Minutes for September 9, 2003 meeting

SPI board meeting, September 9, 2003
Meeting opened: 19:21 UTC
Meeting closed: 19:52 UTC

Attending:
Bdale Garbee
Branden Robinson
Ean Schuessler
Ian Jackson
Martin Schulze
Wichert Akkerman

Absent with regrets:
Benj. Mako Hill
Branden Robinson
Bruce Perens

Attending SPI members:
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho
David Graham
Gregory Pomerantz
Jimmy Kaplowitz
Jonathan McDowell
Josip Rodin
Michelle Ribeiro

Agenda:
1. Opening
2. Roll call
3. SPI-admin notes
4. Board meeting procedure
5. Debian trademark registration in Brazil
6. Treasurer update, including credit-card donations
7. Date for next meeting

3. SPI-admin notes

Speaking as a member of the SPI admin team Wichert had the following
to say:

SPI has received bandwidth and machine donations recently so it can
help its members projects with simple hosting, mail and DNS
services. Fresco for example has been using those services for a
while. I would like to thank Oregon state University, Black Cat
Networks and Andrew Mulholland for their donations. At this moment
frida.spi-inc.org is already online and running secondary DNS and
mail services. chic.spi-inc.org will arrive later.

Furthermore, we've revamped the entire mail-system for SPI it is now
running exim-SA everywhere, so you should see a large reduction in
the amount of spam going through SPI machines. Thanks go to Josip
Rodin for doing the email setup.

Ian and Ean thanked the SPI admin team for their work.

4. Board meeting procedure

Ian did not have anything to add to the previously held discussions.
Wichert asked for a change in paragraph 12 to allow the secretary to
be replaced with someone else when necessary. Nobody objected, and
a vote was called for resolution 2003-09-09.iwj.1. Bdale recommended
people vote in favour.

Ian: in favour
Ean: in favour
Wichert: in favour
Joey: in favour

The resolution is accepted with four votes in favour and none against.

5. Debian trademark registration in Brazil

Michelle proposed registering the Debian trademark in Brazil. In order
to do that a procurator needs to be appointed for which she suggested
Debian developer and SPI contributing member Henrique Moraes. Several
people asked what the exact function and responsibilities of a procurator
are. Michelle explained it is just the person who did the paperwork.
Wichert asked who would own the trademark: the procurator, or SPI
even though it is not based in Brazil. Michelle answered that SPI would
be the owner.

Since this agenda item generated a fair amount of questions and
discussions Ean proposed to discuss this on the SPI mailing-lists first.
Wichert asked Michelle to write a summary of the plans and issues and
involved and post that, so a resolution could be drafted based on that.
Everyone agreed with both suggestions.

6. Treasurer update, including credit-card donations

Wichert explained:

SPI has been talking forever about accepting credit-card donations
and several decisions have already been made in the past, but
nothing has happened so far. We now have a concrete proposal
from Jimmy Kaplowitz for handling them using the services of Network
for Good, which has been providing these services to 501(c)3
charities for a while already. Ian and I had a quick look at their
terms and conditions and their rates and they seem reasonable.
So in order to move on and be able to set something up in am
proposing resolution 2003-09-09.wta.1

Ean called for a vote on resolution 2003-09-09.wta.1. Bdale recommended
people vote in favour.

Ian: in favour
Ean: in favour
Wichert: in favour
Joey: abstains

The resolution is accepted with three votes in favour and none against.

7. Date for next meeting

The date for the next meeting is set for October 7, at 19:00 UTC.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> It is simple to make things.
http://www.wiggy.net/ It is hard to make things simple.