Skip to content

04.25.96

Open Computing Facility Board of Directors meeting

April 25, 1996

Attendance Board of Directors

Andrew Swan Elaine Chao (General Manager) Kenji Hubbard Michael Constant (Site Mgr) Lara Lee Alan Coopersmith Ruth Park Jennifer Snider Nevin Cheung Wang Lam

Meeting Highlights

  • The Open Computing Facility makes its bid for computing power next year (See Sparc Manager's Report.).

  • Reregistration is in progress, but lots of users have yet to catch up.
    (See Site Manager's Report.)

Announcements

  • General Meeting in Sibley Auditorium (Bechtel) on Wednesday, May 1st.

  • The General Manager appoints Rune Stromsness General Manager until Monday (April 29) morning.

General Manager's Report

  • The budget did not pass the ASUC's Finance Committee. The General Manager estimates, from her impression at the FiComm meetings, that the OCF would be budgeted between $9000 and $12000 for next year. Appeals cannot begin until after the budget passes the committee.

  • Alan Coopersmith notes that even $10000 won't be enough to buy a new machine next year to improve the OCF's computing power.

  • Jennifer Snider notes that the lockboxes the Board approved the General Manager to buy have still not been purchased, but are still necessary.

Site Manager's Report

  • The Site Manager officially implements the revised staff policy, which he provided with a proposed revised user policy for Board review.

  • Andrew Swan notes the Faculty Adviser was not listed on the chain of command in the staff policy, but should be.

  • Secretary's note: The Faculty Adviser is listed on the chain of command as described in the user policy.

  • Andrew Swan asks of the staff policy, what type of action should root staff be logging? The example provided in the staff policy was too mundane to be useful as a guide. Also, how could it be enforced?

  • The Site Manager notes it is not possible to enforce root logging, and concedes the example should be revised.

  • About 1100 people reregistered successfully online, which unfortunately leaves about 10,000 users somewhere in limbo. Andrew Swan says he sent mail to users with forwarding, which he could not confirm was successfully delivered to everyone but he believes did happen.

  • Alan Coopersmith questions whether we should extend reregistration so more OCF users get a chance to run rereg.

  • The Board discusses at length what to do about OCF Staff who are now no longer affiliated with UCBerkeley, but still contribute to the Open Computing Facility. Because an OCF account means not only access to the OCF but also some campus site services (such as Usenet on agate.berkeley.edu and the Encyclopedia Britannica Online site subscription), Information Systems and Technology generally requires that non-affiliated accounts to be shut down.

  • The Board tenatively decides to leave the accounts long enough for the General Manager to ask IST for permission to maintain the alumni accounts of active OCF Staff.

  • Jennifer Snider and Alan Coopersmith bring up a case in which an OCF user clearly tried to use reregister an account improperly, using information for completely different people (clearly different names, birthdays, and so on not explicable as typographic errors). The Board agrees that abusing rereg is a violation of OCF policy that can lead to an account being immediately deactivated.

Sparc Managers' Report

  • Because of a $5000 donation to the OCF, the Board ultimately moves, after some discussion about the necessity of a monitor or CD-ROM, a Fast Wide SCSI-2 controller or frame buffer, to purchase: SS20 Base system (Integrix) 1095 SS20/71 CPU 1995 2 x 64MB RAM 2 x 1550 Floppy drive 75 CD-ROM 337.50 ----------------------------------------------- Total purchase price 7402.50 x 8.25% tax about $8015 total. The motion passes unanimously 5-0-0.

  • The Board authorizes the OCF Summer Board to spend OCF funds, amended to a limit of $1500 of OCF's 1996-1997 budget plus whatever is left over in the donation this year. The motion passes unanimously 5-0-0.

  • The Board approves the purchase of another 64MB RAM (bringing a total of 192MB RAM on the new machine) by unanimous vote 5-0-0.

  • The Board lastly grants the Sparc Manager discretion to spend the remainder of this year's budget and the remainder of the donation on "disk and related stuff for the Sparc." The motion passes 5-0-0.

Old Business

  • The computer purchase for the OCF (1996-97) was moved to the Sparc Manager's Report above.

New Business

  • Kenji Hubbard and Nevin Cheung were added to the Board of Directors without objection.

Miscellaneous

  • No miscellaneous.

Corrections (after the meeting)

  • The Secretary corrects all significant errors in the minutes; please send errors to bod@ocf.berkeley.edu.

Wang Lam OCF Board of Directors and OCF Board Secretary April 25, 1996