18:18:56 #startmeeting 18:18:56 Meeting started Sun Mar 14 18:18:56 2010 UTC. The chair is Smerdyakov. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 18:18:56 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #help #info #idea #link #topic. 18:19:17 Any proposals to amend this agenda before beginning? http://wiki.hcoop.net/IrcMeetings 18:19:25 no 18:19:45 nothing I can think of 18:19:50 I propose we also talk about ntk-transition. 18:20:01 now or at the end? 18:20:09 that is fine, i only have a couple things to say about that 18:20:10 At some point. I'm suggesting an agenda addition. 18:20:16 +1 18:20:22 Might as well do it right now, I guess. 18:20:29 #topic ntk leaving the board 18:20:38 and more importantly leaving as secretary 18:20:48 Smerdyakov: we didn't take attendance yet 18:21:01 Question 1: ntk, can we count on you fulfilling the basic board obligations until the election? I think it's fair to say that you haven't been doing so for a while. 18:21:14 unknown_lamer, well, we have all board members accounted for, but we can do that, too. 18:21:19 Everyone present, send your HCoop username. 18:21:20 adamc 18:21:23 clinton 18:21:24 docelic 18:21:25 if you are asking for my immediate resignation, thats fine, but im not sure the point of that 18:21:28 ntk 18:21:29 rkd 18:21:32 bpt 18:21:34 frank 18:21:51 ntk, no, I'm not. I just want to harmonize our views of your commitment. 18:21:56 ok then, back to the topic at hand 18:22:03 ntk, are you saying you're not willing to do any more HCoop stuff, effective now? 18:22:48 i think what remains for me to do, most importantly, is to start and end the election, announce results, attend the next boards organizational meeting, backup important dox and ship the archives to the new secretary 18:22:53 i can do that 18:23:09 ntk, OK, and you will continue not voting on new members? 18:23:32 that is another longstanding issue. my mailfilter is borked, has been borked despite attempts to fix it, and im not getting those emails 18:23:41 so unless i fix it, then yes 18:23:52 hannah is laughing about this for some reason, not sure why 18:23:54 Which means yes, without the condition :) 18:24:05 I consider that kind of technological issue your responsibility, so I'm taking this as a simple "yes, I'm not willing to do that." 18:24:16 exactly right 18:24:31 OK, not a serious problem, since the rest of us are active there. 18:24:41 Are you also making no promises about time to respond to e-mails? 18:24:42 if i just delete my mail filter then i wont respond to anything because i wont be able to see my emails in the forest of spam 18:24:49 You still have a 48-hour commitment on record. 18:25:00 if i see it i'll respond in 48 hours 18:25:11 ntk: you could put the rule for board@ before the spam rule (it doesn't get much spam) 18:25:18 ntk, there's no problem with a simple mailfilter as documented in members manual, which just says to add 3 lines to the exim filter ("if spam, saveto .Spam") 18:25:20 That's less than we ask and amounts to almost no guarantee.... 18:25:41 So you're basically giving another "not willing" answer for the same reason. 18:26:20 I will try docelics suggestion and see how that goes 18:26:21 I think it would be more productive for us to note what needs to be done to transition to a new secretary 18:26:24 I guess this answer is better than saying that you're stiffing us repeatedly for the heck of it. :P 18:26:29 We can make it another month the same way we have been doing 18:26:38 Since ntk is already decided on leaving the Board, I don't think we should try to change his pattern of committment/behavior in any way now. The important thing is to carry out the elections and take care of legal docs, which ntk just stated he will do with due diligence 18:26:56 Okeydokey, then I guess we're done with this topic. 18:27:16 #action ntk will ship the HCoop legal documents to the next secretary. 18:27:19 ntk, is that right? 18:27:24 yes 18:27:30 Nice, thanks. 18:27:41 #topic Update on equipment purchases, hardware 18:27:50 no need to vote on it, that's just what i have to do 18:27:56 I yield the floor to some hybrid of docelic, MrBeige, and unknown_lamer. 18:28:07 Fyi I'm willing to take over as secretary. I have a law office with file cabinets and all. 18:28:11 Ok, I guess fritz is almost up? 18:28:14 I can given an overview of the situation: 18:28:24 iriefrank, thanks! We can return to that post-election. :) 18:28:37 1) From the basic software side, fritz is set up, except of course for the specific services. 18:28:59 (fritz still needs kvm cables if we want that...) 18:29:02 2) I came to agree with Clinton that it's better to plug it into the existing infrastructure instead of starting from scratch there 18:29:51 3) Our first (because it's easiest, relatively speaking) task will be moving the databases over there, which Clinton is taking care of. We also learned that mysql 5.1 has support for tablespaces which will considerably reduce the amount of hacks we do with mysql to get it working the way we want 18:30:09 Why do we want tablespaces in the off-AFS set-up? 18:30:12 Also, Clinton wrote some support infrastructure which allows us to keep using tablespaces even if databases will now be out of AFS, which is a bonus 18:30:16 docelic: I think we should get fritz into the kerberos domain first 18:30:28 Smerdyakov, because we have more options with quotas and location of the databases 18:30:35 docelic: once we have databases live on the machine we cannot reinstall or make major changes to fritz... best to get the hairiest thing out of the way 18:30:47 docelic, didn't you say you think quotas aren't needed? Do you just want to keep our options open? 18:30:58 Smerdyakov: tablespaces in afs is ... somewhat broken. table locking and such do not work properly. 18:31:17 oh sorry misinterpreted the question 18:31:18 unknown_lamer, byte-level locking is a separate issue from tablespaces 18:31:18 unknown_lamer, I'm well aware of that. I'm not a big fan of general-purpose filesystems, _especially_ when they're distributed. 18:31:54 Smerdyakov, I initially suggested Clinton to drop tablespaces completely, but he insisted that we keep them. As a plus to his argument, he already has some code that'll preserve tablespaces during the switch, and as said mysql 5.1 supports them natively now. 18:32:11 Smerdyakov: to answer your actual question -- keeping tablespaces (at least with postgres) is easier than abandoning them 18:32:13 So as far as I am concerned, as long as he's taking the initiative on making it happen, I won't be the one to argue 18:32:23 OK, then I guess someone will be writing group-setting code in the near future, since user quotas have bad security consequences. 18:33:09 unknown_lamer, that's not entirely true. You base that *only* on the fact that our version of postgres on Deleuze doesn't have option to not include tablespace info in pg_dump. This issue is, in my opinion, trivial to overcome. But as said, you volunteer for making it happen so I won't argue with your method 18:33:19 I have a suspicion that the board members not already intimately involved in this set-up progress aren't so interested in the details, so long as everything is going to work. Is there anything else we need to say now? 18:33:31 Yes 18:33:34 aol @ Smerdyakov 18:33:41 I was just about to say that... 18:33:57 what about user-visible changes ? 18:34:12 I'm not a user anymore, so I don't care so much about that personally. :P 18:34:21 docelic: are you ok with getting fritz into the kerberos domain? 18:34:24 Just one important thing to say is that we'll have to schedule a day, and -announce it, when we'll change kerberos keys . Users with custom daemons will have to restart them. We won't change user passwords, but we'll encourage everyone to change them themselves 18:34:40 docelic, sounds like a nice compromise. 18:34:49 unknown_lamer, yes, but not right now (before key change)-- we can talk that post-meeting 18:35:23 For the regular key changing in the future, I have already written the scripts that'll do it 18:35:30 ok 18:35:37 Ok, anyone else to say something on this subject? 18:35:40 #action docelic will get fritz into the kerberos domain 18:35:40 * docelic over. 18:35:43 no 18:35:57 #action unknown_lamer will finish writing the postgres and mysql migration scripts 18:36:04 except thank you to all those involved 18:36:05 Ok, next topic I guess 18:36:06 #topic Finances - Summary of current recurring expenses 18:36:14 * Smerdyakov puts on his treasurer hat. 18:36:26 #info https://members.hcoop.net/portal/money?audit=1 -- audit view of financial data 18:36:53 #info https://members.hcoop.net/portal/money?cmd=primary -- all of the co-op's transactions 18:37:16 We have $850/mo. from Peer 1 and $61.60/mo. from rsync.net. 18:37:42 The Tech Co-op bill is the only other monthly charge. 18:37:47 That has varied based on the exchange rate. 18:37:51 (Around $50) 18:38:21 So a conservative estimate of monthly cost is $961.60. 18:38:42 The last dues charge-out was for $952.00. Not bad at all. 18:38:46 #info Current monthly expenses are ~$962 18:38:57 Smerdyakov: that is with pledges? 18:39:04 unknown_lamer, yes. 18:39:17 how many members in good standing do we have now? 18:39:18 #info Monthly income is ~$950 18:39:25 ntk: 122 18:39:26 If we do this pay-Tech-Co-op-a-year-at-a-time thing, we will actually break even at this superficial level. 18:39:53 Looks like we're not setting #topic for each of those "Finances" sub-points. :D 18:39:54 #info Current member count is 122 18:39:55 assuming http://hcoop.net/dyn/members.html is correct (we have ~130 afs home directories excluding *_admin and hcoop, but maybe some are from ex-members) 18:40:22 If we took out pledges, we would be -13 members 18:40:31 #topic Finances in general 18:40:35 (that's the sum of pledges >1) 18:40:42 ok, I propose that we keep pledges for at least another quarter 18:40:57 It's great that we're pretty much break-even without my huge pledge setting already. 18:41:06 Finally! 18:41:12 That is great 18:41:21 and almost no one quit despite threats to do so 18:41:34 Personally I would like to decrease the departure rate from hcoop. Hopefully the new server will do *a lot* in that regard 18:41:41 We do have about one member a month explicitly quitting, even now. 18:41:46 But many more new applications 18:42:04 Seems like about an application a week 18:42:31 Let me try to address this "outstanding debts to members" point quickly. 18:43:07 Bank account stands at $3,745.64. 18:43:09 I think this is a major milestone for HCoop, reaching a truly equitable level of self-sufficiency. would be good to change bylaws in the near future to make new member admissions administrative rather than board action, but thats for a future meeting 18:43:25 * ntk shuts up and lets Smerdy talk 18:43:26 PayPal balance is $729.55, which is conveniently above the cost of one year's Tech Co-op. (More on that later. :]) 18:43:44 User balances total $7038.46. 18:43:51 The co-op's balance totals $-2392.76 18:44:16 That means we should have $4645.70 on hand. 18:44:34 #info User balances total $7038.46 18:44:43 #info PayPal balance is $729.55 18:44:48 The bank + PayPal total is $4475.19, which is a little lower. There are probably some pending Checkout payments missing. 18:44:50 #info The co-op's balance totals $-2392.76 18:44:57 #info That means we should have $4645.70 on hand. 18:45:05 #info The bank + PayPal total is $4475.19, which is a little lower 18:45:21 ok, I think we are doing pretty well financially 18:45:28 we aren't bleeding cash anymore! 18:45:29 yes, and that is not a serious discrepancy 18:45:39 I think a little over $100 is pending from Checkout. 18:45:49 and dues for our services are in line with or lower than competitors 18:46:27 Depending on the needs. one can get those virtual-whatever things for less, but we don't aim to compete there 18:46:42 Virtual-whats? For under $7? 18:46:52 If we haven't started to work into the deficit from buying fritz before next quarter we may need to do something, but hopefully membership will continue to gradually increase and it'll be a non-problem 18:46:53 VPSes don't show up for under $20. 18:47:20 I don't think we need to go into this other than to say that we're doing great with reasonable/low dues. 18:47:31 Yes, and I think it's not quite time to remove pledges. 18:47:37 But that could even make sense at our next meeting. 18:47:45 how many new members are applying per month ? 18:47:50 (Except that the next meeting is extra close, given the election) 18:47:53 MrBeige, avg. 1 per week 18:47:56 Ok... I guess does everyone else want to discuss/vote on tech.coop stuff now? 18:48:00 cool, that's great 18:48:03 aned no advertising at all 18:48:28 #topic Whether to prepay for Tech Co-op services 18:48:42 Given the discussion we've had, +1 from me 18:48:46 OK, the offer from Tech Co-op is one month free if we prepay. 18:48:51 #info clinton is recusing himself from tech.coop discussion 18:49:04 We aren't investing our savings anyway, so there's not so much basis for doing a calculation of the time value of money. 18:49:22 thanks clinton. i think the offer is great, the cost is low, we can always use it for something so +1 from me also 18:49:33 We'd might as well be sure that Tech Co-op remains the right provider for this service. 18:49:49 so you're saying stay month to month? 18:49:56 We're paying more than the cheapest Linode costs. 18:49:58 That's a good point. Since we basically had no issues with them so far, that's ok as far as I am concerned 18:50:05 But we're getting more than that cheapest plan. 18:50:15 The comparably-priced Linode has better stats in some dimensions and worse in others. 18:50:27 And it's not a big difference in any case, _except_ for likely better support from Linode. 18:50:28 uptime 18:50:28 11:50:18 up 750 days, 21:09, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 18:50:28 right, we're getting more. and we should give them the rochedale bump for being a co-op, all else being equal 18:50:33 No bizarre billing problems, for instance. 18:50:46 any progress on that? last i saw it was still an open issue 18:51:01 ntk, they don't expect to be able to resolve it. PayPal appears to be our only permanent fix. 18:51:10 anything to say about paypal? 18:51:24 Smerdyakov: or a check 18:51:25 I don't mind making a manual PayPal payment once a year, and I expect any future treasurer will feel the same. 18:51:34 costs are comparable i assume 18:51:34 unknown_lamer, we don't have HCoop checks ATM. 18:51:50 ah. if we did... drewc did note that they accept them :-) 18:51:57 OK 18:52:08 we ought to get them, even if we dont want to use them where there is a choice, but that isn't very relevant now 18:52:14 I'm not sure what amount of money we'd send, since they want Canadian dollars, and our bank account is US$. 18:52:28 Smerdyakov: they can deposit US cheques actually! 18:52:38 Exchange rates have been automatic with debit card billing. 18:52:41 but ... that is my SUPERSECRETILLEGALKNOWLEDGE 18:52:53 doesnt western union have a mailacheck service we could use? 18:53:05 low cost too 18:53:06 I expect PayPal is cheaper. 18:53:35 So the yearly cost in CAD is 50*11=550. 18:54:05 That's $540.15, with current exchange. 18:54:21 Which is quite well covered by our PayPal balance. 18:54:44 So, vote to make a one-year PayPal payment to Tech Co-op ASAP. 18:54:45 +1 18:54:56 +1 18:55:20 +1 18:55:37 ++1 18:56:07 unknown_lamer? 18:56:14 Not voting 18:56:17 He excused himself on this topic 18:56:21 Oh, right. 18:56:39 #action Smerdyakov will initiate a one-year-in-advance PayPal payment to Tech Co-op. 18:56:49 u_l: you can vote 0 for abstain :) 18:57:05 #topic Decide on a retention policy for user volumes of former members 18:57:21 I say keep it simple: manual deletion after 6 months, with help from a script to find the candidate volumes. 18:57:30 Seems reasonable to me 18:57:58 i think the policy should be delete after 6 months, and leave the technique to the discretion of our admins 18:58:10 That's doable, because inactive volumes are easily identifiable (end in ".d") 18:58:23 keep the tech side in their bailiwick 18:58:34 ntk, sounds good to me. 18:58:45 Any objections/further discussion to a 6-month policy? 18:58:52 i say move to vote 18:59:01 Also, for my edification, can someone figure out the total space used by gone-user volumes right now? 18:59:10 I can, just a sec 18:59:24 (I think that amount is minimal) 18:59:37 unknown_lamer, are you paying attention that backup isn't running again on deleuze 19:00:26 Might as well initiate the vote while we wait. 19:00:34 docelic: I put an exit at the top of hcoop-backup-wrapper ... 19:00:36 All in favor of a delete-old-volumes-after-6-months policy? 19:00:37 +1 19:00:41 +1 19:00:42 +1 19:00:45 +1 19:00:55 +1 19:01:08 docelic: but I think also that maybe rsync.net is not initiating the backup runs... after we resolve the space issues we might need to contact them 19:01:22 unknown_lamer, they do, I am sure of it 19:01:27 otherwise this wouldn't be happening 19:01:32 BTW, I was using rysnc.net for my personal backups for a while. 19:01:37 Rather, I was _trying_. 19:01:53 Then I decided it was easier to get a $20/mo. VPS, where I have root access to set up backup tasks. 19:02:02 This might be worth considering for HCoop, too. 19:02:19 something to decide a bit later but perhaps 19:02:23 OK 19:02:34 docelic, are you getting those space stats in parallel to the meeting? 19:02:37 yes 19:02:44 OK, then we can move on. 19:03:11 ok ... I guess we just have the conflict of interest policy left (I need to head out within 20 minutes if possible...) 19:03:11 #info New policy: Delete departed user volumes after 6 months 19:03:23 Smerdyakov: you can use #agreed for vote results 19:03:28 #topic Conflict of interest policy 19:03:30 unknown_lamer, thanks. 19:03:33 #agreed New policy: Delete departed user volumes after 6 months 19:03:59 I speed-read the policy ntk suggested. It seems fine to me, though overkill for our org. structure. 19:04:47 What's the link again? 19:04:54 It includes official forms to declare conflicts, which I _don't_ think we want. 19:05:01 http://www.ag.state.mn.us/pdf/charities/ConflictInterestPolicy.pdf 19:05:40 We probably want our own text no more than one page long, which just requires e-mailing -sysadmin or -discuss. 19:05:52 It does seem like overkill. 19:06:08 Though a great template to start 19:06:11 Maybe one of our resident law-types can distill that down? 19:06:16 I can 19:06:25 For the next meeting 19:06:32 Great. Do we need any discussion on the details of what to keep/add? 19:06:48 I'll raise it on the list 19:06:53 OK. 19:07:04 #action iriefrank is taking charge of creating a suitably short conflict of interest policy statement. 19:07:35 ok was that it for things that require voting? 19:07:41 I think so 19:07:44 I also want to say that I probably already have a pretty pervasive conflict of interest, in that I'm working on a commercial Web hosting service (that phrase is an oversimplification, but I think it gets at the important part). 19:08:03 No customers yet. Not even any users, really. But I want 'em. 19:08:27 The user base compared with HCoop should be pretty disjoint, since HCoop is focused at people who want UNIX shells. 19:08:34 And mine is all GUI magic. 19:08:43 http://www.graftid.com/ 19:08:51 ok 19:09:16 So I don't really know what the right way is to proceed about that. 19:09:17 I have to run... is there anything else that I am needed for? 19:09:26 But it can only help that I'm trying to transition out of volunteer duties. 19:09:39 #topic Upcoming board election 19:09:47 Cool. Well we'll flesh that all out 19:09:56 Let's quickly receive summary on the data of departed users: 19:10:01 Here it is: 19:10:12 Wah, HCoop wiki is crashing. 19:10:26 Yes, I am noticing some AFS errors in the deleuze log 19:10:51 Well, if I remember correctly, 3 seats are open, with 4 nominees, only 3 of whom have accepted. 19:10:57 That would certainly lead to a simple election. 19:11:09 All the nominees look very qualified to me. 19:11:09 I accepted a bit ago 19:11:12 Oh, OK. 19:11:15 MrBeige: great! 19:11:38 We keep data for 60 members that have left. From this we can also figure out our departure rate. in 28 months, 60 departures, which comes to 1 departure in 14 days. 19:11:40 Is there any point in reaching out to additional people who we'd like to run? 19:11:51 um, deleuze is kernel oopsing... 19:11:52 If we get 1 new application per week, that's +1 member every two weeks 19:12:06 What timing! 19:12:27 It's times like these I'm glad I've moved all my stuff off HCoop servers.... 19:12:52 let's end the meeting and admins can deal with this 19:12:57 Ok 19:12:57 It sounds like maybe we're ready to let unknown_lamer go. 19:13:06 #endmeeting