank of $4158.00.
David Siekel asked whether the pruchase of a new hard drive indicated
some sort of hardware failure? The answer was that there were no hardware
failures. The purchase of the drive was a preventative measure. There
was some discussion of the general flakiness of hydra.
Librarian' Report
-----------------
David Makepeace presented the Librarian's report. A SPARCstation was
donated to the group by Tim Kent and being hosted by him. PI donated a
large number of Linux Journals that were being thrown out.
When we loaned out Just for Fun, the person who borrowed it lost it!
Scott (?) admitted it was he and said he was fairly certain it was in a
box from when he last moved. Would return as soon as possible.
A fully inventory of Linux Journals needs to be completed.
There were also some minor additions of cables, etc to the hardware along
with some cluster machines. Once completed, David planned to send an
inventory on to the executive mailing list.
Acceptance
----------
Timothy Hitchens moved motion to accept the reports; Raymond Smith seconded
the motion. The motion passed unanimously on a show of hands.
Nominations and Elections
-------------------------
President
---------
Mark Suter stepped aside as chair to allow Clinton Roy to handle the
election of President. Clinton called for nominations.
Pat Nichols nominated Mark Suter; the nomination was seconded by Byron
Crowe and accepted by Mark Suter.
As there were no other nominations for president Mark Suter was elected
unopposed. Mark resumed the chair.
Vice-President
--------------
Mark Ellem nominated David Siekel; the nomination was seconded by Matthew
Franklin and accepted by David Siekel.
Patrick Nichols nominated Anthony Towns; the nomination was seconded by
Benjamin Fowler and accepted by Anthony Towns.
Raymond Smith nominated Matthew Sellers; the nomination was seconded by
Timothy Hitchens and accepted by Matthew Sellers.
David Seikel asked to address the meeting. He stated his non-core promise
was to do nothing, while his core promise was not to go home until the wee
hours in the morning. He cannot take things home because no vehicle. Anthony
Towns gave a speech putting his feats on record and noting he did not have
a vehicle. Matthew Sellers did not speak.
The candidates left the room and a vote was held with Raymond Smith and
Sarah Hollings counting. The count was:
David Seikel 14 Anthony Towns 13 Matthew Sellers 4
Therefore, David Seikel was elected Vice-president.
Timothy Hitchens queried if there wasn't an issue with this election in
that if people have no transport, how can they pack up meetings? There
was some discussion on this issue. However, as there was no consitutional
requirement the matter was considered moot.
Secretary
---------
[These minutes originally taken by Clinton Roy]
Clinton Roy nominated Raymond Smith; the motion was seconded by Ben Fowler
and accepted by Raymond Smith.
Clinton Roy nominated Anthony Towns; Anthony Towns declined the nomination.
Pat Nichols nominated Matthew Sellers; James Iseppi seconded the motion
and Matthew accepted.
Nominees left the room, voting comenced. Raymond Smith was succesful. No
count was record in the minutes.
Treasurer
---------
Raymond Smith nominated Timothy Hitchens; Greg Black seconded the motion
and Timothy Hitchens accepted.
As there were no other nominations, Timothy Hitchens was elected unopposed.
Librarian
---------
Sarah Hollings nominated David Makepeace who declined the nomination.
Matthew Franklin nominated Matthew Sellers; David Makepeace seconded and
Matthew accepted.
Patrick Nichols nominated Greg Black who declined the nomination.
As there were no other nominations Matthew Sellers was elected unopposed.
Motions on Notice and General Business
--------------------------------------
Mark moved:
That section 6a) of the constitution be amended to read:
"The membership fee is $20.00 for one year or part thereof,
and falls due the 31st day of August or the next AGM
whichever is the latest."
The motion was seconded by Patrick Nichols Mark moved. Clinton Roy asked
for the rationale for increasing membership fees. Mark outlined the two
reasons: first it is a less confusing fee, and second that fees have remained
static for just on eight years. The change was seen as preventative with
respect to future costs. We have four grand in the bank, but we need to
replace hydra, and there are other known expenses. Raymond mentioned the
possibility of having to pay fees on rooms in the future, Mathew pointed
out that if that had of happened we would have been unable to pay out of
reserves within six months.
Someone from the floor asked about the effect of lack of tiered system. Would
people still be inclined to join? Mark responded that we were looking at
that as being a membership joining fee. Byron asked how many five and
ten dollar memberships. Matthew could not answer.
The motion was put and passed 33 in favour with 3 opposed.
As a follow-on Mark Suter moved that membership remain at $15.00 for people
at the meeting that night. David Seikel seconded the motion. The motion
was put and passwed 23 in favour with 8 opposed.
Mark then moved and Raymond Smith seconded the second motion on notice,
being:
That section 6b) of the constitution be amended to read:
"Membership fee changes shall be made by way of a majority
vote at an SGM."
There was some discussion. Raymond opposed the motion because he felt it
provided protection to club members. Clinton opposed the motion because we
have never had problems wit hthis provision. Mark pointed out that such a
change would cause other constitutional problems. There was a discussion
of what simple majority meant.
After some debate, Raymond moved that the motion be put and Greg Black
seconded.
The motion was defeated 22 opposed, 7 for.
Mark then moved the third motion being:
"That to remove any conflict of interest, or perceived
conflict of interest, the membership of the club resolve that
the partnership of Bruce Campbell, Raymond Smith, and
Mark Suter (ABN 77 442 238 916) be compensated at cost for
traffic charges incurred by HUMBUG equipment hosted by them
on presentation of a valid Tax Invoice.
Clinton described the situation regarding traffic spikes due to apparent
DoS attacks against caliburn. Raymond pointed out that the motion was
being put because of the conflict of interest -- it was within the power
of the executive to pay this money anyway. There was much discussion about
exact cost (0.14 / incomming megabyte + $66.00 / RU / quarter). After this
discussion, Clinton seconded the motion.
Ben Fowler pointed out maybe a co-host in US better solution. Timothy
Hitchens pointed out DoS not covered by pricing. Could still go over
2Gb. Could still be charged. Discussion continued on hosting options.
Finally, Ben Fowler moved that the motion be put; the motion was seconded by
Greg Black seconds it. Mark, Raymond and Sarah did not count votes because
of conflict of interest. Clinton Roy and Timothy Hitchens provided the count.
The motion passed 22 for with five abstentions (including Bruce Campbell
(via proxy), Mark Suter, Raymond Smith, and Sarah Hollings).
There followed a motion from the floor. Paul Clarke moved
That the partnership be reimbursed for the traffic
spikes of August and September 2003 to the sum of
$167.79 and $205.53 respectively.
Anthony Towns seconded the motion. Matthew Franklin asked if there were
ways to prevent the traffic that was causing the problems. Mark answered
that UQ can block the traffic, but we would still be paying for it. Pointed
out that it is like SPAM, one has to receive it to identify it.
Anthony asked that the motion be put; Ben Fowler seconded. The motion
passed 20 for with seven abstentions (including Bruce Campbell (via proxy),
Mak Suter, Raymond Smith, and Sarah Hollings).
Close
-----
As there was no futher business the meeting closed.
-------------- next part --------------
MINUTES OF THE EXECUTIVE MEETING OF HUMBUG
HELD 18 SEPTEMBER 2004
Executive present:
David Siekel (Vice-President)
Timothy (Treasurer)
Raymond Smith (Secretary)
Matthew Sellers (Librarian)
Other members:
Robert Brockway (proxy for Mark Suter, President)
Andrae Muys (Talks Maintainer)
Apologies:
Mark Suter (President)
The meeting opened at 10:20am
Presentation of proxy
---------------------
Mark Suter's proxy to Robert Brockway was presented to and accepted
by the meeting participants.
Discussion of caliburn outage
-----------------------------
When this meeting was called caliburn was still down with the distinct
possibility of having failed completely. Since then, the hard drives
had been replaced and the machine seemed to have come back up. We cannot
be sure that the drives were the only problem, but indications are good
so far. Robert Stanford had supplied an IDE controller as well as the
drives, but Mark and Raymond felt that if the onboard controller was
faulty chances were that the mother board was going to fail in other
ways and so there was little point.
There was some discussion on the value of performing forensics on the
drives. Overall feeling was that there was the time cost outweighed any
value as even if there were problems with the drive it does not rule out
problems with caliburn itself. Also, Miju Systems want their drives back.
Robert Brockway pointed out we should delete any data on the drive. There
was some discussion of alternatives to do this. Raymond asked, and David
agreed to perform this data-wipe.
ACTION: Raymond to deliver caliburn HDD to David Seikel
ACTION: David Seikel to wipe data off drives and return to Raymond
ACTION: Raymond to deliver caliburn HDD to Miju Systems
Discussion of mitigation, and Robert Brockway's offer of hosting
----------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Brockway started by discussing his offer. He has access to machines
with extra static IPs, and to machines with extra bandwidth. Not in same
place (static IPs in .au on an ADSL link, bandwidth in Canada). Very happy
to help with hosting some of HUMBUG's needs. Noted that machine likely to
be a FreeBSD box.
There was some discussion of the technical merits of BSD Jails versus UML.
The key point being that UDP services (such as DNS) are not possible for
BSD Jails. Noted that it would be prudent for DNS to be seperate anyway,
and that Bruce Campbell, Raymond Smith, and Mark Suter would be happy for
their equipment to continue in this role.
Timothy Hitchens may also be able to offer some sort of assitance. David
Seikel noted that Greg Fairbrother may also be able to offer assitance.
Raymond noted there had been no responses to his post to the HUMBUG list.
David said he has forwarded the email to Greg Fairbrother.
Timothy Hithchens asked if we really wished to mitigate and what we wanted
to mitigate. Was agreed that the critical application is email. Web has less
consequence. Robert noted that we have always worked on a best-effort basis;
although there is no reason not to try harder members must bear this in mind
when considering the reliability of aliases.
Raymond raised the possibility of using a virtual hosting service like
the virtual-net firm recommended by Brad Marshall.
There was some further discussion of hosting options and the technicalities
therein.
David Seikel raised an objection to an environment where non HUMBUG members
have shell access. It was pointed out that all alternate arrangements proposed
so far would have such a possibility. Specifically, that Robert's partner
is not a HUMBUG member. David suggested we could require people to become
HUMBUG members. Other people present did not think this was reasonable --
it would rule out many commercial hosting providers, and other firms that
might be able to help. After some discussion, David withdrew his objection.
Timothy Hitchens raised an idea of master and slave nodes. Agreed this was
a good plan. Dynamic content, especially user database bothers Tim.
The topic of cost recovery was raised. General agreement that HUMBUG should
be prepared to pay reasonable costs incurred by people offering us assitance.
(This would be the approach of Robert Brockway, and is the approach currently
taken with caliburn.) Timothy suggested use of a pool of money to reward
people who assist in addition to cost recovery. This proposal did not receive
support.
Raymond raised some specific issues around caliburn: the hardware is not
the clubs, we will need to replace it some day. He felt that the service
level agreement of a hosting provider would be a better way to spend money
than buying new hardware.
Robert asked whether the partnership hosting caliburn would be prepared
to offer a UML box as a replacement. Raymond found this an interesting
proposal and said he would take it to his partners. However, he pointed
out that they had not done this before and better service-level agreements
may be available from established providers.
Andrae pointed out that there were two main issues:
- High availability for email
- Recovery options for caliburn in event of failure
Robert pointed out both of these need to be in the context of best-effort
only. Timothy expanded on Andrae's points. He sees the issues as:
- Static content
- Dynamic content (incl member database)
- Mailing lists
- Email aliases
Raymond pointed out there was one other issue: namely the future of
the caliburn machine itself. This is owned by Miju Systems and so could
be taken away at any time. It is a signifant cost of Raymond, Bruce, and
Mark (around $800.00/year), only one of whom is in Brisbane right now
and so will always be treated on a best effort basis. Speaking personally,
Raymond would be keen to move caliburn elsewhere.
There was involved discussion about how to achieve our goals. Agreed that
the ideal would be to return to the days of having two machines capable of
acting as primaries. Failing that, enough to have some sort of cold-failover
capability on caliburn.
Took the idea of 'nodes' for email further. Seems likely it would be possible
to make it very easy for members to offer them selves as delivery-capable
MXes. These MXes would pull aliases and mailing list details from a central
machine (caliburn). There would need to be some sort of facility to tell
machines to do an update. It seemed to the meeting that making it easy for
people to provide this service would be the best way to achieve higher
availability for email.
ACTION: System Administrators to plan and implement the ability to supply
drop-in support nodes for delivery of mail to aliases and lists.
ACTION: System Administrators to develop cold failure strategy for dynamic
content, databases, etc
ACTION: System Administrators to keep Timothy Hitchens in loop as he has
expericence in these areas.
Robert Brockway raised issue that not all traffic relevant to HUMBUG's
System Administrators was being sent to all System Administrators. Noted
that there were probably other such problems for other people assisitng
the club (eg ex-executive members). Should be a closed list (ie subject
to approval by executive) but easy to get on to.
ACTION: Create a closed (exec approved) Mailman list for executive,
system administators, office holders, ex-executive members, and others.
David Seikel asked if there was too much work for System Administrators.
Robert Brockway (a HUMBUG sys admin) did not think so.
Raymond raised again the issue of the physical caliburn machine. There is
not much the current executive can do one week out from an AGM. However,
it was agreed that this executive would recommend to futuer executives
that the caliburn server should be expected to go away in the short to
medium term. Future executives should treat this as inevitable.
Other business
--------------
As it is almost traditional, the Secretary raised the issue of
Incorporation. Thankfully, this was not discussed in depth.
Close
-----
As there was no other business the meeting closed at 11:47am.
-------------- next part --------------
MINUTES OF THE EXECUTIVE MEETING OF HUMBUG
HELD 20 AUGUST 2004
Executive present:
Mark Suter (President)
David Seikel (Vice-President)
Timothy Hitchens (Treasurer)
Raymond Smith (Secretary)
Matthew Sellers (Librarian)
Apologies:
Ben Fowler
Clinton Roy
Tony Bilbrough
The meeting opened at 6:06pm.
Outstanding Items
-----------------
The Secretary apologies for not having notes of the previous meeting
available. Going on the memory of the executive, we discussed
outstanding items.
Membership Database is still a work in progress. Linux Australia's
MemberDB has been selected for this purpoe. Some problems with
privileges. Mark noted that suexec is possible if that helps. There may
be some short-term need to provide htaccess based controls to the web
interface.
No work has been done on picking up new promotional items. Not work has
been done on promotional 'mind mapping'.
HUMBUG Photos: Some resistance to sending photos to Clinton Roy; although
most people happy. Was thought that perhaps people misunderstood this was
for Clinton to use in his role as webmaster. Therefore, decided to create
an alias 'photos at humbug.org.au' for this purpose.
ACTION ITEM: Mark to create new alias photos at humbug.org.au pointing to
webmaster at humbug.org.au
ACTION ITEM: Mark to send email to announce.
Problems at Meetings: Warez, Porn, and Cracking
-----------------------------------------------
There have been complaints (again) about porn and warez being distributed
at HUMBUG meetings. Both of these topics have been dealt with by previous
resolutions, indeed porn was banned by a resolution of the membership at
an AGM, but it seems we need to resolve to enforce these resolutions.
Some discussion of using drift to shame people. However it was felt that
this might just encourage people.
David Seikel has noticed attacks against cluster.meeting.humbug.org.au.
In particular a Nessus probe against his box for 14 minutes at the previous
meeting. No way this can be construed as anything but an attack. As with
porn, so too has cracking been outlawed at HUMBUG.
Noted that our usage policy is not up to date. Mark thought it was and
will check. Timothy suggested getting people to explicitly sign the T&C.
Raymond opposed because membership renewal season is soon anyway: we could
add such a signature to the membership procedure. Agreed we would have copies
of the T&C on hand for people to sign: we keep the signed copy and give them
a copy for their own records. This should be done before issuing cards --
exec member needs to make sure they read the T&C.
ACTION: Mark to make sure that the club's references to UQ's T&C are up to date
ACTION: Mark to email Timothy the re;relevant sections of these policies
ACTION: Timothy to print these up for purposes above. (Need about 200.)
ACTION: Raymond to write up the membership procedure.
Mark Suter moved that:
HUMBUG reaffirm its longstanding policy that unauthorised copying
(warez), pornography, and cracking are unacceptable activities at
HUMBUG meetings. This will be made more explicit to members when
joining or renewing. Executive members will exercise their power
to remove people from meetings to enforce this policy.
The motion was seconded by Raymond Smith and carried unanimously.
There followed some discussion of implementation detail. Decided not to
send out an email regarding this. It will be made clear as part of the
membership renewal process.
Some follow-on discussion about exact meaning of Warez. Does this mean
we ban SuSE? Consensus was of course not, but members must respect the
licensing of commercial distributions.
The issue of Windows was raised. Constitution and practice mean you
are not supposed to use it except for a legitimate purpose (such as
installing a Unix). Mark asked: exactly what problems are Windows people
causing? Timothy felt that the trouble makers were probably using
bandwidth to download contraband such as Warez and Porn. We need to remind
people that the club is about Unix and they should help people they see
running Windows by getting them to install Linux. Ideally this will be
self-policing.
ACTION: Raymond to email announce to request that members make an
effort to politely encourage Windows users to the Light-side.
Traffic at Meetings
-------------------
David Seikel asked about traffic at meetings. Mark had mentioned an
effect of his machine on meeting traffic (ie reduction). Mark said
that he does not have stats per se, he merely noticed some trends
looking over log files. Suggested that David could work this out
from his own download logs, or was welcome to process content of
logs himself. Some worries about anonymity: to be addressed by
Mark before sending.
ACTION: Mark Suter to provide David Seikel with hydra's logs
suitably anonymised.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
-------------------------------------------------
Raymond provide a description of this lecture series: it is a
series of introductory Computer Science lectures given by the
authors of the famous book of the same title. Is of interest
as this is a set text at UQ this year. We could present it
whenever we did not have a talk.
Subject to licensing, was agreed this was a good idea.
ACTION ITEM: Raymond to ask Andrae to confirm that license allows for
us to display these lectures.
ACTION ITEM: Raymond to ask Andrae to provide more information about
the movies.
ACTION ITEM: Ben Fowler (Talk Maintainer) to coordinate activity with
Andrae Muys and make contact with UQ.
caliburn outage
---------------
Cause of outage unknown. Machine was power cycled. Only log message
was an IDE reset. Could be a sleepy drive? Running a recentish 2.4 Kernel:
so should be no problems. Thanks to Chris Teakle of ITS. Some problems
(coincidentally) had been noticed with planet.humbug.org.au but it was
believed these were being worked on.
Given the help ITS gives us, perhaps some thank yous are in order?
The two principle people are Chris Teakle (for caliburn power cycles)
and Des Molloy. Discussed what small token would be appropriate and
decided on movie tickets.
Mark Suter moved
HUMBUG spends up to $125.00 for four tickets to Gold Class Cinemas
to be distributed to Chris Teake and Des Mollow.
Raymond Smith seconded. The motion was passed unanimously.
ACTION ITEM: Mark to send contact details to Tim.
ACTION ITEM: Tim to buy and send.
PO Box Key
----------
The meeting paused at 7:03pm and resumed at 7:05pm. Conversation turned
to HUMBUG PO Box which is, strictly speaking, Bruce Campbell's old box.
This poses problems if we ever want to get new keys, etc. Also, UQ is not
the most convenient place for regular checks of the PO Box. Decided a new
PO Box in the City would be preferable.
Mark Suter moved
We move our PO Box to the City at an increased cost on the basis
of greater convenience to club members and authorise the club to
spend up to $200.00 for the same.
Raymond Smith seconded. The motion was passed unanimously.
ACTION ITEM: Raymond to see to moving PO Box.
Meeting box
-----------
Raymond winged about the size and weight of new box: not everyone is
as strong as Mark Suter. Timothy wondered if it would be possible to
get storage space at UQ: Mark and Raymond thought this doubtful based
on their experience. Was agreed to look at getting a few, smaller boxes.
ACTION ITEM: Raymond to investigate alternate boxes.
ACTION ITEM: Mark to look into securing a cabinet
Strategic Issues
----------------
Started to discuss reliance of club involvement of Mark Suter.
However, as he had decided to run for office, was decided to
defer the matter as hypothetical navel gazing.
Discussed lack of new members. Started as a discussion of no
new student members. But the problem goes beyond that. HUMBUG
needs new members to support itself: to pay for traffic, new
equipment, etc. Timothy suggested a membership drive -- discounts
to members who bring in new members.
The meeting paused at 7:30pm and resumed at 7:40pm.
Matthew noted that HUMBUG could present itself to IT Schools as a
point of contact for students who want to explore Unix/lean more
about it. (There was a diversion into computerised training materials
for novices to learn Linux -- Timothy knows of a business planning
this in Brisbane.)
Some people have suggested a discount to UQ 'members'. This was
rejected as it (a) won't attract many people, (b) won't reward
the decision makers who help us, and (c) most likely won't effect
student members anyway. If people haven't joined, they won't for
a small discount.
Mark noted that SAGE-AU doesn't do too badly attracting members
while charging $88.00/year. Treasurer suggested we could charge
$100.00/year. Why do we need members? To meet our financial commitments.
There was more discussion of the exact form a trial could take.
In the end Mark Suter moved
As a trial starting with the next membership year, that
HUMBUG for each new member referred shall credit $5.00
towards the referring member's membership renewals in
subsequent years.
Raymond Smith seconded the motion. The motion was carried unanimously.
The Membership Database will need to keep track of this information.
Until that time, a flat text file will be kept of this information.
Privacy Policy
--------------
Matthew Seller's asked if we had a privacy policy. Mark Suter
said no and pointed out that we are not required to have one
and having one would point to all of the other quasi-legal documents
we don't have as an unincorporated association. The topic drifted
towards Incorporation.
Matthew had asked because James 'something' had asked if we had
one at a previous meeting. He had said we 'act in good faith'.
Was felt this may well be sufficient.
ACTION: Matthew Sellers to investigate what is involved with a proper
privacy policy.
Close
-----
As there was no further business, the meeting closed at 8:10pm.
-------------- next part --------------
MINUTES OF EXECUTIVE MEETING OF HUMBUG
--------------------------------------
Date: 2003-02-09
Place: HotShed, 334 Upper Edward Street, Spring Hill
Present: Mark Suter (President), David Seikel (Vice-President),
Raymond Smith (Secretary), Timothy Hitchens (Treasurer),
Clinton Roy (Webmaster)
Apologies: Matthew Sellers (Librarian)
The meeting opened at 6:30pm.
1. Action Items From Last Meeting
1.1 SSH/CVS access for Tim and David
Was setup successfully. Tim has since lost his key.
ACTION: Tim to send new key to Mark Suter who we renable access.
1.2 Caps
No action due to changes in personal circumstances of Treasurer
(see action also other business section).
1.3 Treasury Handover
1.3.1 Treasurers' Kit
Treasurers' box has not been handed over. This needs to be done as
soon as possible.
ACTION: Raymond to chase up Matthew. Matthew and Tim to organise
handover time.
1.3.2 Authorities to sign.
This has been done.
1.4 Hosting for caliburn.
Previous options have become unavailable following changes in jobs
of HUMBUG members at possible hosting providers. It might still be
possible for Tim to organise something, but as this would be hosting
in a production environment he needs to assess the cost in terms of
time, etc. May not be feasible for this employer.
Also the issue of Miju and ownership of caliburn. The IBM xSeries is
owned by them and although they are happy for indefinite loan it is
on the understanding that they may subsume the box if needed.
One downside of moving caliburn would be loss of SSH access to that
box at meetings. Some discussion of meeting network topologies. There
are other options for SSH. Lead into a discussion of current proxy
solutions. Noted (again) that HUMBUG is not about network access.
Raymond remembered another e-commerce/hosting provider who were
expressing interest in HUMBUG. Perhaps we could contact them?
ACTION: Mark to approach Miju concerning for their oppinion on moving
the box.
ACTION: Tim to cosnider implications and cost of hosting caliburn.
ACTION: Raymond to contact 'ePipe' to see if they would be interested.
1.5 Half hour start-time buffer.
Was agreed that the half-hour time buffer, between opening the doors at
meetings and getting the network up, is working well enough.
1.6 Credit Cards.
No action since last executive meeting.
Discussed alternative of approaching Linux Australia for the use of
their credit card facility. Tim raised a problem from his commercial
experience of e-commerce sites: repudiation is problematic. What happens
if someone makes a purchase from HUMBUG and, seeing a charge from LA,
disputes the charge. The answer is that because LA has no paper with
a signature, they have to reverse the charge. For memberships this might
not be much of a problem, but what about caps and the like? Tim has
seen problems with this in practice. This option was therefore ruled
out.
ACTION: Mark Suter to follow up.
1.7 Membership Database
No action since last executive meeting, again due to changing
circumstances of executive members involved. Discussion turned
to possibility of reusing an exisiting solution. Some possibilities:
-> New York PHP Users Group is working on a comprehensive system for
themselves. Could be worth a look.
-> LA and other LUGs might have something. Could be worth approaching
them for details.
-> SAGE-AU has recently revamped its system. Would they be willing to
share?
All agreed that time contraints mean we would prefer to build on
an exisiting effort.
On specific action items from last meeting:
Agreed that handover of materials should be done in CVS so all exec
can look at it (rather than being given to Tim). David provided the
website for his software http://matrix-dfs.flox.net which may provide
some assistance. Decided to defer mind mapper in favour of evaluating
tools with view to completing an evaluation by end of March.
ACTION: Mark Suter to approach SAGE-AU regarding their solution.
ACTION: Raymond Smith to email Linux Australia LUG list.
ACTION: Mark/Raymond to look at NY PHP User Group Stuff.
ACTION: Matthew Sellers to check requirements materials into CVS.
(exec/secretariat/membershipdb-dev)
1.8 Xmas Activity
Did not go ahead due to lack of interest from members. Sarah Hollings
has indicated willingness to assist with future events but not to
raise interest in them.
Lead to a discussion of what do club members want? Mark noted that the
traffic at meetings is the same as it ever was (ie people still come
along to download and try out distros). Ray pointed out taht we do
not really know. People do seem to be interested in doing more than
just bandwidth.
We clearly need a survey. Tim waxed lyrical about what should be involved.
Need something like a five questions each with four options style survey.
We want to get members thinking about the club and what they want to do in
it.
ACTION: Raymond to send email to exec mailing list to start comment.
Raymond raised AJ's recent comments on the professional scene in Brisbane.
Need for local groups. Tim thought this might be a good basis for survey
questions 'do you know of companies using Open Source in Brisbane'. Could
then be used as a basis for networking.
Tim also mentioned that Hayes are still interested in sponsorship.
ACTION: Aim to get survey out by Thursday night to encourage discussion
at the next meeting.
2. Offers to club
2.1 O'Reilly offer of free subscription to Safari.
Decided that Librarian should take up the offer, with option of delegating
to another member.
ACTION: Matthew to contact O'Reilly and get review done, either by himself
or someone else within the club.
2.2 O'Reilly offer of books for review.
Books collected in this fashion should be placed in the HUMBUG library.
Decided that this was again a job for the Librarian. Procedure to
follow would be for exec/librarian to identify suitable books, then
post to mailing list calling for reviewers. Need to aim to provide
O'Reilly a broad range of reviewers capable of writing high quality
reviews. Four weeks should be time limit on reviewers getting us reviews.
ACTION: Matthew to make this happen. Obvious starting book would be
the _Running Linux_ book. Others would be Internet Firewalling book.
ACTION: Exec memebers to make suggestions.
2.3 O'Reilly conference survey.
As the conference is based in the US this is not of interest to us.
2.4 VMware Offer
No objections to this offer.
ACTION: Raymond to find email and forward to list; update website to
inidicate offer.
2.5 Request to add StarTech.com to website.
As they were not offering discounts or the like, decided not to pursue
this opportunity.
Some discussion about the value of link exchanges, publicity etc. Link
exchanges may be of good value.
2.7 Other Offers
Raymond mentioned offer from Australian Distributor of Xandros. David Seikel
noted that there is no free distribution of Xandros. This is because of
proprietary code within the application.
ACTION: Raymond to forward to list.
3. Linux Format Magazine
3.1 LUG of the Month
ACTION: Mark Suter write up history and current status; send to Raymond
ACTION: Raymond to forward on magazine
Some discussion on information for new members on website. While it is
arguable all there it is not all in one place. Need to consolidate FAQs
and make more accessible to new members. Also, pictures tell a thousand
words. Would be very good to have pictures on the website for events,
etc to show people what it looks like.
ACTION: Clinton to take photos and put up on website.
ACTION: David Seikel to find other members who take photos and get them
in touch with Clinton.
3.2 Should we subscribe to Linux Format magazine with DVD.
Some discussion of potential value to subscribers. Also need to know
cost first. The DVD would provide a good source of nicely categorised
software, could be incorporated into David's server.
ACTION: David to find out yearly subscription costs.
4. Financials
Considered reimbursement of Clinton Roy for condolence flowers sent
to notable Australian Paul `Rusty' Russell to value of $100.00.
Motion moved by Mark Suter, seconded by Timothy Hitchens. Passed
unanimously.
Mark has not received recent for Linux Journal subscription. Is in
no hurry for reimbursement.
Considered payment of invoice from partnership of Bruce Cambell,
Raymond Smith, and Mark Suter for traffic charges for caliburn.
Invoice was for 115.96 and included $342.10 worth of discounts.
Moved by Timothy Hitchens, seconded by David Seikel. Passed two
for, two abstentions (Mark Suter and Raymond Smith).
5. Other Business
5.1 hydra
Discussion of squid and proxy at meetings. Would this be better than
getting a DVD of software? Discussed how Hydra could not handle this
sort of work due to faulty IDE controller. HDD is believed okay.
Disussed possibility of moving megadistro server to new hydra. Would
need 140Gb of disk space for this. David could do this, would be
happy to maintain software hierachy. There are also lots of options
for intercept and redirect traffic using squid and squirm. Apparently
there are Perl scripts to enable this.
ACTION: Timothy to send details of perl scripts to David.
Decided $1000.00 would be a reasonable figure for a replacement machine.
Raymond moved that 'we preapprove the up to $1500.00 for the purchase
of a replacement for hydra'. Motion was seconded by Timothy and passed
unanimously.
David Seikel informed the club that he is considering donation of his
box to HUMBUG within the next three years. Raymond thanked him for his
generous offer.
5.2 Time Pressures
Noted that Matthew Sellers and Timothy Hitchens have been experiencing
time pressures from the rumoured entity of 'A Life'. Matthew is out of
Brisbane until start of Semester 1 at University of Queensland. Timothy
has found himself without the time to attend meetings and offered to
resign if this was thought a problem. Other members of executive did
not believe there was a problem with missing some meetings so long as
other duties were being carried out. Decided to leave the issue to
next meeting.
5.3 Deposits
We will deposit cash without the deposit book.
ACTION: Mark Suter to deposit cash before next meeting.
6. Close
As there was no other business the meeting closed at 7:50pm.
-------------- next part --------------
MINUTES OF EXECUTIVE MEETING OF HUMBUG
--------------------------------------
Date: 2003-10-10
Place: Oracle House, 300 Ann Street, Brisbane
Present: Mark Suter (President), David Seikel (Vice-President),
Raymond Smith (Secretary), Timothy Hitchens (Treasurer),
Matthew Sellers (Librarian), Sarah Hollings
The meeting opened at 7:25pm.
1. Handover
Some discussion regarding treasury and money matters, in particular
membership fees. Noted that there was one case of a $5.00 membership
in the previous year. Some discussion of the $15.00 concession on
AGM night; disucssion of ongoing costs. Accounts are kept in
spreadsheets controlled by CVS. Tim asked for a copy, was directed
to repository.
ACTION: CVS/SSH to be setup for Tim and David. SSH2 keys should be
generated and passed on to Mark.
Digressed onto humourous discussion of proprietary accounting programs.
Discussed T-Shirts and that we shold 13 more of them recently. Should we
consider caps? Tim knows of a good supplier, priced at around $15.00
each. Perhaps we could sell for $20.00?
ACTION: Timothy to investigate cost of producing HUMBUG caps.
Discussion of logo in context of caps. Would it be suitable? The design
was by Daniel Beeston.
Returning to agenda. The treasuer's box needs to be handed over.
ACTION: Matthew Sellers to hand over treasurer's kit to Timothy Hitchens.
ACTION: Mark, Raymond, and Tim to organise change of authority form
on accounts.
Some discussion of Librarian's inventory. Noted that the 'HUMBUG'
Trolly was in fact always Mark Suter's. (No cash paid by HUMBUG.
Librarian's stuff has been handed over to Matthew Sellers.
2. Hosting Caliburn
Michael Pick had indicated that he might be able to talk to his
employer about hosting for caliburn. Needs to be followed up.
ACTION: Raymond to follow up with Michael, cc exec
Mark worried that this might entail limited access to the machine.
Also the question of purchase from Miju Systems (the owners of the
hardware).
Some discussion of SSH at meetings in response to questions from
David Seikel. Confirmed that you can get SSH out of meetings.
Tim noted that he might be able to get caliburn hosted by his
current employer. But this would need to be an official thing. This
would provide for access by an executive member which was seen
as a good thing. Some discussion of facilities available from Tim's
employers.
ACTION: Timothy to follow up with his employers.
3. LCA Regional Delegate Program
One application so far. All we can do is wait. David Seikel not
eligible due to membership of executive committee.
4. Packup
Discussion of closing time raised by Timothy. Discussion of
possible problems with irregular times. Raymond was especially
concerned about 'HUMBUG going for all hours': this has the
potential to cause friction with UQ. Mark stressed the need for
a sensible approach.
Some discussion of Internet Access at meetings. Noted that HUMBUG
is not about LAN access. David was concerned that we have consistent
start and finish times. He claimed a mandate to have the network up
between these times. Some discussion of 'normal' hours of operation.
After some discussion, Mark Suter moved that:
Meeting times be clarified as follows
- meeting shall start at 3pm, subject to UQ security opening the room
- network shall be online (subject to connectivity, etc) within a buffer
of start time. Buffer to be a half hour subject to review at next
executive meeting.
The motion was seconded by Timothy Hitchens and passed unanimously.
ACTION: Mark Suter to draft email of policy and post to announce.
ACTION: This policy to be reviewed at next executive meeting.
Some discussion of the problems of setting up. Executive members
need to lead by example and not waste time setting up their own
equipment first. Although obviously you cannot leave your equipment
outside. Tim noted that people will follow the executive's lead.
Mark pointed out that we should not set up out gear until we setup
the network. It is hard to ask people to setup; need to ask people
to be considerate.
5. Credit Card Payments
Following overwhelming response on mailing lists, we need to look
into this. Under no circumstances should credit card numbers be
stored on HUMBUG equipment. Timothy had been looking into options:
PayPal/Paymate; c2it.com (micropayments). Some discussion of
possibilities. PayPal seems best but deals in US$ only. Paymate is
attractive because of AUD but has poor uptime. Other option would
be to seek sponsorship for a proper credit card facilitiy with an
Australian bank.
The meeting was ajourned at 7:28 to let Sarah Hollings into the
building. It was resumed at 7:38.
ACTION: Mark and Timothy to investigate options and report to
next executive committee.
Discussion turned to online membership. Convert form to editable
PDF? Considered a poor option by David and Matthew who were concerned
that PDF is not a universal format. Moving everything online offers
a lot of opportunity. All agreed this sounds like a good option.
Predicated on existance of Membership DB.
What should such a system provide? Any of:
- managing details
- reserving Library items
- tie in with announcements
- payment system
Dived into discussion of Mail Transport Agents.
Matthew Sellers: once such a system is we can accept memberships
online with credit card payment. Much easier than the exisiting
system. Would ease alias management. But what about abuse of
mail aliases? Some discussion of waiting for member card before
issuing aliases, etc. (Verify that there is a real person involved.)
Considered David Seikel's exisiting work for Library. Mark didn't
like it as required Java Applet. Need something everyone can use,
and that is usable from a text terminal. HTML solution prefered.
David whinged about missing links to his book review. Noted that
he can fix this using CVS. Timothy indicated his ability in this
regard.
ACTION: Timothy to take charge.
ACTION: Matthew to share requirements work with Tim.
ACTION: David to provide Java tool/input to project.
ACTION: Mind mapping session at a future HUMBUG meeting.
6. Talks Programme
Ben Fowler not present so this was defered. David Seikel can
speak on his Magic DFS project.
7. SIGS
DSIG
----
Andrae Muys not present so no report. Nothin much has
happened. What if we stimulated it with member DB? (Get
DSIG to write the member DB). Have seen some traffic on the
general mailing list that beloned on DSIG. Decided
membership DB not a good choice because the end product
may suffer judging by lack of enthusisasm on the lists.
David reported not much action on the CSIG mailing lists.
Discussion of SAGE-AU experience of seperate mailing lists.
Noted that the recent split into SAGE-AU and SAGE-AU-TECH
came about only with a lot of work by the SAGE-AU executive:
phone calls, emails to participants.
Could Online fora help? General oppinion was that these do
not suit HUMBUG style discussion.
Another option would be folding the lists. Hitcho noted we
could keep the subject lines to allow filtering. This might
solve the problem of getting people involved they need to know
about it. If everyone is on one list this improoves visitbility.
Discussed purpose of the lists. Decided that DSIG/CSIG do not
serve a uselful purpose because they are just not getting used.
Membership has spoken based on their usage.
ACTION: email to announce, fold mailing lists.
8. Events
Sarah having problems gauging interest for Christmas do.
via email and at meetings. Not a hue amount of enthusisasm.
Timothy suggest that choice should be limited: give people
definite things to ellicit definite responses. Decided
that we definitely wanted a fixed price without subsidies.
Decided on Mongolian BBQ as prefered option.
ACTION: Sarah Hollings to follow up and report back to exec
on interest.
9. Other Business
Discussion of PHP group. Thinking about a round table under
auspices of HUMBUG.
Layout of meetings. Discussion of having 'special' upfront
area. Why should the exec occupy the 'high ground' like this.
Main defence was need to secure laptops and currency. Noted
that David Seikel sits at the back.
Perhaps a welcome table would be a good idea so new members
can see easily where they should go for help. Would be good
to have a sign or similiar on the table. Timothy suggested
a table cloth with a logo to clearly identify the desk.
Matthew raised the issue of who needed to be reimbursed for
Linux Journal? Answer was Mark.
ACTION: Mark Suter to bring VISA card statements for reimbursement.
Invoices for caliburn. Still being prepared.
The meeting closed at 8:38pm.
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