The meeting got underway at around 7:15 and those of the Board who were present included: Andrew Scott C. Mike Sean Adrian Case George Ian Roy Rob C. Boyd Sam Marc Adam R.
Partha was also present at the meeting.
Andrew reported that he has made contact with the necessary people about the General Meeting and has scheduled it for the 6th of May. It will be at Dwight Derby, and will be a picnic/BYOF type arrangement, though there will be a nominal bit of funding from the OCF, though it may come down to donations from individual members.
Andrew was tasked with making a sign for the picnic, copies of which will be posted by Board members.
Partha suggested that everyone bring a friend (if they have one) and that if possible, RSVP so we have some idea as to numbers.
Printers: Adrian made clear that one of the present sticking points is that there is some old printer software that was installed by Peter Shipley, and that modifications were made to the source. However, all record of these changes were lost when the files in Peter's account went away.
Banking: Citibank is now running a special deal for organizations that will give us free checking for two years as well as some free checks. The old Wells Fargo account will be closed shortly as soon as it can be determined who needs to be present to close the account.
Documentation: Put on the back burner this meeting since Rob M. and Scott (the other Scott) were absent.
Partha was recognized as the EJC representative and informed us of a dinner on social responsibility issues being held Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. in 120 Bechtel. Cost is $2.00 ($3.00 at the door) and is is encouraged that everyone who can attend please do so. He also mentioned that Saturday is the E-Week picnic and that you should mail psb for info. The request for a filing cabinet is in as well a a request for ASUC funds to go toward the cabinet. We have also asked for a key to 220.
As for the talk with Professor Fateman: We have gotten a request to give a tour to some group from Florida and have asked permission to go into the machine rooms. It should be fun.
Fateman was also asked about getting some math software for the OCF and while it is unlikely we will get Mathematica, we may get Maxima. However, we need to get allegro up first... Fateman also discussed the history of the 60 series and about the internal politics of CS at Berkeley. He doesn't seen to be interested in kicking us out of the basement of Evans any more.
There have been problems with the user muir and his account has gone away, or something otherwise bad has happened to it. He was apparently not a student and had 15 or so people rhosted.
As for dealing with non-students who have accounts, we will start searching them out and removing their accounts. It will be easier to do once we have a file cabinet, but for now, we will get rid of the ones that are there as we find them. Also, we'll be able to remove/delete accounts better once we have some sort of better backup capability so we can replace anything that needs to be brought back up.
Do we trust staff? As a matter of fact, we do. There was a general vote of confidence for staff. Partha mentioned that people on staff have technical competence, while many BoD members, well, you know... George described the way things work like this: Board makes broad policy Staff implements policy Staff also uses its wisdom to improvise in the absence of policy
Mike pointed out that it might be good if the staff give some sort of report as to what happened in the past week. It was also pointed out that Mike trusts the staff.
A clarification was made in terms of the chain of command. A staff decision can be appealed to the Board, and from there it goes to Harvey and then to Hardyke, the Chancellor, the President, God, and then the Recording Secretary.
Generally, the staff is a fast-moving body that is capable of dealing with the everyday user problems in an efficient manner.
Mike is a doofus and demonstrated this by splattering Coke all over the minutes and the minute taker as they were being taken.