The Minutes of the Open Computer Facility's
          Board of Directors Meeting
            March 9, 1989

Board Members Attending:

Adam Glass
Adam Richter
Antony Courtney
Drew Dean
Gretchen Stude
Marc Hertlein
Partha Banerjee
Peter Shipley
Robert Cullman
Ron Woan
Sean Rouse

Board Members Absent:

Chris Williams
Cimarron Taylor
Dave Muir Sharnoff

Persons dropped from the Board due to consecutive absence:

Chris Williams

Guests Attending:

Shelly Louie

Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm

Hardware Status: Currently hung up in Apollo bureaucracy. time from the actual order of machines to delivery is approximately 5 weeks. None of the wiring in the web has been done yet. Our contact at Apollo is no longer Tom Knoll. Our new contact is an Eric Something, whom Drew Dean and Robert Cullman described as enthusiastic about our use of Apollo equipment and software.

Micro Grants: New information has been received regarding the Micro Grants program. Apparently, the ocf might qualify after all. This could only be accomplished with a properly worded proposal. However, the proposal is due at our grant office by Friday 3/10/89.

Hans Complains, the Earth Shakes, etc: Hans Reiser, who was involved with the pitching of Apollo, complained via email that he was deliberately excused from the ocf. Hans is no longer associated with this university. Apparently a draft of the constitution that Hans worked on said that "any member of the university community may be a member". In the accepted version, it refers only to students and faculty of the university. The tone of the message implied that he wished the the clauses revised to read something like 'students, faculty, and Hans Reiser'. Further flaming back and forth between various ocf bod people and other involved persons resulted in a promise to at least raise the subject at tonight's board meeting.

The subject was raised. It is the general opinion of the OCF board of directors that the constitution is sufficient in this area. The passage was adopted with the understanding that it was mildly ambiguous to allow for cases such as 'Father' Hans, and therefore no changes are necessary. Many board members believe that the addition of the 'campus community' might result in troubles with the University.

Grandfather clause: Peter Shipley, presented his 'grandfather' clause for consideration by the board of directors. Intended for the bylaws it states 'if the membership requirements change [or your qualifications change] you can MAINTAIN an active membership as long as your an active member. This would solve the Hans bitch/question, and those of 'soon-to-be' graduates.

After some discussion the ocf bod agreed that while it likes the general idea, it cannot commit itself or future bods to this policy by formalizing it

User Stuff: Adam Ricter suggested that an account form for users be written up soon. This was generally agreed on, discussion of actual wording to take place at the next meeting.

Introductory Documentation is needed for our users, both introductory and ocf-oriented. It was agreed that bod members should should bring a come to the next meeting with a list of topics that need documentation.

Peter Shipley stated that he was sure that he could get user documentation from Lurnix. They're a local unix training place, which wrote 'Unix for People'.

Training: A very general description of the Apollo training was given by Drew and Robert. Apparently it was useful in exposing some of the problems we will have. Concern was expressed that the trainees would be unavailable to the ocf during the summer, when most of the debugging of these machines will take place. Hopefully, members will make an effort to learn from them before their departure.

A show of hands revealed that 3/4s of those attending will be present in some form in Berkeley during the summer.

A copy of the info received by Drew and Robert at Apollo is to be placed in the CSUA office for general perusal.

Administrative Details: 'bh' requested copies of old and future minutes. He also complained that the minutes were not being posted to the net as promised. After some argument he agreed with our contention that posting of such trivia as this could only hurt our cause. It was agreed that he would be either added to 'ocf@widow' or explicitly mailed copies.

A re-reading of our constitution revealed that the OCF is obligated to meet the second week after spring break. No doubt this will be a subject of discussion at the next meeting.

At about 7:20 the meeting adjourned.

Next meeting: 3/17/89 same bat time, same bat channel

minutes disorganized by Adam Glass.