Date is 2010-03-02, times are UTC+01. [[!format txt """ 22:56 good afternoon 22:57 <+mherrb> a bit later in the afternoon here, but yes, good afternoon. 22:57 <+Bart_Massey> Greetings! 22:57 <+daniels> 'evening all 22:58 <+daniels> just hanging the washing up, brb 22:58 -!- Bart_Massey changed the topic of #xf-bod to: X.Org Foundation Board: just hanging the washing up 22:59 <@daniels> just missing mhopf 22:59 <+alanc> speaking of operator status: Bart_Massey - did you ever file the freenode registration form for the xorg channels, or should I go ahead and do that, since I'd volunteered to be their contact anyway? 22:59 <+agd5f_> hi 23:00 daniels: you mean emmes i guess :) 23:00 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: I was assuming you were doing it. :-) 23:00 <+emmes> yep, I'm here 23:00 <+Bart_Massey> Please do, my apologies. 23:00 <+alanc> okay, somehow I thought you were doing it as secretary, must have misremembered - I'll take care of it then 23:01 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: More likely my bad, but moot now. Maybe especially moot in a few minutes. :-) 23:01 <+Bart_Massey> OK, shall we get started? 23:01 <+agd5f_> sure 23:01 <+emmes> ga 23:02 <+Bart_Massey> OK, I think the first order of business is to (1) thank the outgoing Board members profusely for their service, and (2) to welcome the incoming Board members. 23:02 <+Bart_Massey> In particular, let me remind the outgoing folks that they cannot escape that easily. :-) 23:03 <+Bart_Massey> We will continue to call on you for service, and sincerely hope each and every one of you will return to the Board in the future. 23:04 <+Bart_Massey> Do any of the outgoing Board have anything that should be on the agenda? In particular, is there stuff we need to know or think about that I likely have forgotten? 23:04 <@daniels> libv: oh, hah. dberkholz, then. 23:04 <+emmes> Bart_Massey: Maybe minutes. I would volunteer for that. 23:05 <+Bart_Massey> emmes: Is this Matthias? 23:05 <@daniels> Bart_Massey: not that i can think of, but just ftr, if you guys need anything done with expo or whatever, give myself or tollef a shout. i've set him with root on expo as discussed on the list. 23:05 <+emmes> yep :) 23:05 <+Bart_Massey> daniels: Thanks huge! 23:05 <+daniels> no wuckers 23:05 <+Bart_Massey> emmes: Then we'll take that up in a bit. 23:05 <+Bart_Massey> Anyone else? 23:06 <+Bart_Massey> OK. Then I think that the next order of business is for the Board to elect a Secretary and Treasurer. 23:06 <+Bart_Massey> As you may know, I'm stepping down as Secretary after this meeting, so I won't be nominable. 23:06 <+Bart_Massey> I'd like to nominate Alan Coopersmith as the new Secretary. 23:07 <+agd5f_> seconded 23:07 <+alanc> I'm willing to accept the nomination 23:07 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: Thanks huge. 23:07 <+anholt> excellent 23:07 <+daniels> :) 23:07 <+emmes> very fine with me. thanks Alan! 23:07 <+Bart_Massey> Discussion? 23:07 <+mherrb> +1 for alan 23:08 <+Bart_Massey> In accordance with the Board tradition, can I get a +1 0 or -1 from each non-outgoing Board member? 23:08 <+agd5f_> +1 23:08 * Bart_Massey notes that mherrb saw it coming 23:08 <+emmes> +1 23:08 <+daniels> while i'm entirely non-voting here, just as long as whoever does it has enough time to get minutes out in a timely fashion and is prepared to organise the wiki etc 23:09 <+anholt> +1 23:09 <+Bart_Massey> daniels: Or is willing to make sure that someone else does. For example, Alan may want to ask Matthias for help with the minutes, since he was foolish enough to volunteer :-) 23:10 <+Bart_Massey> I'm +1. 23:10 <+Bart_Massey> I think we need a roll call, sadly. 23:10 <+alanc> time is fungible and can be acquired as needed 23:10 <+Bart_Massey> keithp: you there? 23:10 <+daniels> Bart_Massey: indeed 23:10 <+alanc> I guess I need to +1 then 23:10 <+Bart_Massey> anholt:? 23:10 <+anholt> Bart_Massey: replied above 23:11 <+Bart_Massey> oops 23:11 <+emmes> we're +6 now 23:11 <+Bart_Massey> OK, then the motion is carried. 23:12 <+Bart_Massey> Next, I'd like to nominate Stuart Kreitman for Treasurer. 23:12 <+Bart_Massey> Stuart has been helping manage the banking and finances for some time now. 23:12 <+Bart_Massey> Both Stuart and Keith have expressed themselves comfortable with this arrangement. 23:12 <+keithp> I'm here, just late as usual 23:13 <+Bart_Massey> keithp: cool 23:13 <+Bart_Massey> As you may recall, there's a tradition of not necessarily having the Treasurer be a Board member. 23:13 <+emmes> I just wanted to ask ;) 23:13 <+daniels> (noting that keithp was the treasurer last year while not being on the board) 23:14 <+Bart_Massey> In any case, Stuart was 1 Borda Point short of being elected this time around. :-) 23:14 <+Bart_Massey> Any second? 23:14 <+mherrb> +1 23:14 <+emmes> +1 23:14 <+agd5f_> +1 23:14 <+Bart_Massey> I'll take mherrb as second. 23:14 <+Bart_Massey> +1 23:14 <+Bart_Massey> keithp: ? 23:14 <+alanc> +1 23:14 <+anholt> +1 23:15 <+Bart_Massey> The motion is carried. 23:15 <+keithp> +1 23:15 <+Bart_Massey> Good. 23:15 * keithp is not used to voting anymore 23:15 * Bart_Massey grins 23:16 <+Bart_Massey> We also have a tradition of keeping these meetings as short as feasible. I have just a couple of agenda items and we'll call it good. 23:16 <+emmes> +1 ;) 23:16 <+Bart_Massey> First, I wanted to recap a little bit of where we are as a Board for the new members. 23:16 <+Bart_Massey> Perhaps the most pressing item this year is to complete the never-ending "bank transition" and "corporate transition" bullet items. 23:17 <+Bart_Massey> If somebody wants to take the lead on this, that would be really good. 23:17 <+daniels> lolz 23:17 <+daniels> i believe it'll be completed shortly after xkb2 ;) 23:17 <+keithp> daniels: we should race 23:17 <+Bart_Massey> daniels: But we have some vague idea of how to do xkb2. I think it will take longer. 23:17 <+agd5f_> I'm willing to help 23:18 <+daniels> keithp: loser buys dinner. 23:18 <+keithp> daniels: ok, you're on 23:18 <+Bart_Massey> We also have some concerns we've been discussing around trademarks and logos and stuff that need to get resolved. 23:18 <+agd5f_> on the corporate transition that is. not touching xkb2 ;) 23:19 <+Bart_Massey> There has been some talk of trying to review and potentially revise the Bylaws; it's been a while, and there are some places where they have diverged a bit from practice. 23:19 <+Bart_Massey> I don't think it's urgent, and it might best wait another year. 23:19 <+mherrb> As an european I'm mostly out of this bank/corporate things. I can't do much unless we want to set up some legal entity in .eu too. 23:19 <+daniels> agd5f_: hah. best of luck. 23:19 <+keithp> daniels: unisa actually found the first check in may and cashed it 23:19 <+daniels> mherrb: i think that'd be more trouble than it's worth 23:19 <+Bart_Massey> mherrb: Yeah, this is basically an American job, I'm afraid. 23:19 <+keithp> daniels: so, while they were asking for a second check, they found and cashed the first one 23:19 <+Bart_Massey> keithp: Awesome. 23:20 <+keithp> Bart_Massey: lolz all round 23:20 <+daniels> Bart_Massey: is there anything in the bylaws in particualr? 23:20 unisa at its best 23:20 <+Bart_Massey> daniels: Yes, but I'd hate to try it off the top of my head. Things about timing and membership, mostly, IIRC. 23:21 <+Bart_Massey> Infrastructure and system administration is an ongoing concern. We've made some progress but there's still a lot to think about. 23:22 <+keithp> daniels: for the record, the unisa check was posted 2009-5-28 for $1920.00 23:22 <+daniels> as for infrastructure, as i said, we'll try to actually get things sorted. do you guys have any requirements beyond an actually functioning (sorry) board wiki? 23:22 <+Bart_Massey> That brings me to a piece of new business: there's been some discussion this week of X.Org mirrors, and how they might be handled going forward. 23:22 <+Bart_Massey> daniels: I think we just want to make sure there's adequate sysadmin and related people, and to rationalize our machine infrastructure as much as possible. 23:23 <+keithp> oh, can't post the actual bank statements as someone could easily construct a check from that and extract all of our money 23:23 <+emmes> keithp: what was the unisa about (i probably only don't remember the abbrev)? 23:23 <+keithp> emmes: whot came to an event while he was a student; the university of south australia paid for his travel and X.org re-imbursed them for it 23:24 <+anholt> Bart_Massey: adequate sysadmin is covered now I think. 23:24 <+Bart_Massey> anholt: awesome 23:24 <+anholt> we do need a new members system still 23:24 * Bart_Massey thanks anholt for the reminder 23:24 <+keithp> emmes: unisa 'lost' the check for five months and started asking anyone they could find in Australia about it, including Daniels and whot 23:24 <+alanc> I'd still like to see the Sun-donated machines someday used for something, even if it's just running a couple tinderboxes 23:24 <+daniels> Bart_Massey: nod. tollef is handling fd.o entirely adeptly, partly due to being paid to do it by the wonderful people at collabora ltd, and x.org is a doddle in comparison. 23:24 <+daniels> anholt: want us to get that sorted? 23:24 <+emmes> keithp: thnx 23:24 <+daniels> alanc: indeed 23:25 <+anholt> daniels: if tollef has time? yes. a thousand times yes. 23:25 <+keithp> alanc: I'd love to find a way to get those machines moved to someplace cheaper 23:25 <+Bart_Massey> Yes, I think we all would like to see a replacement for members.x.org. And if we're going to do it, it needs to be sooner rather than later, so that it can be solidified before the next Board election 23:25 <+daniels> ok, i'll chat to tollef about it. feel free to kick me if i appear to have forgotten about it within the next couple of weeks. 23:26 <+Bart_Massey> Does anybody want to talk about mirrors today, or shall we save it for next meeting? It's arguably not pressing. 23:26 <+anholt> Bart_Massey: as far as I can tell, the mirrors task is "update the wiki to say that you can feel free to mirror and it's a wiki so you don't need to bother us." 23:27 <+Bart_Massey> anholt: Yes. I and I think others have some minor concerns about this. 23:27 <+daniels> for those not on the board list ... someone pointed out that we still have xf_mirrors@x.org or something ridiculous where people have to ask for permission to mirror. 23:27 <+daniels> so we'd like to make it clear that it's a free-for-all, but also maintain a list of reputable sites we know aren't messing around with the tarballs. 23:27 <+emmes> i don't think the mit license 23:27 <+mherrb> I just think that we should check the listed mirrors from time to time and remove stale ones. 23:27 <+daniels> which would presumably include polling to make sure they're still alive, still carrying the latest content, and that it's unadulterated. 23:28 <+Bart_Massey> Besides which, we're in a situation for the following scenario, which we may or may not care about: someone deliberately sticks a mirror with malware in it up on the "official" wiki. 23:28 <+emmes> i don't think the mit license "allows" us to require people to ask us for mirroring 23:28 <+emmes> so this should be moot 23:28 <+Bart_Massey> emmes: absolutely not, but we can require them to ask to be put on some official web page. 23:28 <+Bart_Massey> I'm not saying we want to, but we could. 23:28 <+daniels> emmes: it's not about restricting redistribution at all -- which would obviously be beyond stupid -- but about the list of mirrors we maintain. 23:28 <+alanc> they don't have to ask permission to mirror, just to be listed with our recommended mirrors 23:29 <+keithp> heh. at least everyone agrees about that :-) 23:29 <+daniels> \o/ 23:29 <+Bart_Massey> So do folks think we should do anything about this, or just back away slowly? 23:29 <+emmes> about malware: we could disallow mirroring of .md5 files. just a thought, would need more brainstorming. 23:29 <+Bart_Massey> I guess I mildly think we ought to do something about it. 23:30 <+Bart_Massey> emmes: I don't think most people check md5 files. I know I should but don't. 23:30 <+anholt> I'd suggest that distributions tracking our set of source mirrors and doing verification of tarballs fetched from them (i.e. freebsd) are probably doing a better job of checking for adulteration of tarballs than we would do. 23:30 <+mherrb> emmes: I think the pgp signed announcement with md5 are good enough to prevent tempering. 23:30 <+daniels> we could have a list of md5 + sha1 + sha256 sums, gpg-signed, and say 'if you really want to be paranoid, verify this'. 23:30 <+daniels> mherrb: tbh it's mildly pointless given that all the keys are untrusted anyway 23:31 <+emmes> mherrb: hm. agreed. this is at least as good as my thinking. 23:31 <+Bart_Massey> I guess all I'd really want to verify on an "official" mirror list is that the entity mirroring actually exists and will take responsibility for their mirror. This latter is hard, though. 23:32 <+daniels> Bart_Massey: i guess just ping now and then to check that they're carrying the latest bits, which can be automated. 23:32 <+Bart_Massey> The alternative is to stick a nice solid disclaimer on the wiki mirror list that can't be erased, saying "don't believe this". 23:32 <+Bart_Massey> daniels: it would help some, but if they get broken into between audits... 23:32 <+daniels> Bart_Massey: in that case, why the list ... 23:32 <+daniels> Bart_Massey: meh. what can you do. 23:32 <+Bart_Massey> daniels: just informational at that point. 23:33 <+Bart_Massey> anyway, we don't have to solve this today. please think about what you'd like, and email the board list if you have some great insight. 23:33 <+Bart_Massey> Any other business? 23:33 <+alanc> fd.org & x.org seem to have enough bandwidth that mirrors are just to reduce latency for people on far parts of the globe, not to reduce our network load 23:33 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: I agree 23:34 <+Bart_Massey> In some ways, public mirrors are an anachronism. 23:34 <+Bart_Massey> Oh, I remember one more piece of business. 23:34 <+Bart_Massey> Meeting time. When do we want to meet next? 23:34 <+alanc> they are very useful for users behind national firewalls, like the PRC though 23:34 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: agreed 23:35 <+Bart_Massey> I think there's some sentiment toward moving the meeting earlier in the day. 23:35 <+Bart_Massey> Does moving it four hours earlier, to 10:00 Pacific, work for everyone? 23:35 <+emmes> i'm perfectly fine with the current time. 23:36 <+alanc> the board seems to be less geographically spread this year, which should allow more flexibility 23:36 <+Bart_Massey> emmes: Well, you're the one most negatively affected by it :-) 23:36 <+emmes> no, it fits me fine. 23:36 <+agd5f_> either time is fine with me 23:36 <+Bart_Massey> So if no one has any objection, we'll avoid confusion by not changing it. 23:36 <+emmes> allows me to go to the cinema before ;-) 23:36 <+mherrb> In practice me too. moving 4 hours earlier would be 19:00 here, 23:36 <+daniels> alanc: .au ftl 23:36 <+Bart_Massey> mherrb: oops, sorry 23:36 <+mherrb> and I'm more likely to be busy at 19:00 than at 23:00 23:37 <+Bart_Massey> OK, let's leave it right where it is, then. I'll see all y'all in two weeks? 23:37 <+emmes> right 23:37 <+agd5f_> sounds good 23:37 <+mherrb> ok 23:37 <+alanc> works for me 23:37 <+emmes> alanc: how about minutes? should we take this offline? 23:37 <+keithp> as long as bart wakes me up each week, it works for me 23:38 <+alanc> Bart_Massey: you doing minutes for today as outgoing secretary? or should emmes & I work this out? 23:38 <+Bart_Massey> Thanks all! Alan, I'll let you worry about logging and minutes from here on out (with emmes help). Thanks huge once again! 23:38 <+Bart_Massey> alanc: I've got a log if you want it. You folks can do minutes. 23:38 <+emmes> i'm loggin anyways 23:38 <+Bart_Massey> OK, then. 23:38 <+alanc> it's all in my scrollback log too, thanks - we'll make sure they get done 23:39 <+Bart_Massey> keithp: You can notify Stuart. 23:39 <+Bart_Massey> Thanks much all! 23:39 <+daniels> alanc: don't get it out too quickly, principle of least surprise and all that 23:39 <+emmes> ok, thanks, Bart, for being the secretary so long 23:39 <+daniels> indeed! 23:39 <+Bart_Massey> Quite happy to do it. Thanks for putting up with me for so long! 23:40 <+daniels> thanks bart & comiserations alanc 23:40 <+alanc> yes, thanks Bart 23:40 <+emmes> thanks, Ajax, Daniel, and Carl for working in the board. Much appreciated! 23:40 <+Bart_Massey> +100 23:40 <+ajax> kein problem 23:40 <+mherrb> yes. Thanks to all, sincerly. 23:41 <+Bart_Massey> Bye! 23:41 <+agd5f_> yeah, thanks! 23:43 <+daniels> best of luck kids :) """]]