Meeting log for 2008-12-17

Contrary to my impression from the announced agenda that it would be a
rather short and disappointing meeting, a load of late business was
added to "Items up for discussion" which made for interesting reading,
including a Privoxy resolution which appeared just before the meeting
(good to have some sight beforehand, but not great) and as many items
of "Any Other Business" as the rest of the meeting combined.

HIGHLIGHTS

[item 1, Opening] <bdale> Welcome to today's Software in the Public
Interest board of directors meeting, which is now called to order.
Today's agenda and details of pending resolutions can be found on the
web at: http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/agenda/2008/2008-12-17.html

[item 2, Roll Call] <Ganneff> Joerg Jaspert
<bdale> Bdale Garbee <cdlu> David Graham <luk_> Luk Claes
<zobel> Martin Zobel-Helas <schultmc> Michael Schultheiss

[item 3, President's Report] <bdale> None.

[item 4, Treasurer's Report]
<schultmc> a treasurer's report covering November 2008 was mailed out
on Monday. There's been some suggestions for improvements that I'm
considering.

[item 5, Secretary's report]
<Ganneff> he has something in the agenda, lets paste
<cdlu> he is away and did not register his attendance

[item 6, Outstanding minutes]
<cdlu> oct 15 yes: 5, no: 0, abstain: 1. passes
<cdlu> [november 2008] yes: 5, no: 0, abstain: 1. passes

[item 7, Items up for discussion]

[item 7.1, Resolution 2008.12.17.bg.1 - Privoxy as associated project]

<bdale> luk_: I think the three folks listed in the resolution are the
three primary commiters. privoxy.org is the web site for the project,
I believe.

<luk_> ah, apparently
http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/copyright.html has a list of the
current privoxy team

<cdlu> privoxy: yes: 6, no: 0, abstain: 0, missing: 0

<bdale> Do any board members have other items for discussion they
would like to address briefly?

<Ganneff> just the short notice that SPI now owns the madwifi domains

<cdlu> as of Monday I'm no longer with Sourceforge, so if anyone needs
me to work for them, I'm available. :)

<bdale> for everyone else, zobel is offering to help catch us up on
the un-voted minutes

<schultmc> Tux4Kids has expressed interest in obtaining some trademarks.
I (or someone else) needs to discuss this with our lawyers and keep
the Tux4Kids representative up to date with the status.
I'm willing to take the lead.

[item 8, Next board meeting] Wednesday 21st January, 2009 - 20:00 UTC

TIMED LOG

20:05:47 <bdale> *GAVEL*
20:05:47 <bdale> [item 1, Opening] Welcome to today's Software in the Public Interest board of directors meeting, which is now called to order.
20:05:47 <bdale> Today's agenda and details of pending resolutions can be found on the web at: http://www.spi-inc.org/secretary/agenda/2008/2008-12-17.html
20:05:48 <Hydroxide> bbiab therefore. my report is in the agenda.
20:06:05 <bdale> [item 2, Roll Call]
20:06:05 <bdale> Board members, please state your name for the record. As we have nine board members, quorum for today's meeting is six.
20:06:05 <bdale> Guests (including board advisors), please /msg your names to Hydroxide if you wish your attendance to be recorded in the minutes of this meeting.
20:06:14 <Ganneff> Joerg Jaspert
20:06:18 <bdale> Bdale Garbee
20:06:34 <bdale> I believe we have some regrets recorded... hope we make quorum.
20:06:47 * schultmc can be here if needed
20:07:09 * cdlu is here
20:07:16 <cdlu> David Graham
20:07:40 <cdlu> not encouraging
20:07:48 <Ganneff> luk_, zobel: ping
20:08:18 <luk_> Luk Claes
20:08:42 <bdale> I believe quorum is 6, so we're still short
20:08:47 <Ganneff> ay
20:08:57 <schultmc> linuxpoet was around earlier
20:09:00 <Ganneff> give them 5 more mins, then drop out for this time?
20:09:06 <schultmc> if we get a 5th I can be 6
20:09:18 <cdlu> and then defer until after the holidays... I think even this might be too close for people
20:09:20 <bdale> I'd suggest we wait until :15 to give up
20:09:28 * cdlu agrees
20:09:34 * luk_ too
20:09:52 <bdale> if any of you have contact info for others not present, feel free to use it to poke them
20:10:04 <zobel> re
20:10:14 <zobel> Martin Zobel-Helas
20:10:17 <cdlu> 5
20:10:19 <xzilla> i can call linuxpoet if yall want
20:10:21 <zobel> sorry for being late
20:10:22 <schultmc> Michael Schultheiss
20:10:25 <cdlu> quorum
20:10:27 <bdale> ok, thanks, that's 6
20:10:41 <bdale> [item 3, President's Report]
20:10:41 <bdale> None.
20:10:41 <bdale> [item 4, Treasurer's Report]
20:10:41 <bdale> Michael?
20:11:05 <schultmc> a treasurer's report covering November 2008 was mailed out on Monday
20:11:21 <schultmc> there's been some suggestions for improvements that I'm considering
20:11:30 <schultmc> </done>
20:11:38 <cdlu> it's attached to the agenda if anyone's looking for it
20:12:05 <bdale> yep, thanks
20:12:19 <bdale> [item 5, Secretary's report]
20:12:19 <bdale> Jimmy?
20:12:24 <bdale> I think he stepped away?
20:12:27 <Ganneff> in case he is away
20:12:35 <Ganneff> he has something in the agenda, lets paste
20:12:35 <cdlu> he is away and did not register his attendance
20:12:40 <Ganneff> I am in the process of arranging an online meeting for this upcoming weekend (Dec 20th or 21st)
20:12:40 <Ganneff> including SPI site administrator Joerg Jaspert, website volunteer MJ Ray, and me to discuss plans
20:12:40 <Ganneff> for moving forward with the website overhaul. There should be more news on this front in time for
20:12:41 <Ganneff> the January secretary's report.
20:12:58 <bdale> Ganneff: thanks. anything to add about progress on the meeting?
20:13:02 <Ganneff> thats the most important part and should be mentioned, i think :)
20:13:09 <Ganneff> nothing yet, no.
20:13:11 <bdale> ok
20:13:24 <bdale> if Jimmy comes back and wants to add something, we'll handle it then
20:13:35 <bdale> [item 6, Outstanding minutes]
20:13:37 <bdale> hrm
20:13:42 <bdale> it appears we have a couple ready for vote
20:13:55 <bdale> can I have a volunteer to run the voting process in Jimmy's absence?
20:14:04 <Ganneff> oi.
20:14:05 <Ganneff> sec
20:14:17 <Ganneff> lets see if i can still run my own vote script
20:14:25 <Ganneff> give me a minute
20:14:37 <cdlu> heh
20:14:54 <cdlu> bdale, I'll need to vote separately on the two sets fyi
20:15:06 <bdale> no worries, I intend to call a vote per
20:15:15 <cdlu> ok
20:16:32 <cdlu> hydroxide, when you see this in backlog, I want to point out that I introduced the appendix on board membership to the minutes for the purpose of always having a running record of when board members would be up for re-election. It's a neat piece of information to have when we first joined, but an 'up for election on (date)' field would be good, too.
20:17:24 * bdale whistles to himself and taps his fingers...
20:17:39 <Ganneff> hrm. bah. obviously i cant. meh. lets do it manually.
20:17:43 <bdale> ok
20:17:51 * cdlu moves the appropriate motion
20:17:54 <cdlu> first set of minutes moved
20:17:56 <bdale> I hope everyone took advantage of that time to read anything they hadn't already read!
20:18:16 <bdale> that would be Oct 15 2008, right?
20:18:17 <Ganneff> October 15th, 2008 then.
20:18:31 <bdale> seconded, let's vote
20:18:32 <cdlu> yes
20:18:41 <cdlu> vote: yes
20:18:44 <schultmc> !vote yes
20:18:47 <Ganneff> !vote abstain
20:18:48 <cdlu> oh right
20:18:49 <cdlu> !vote yes
20:18:50 <bdale> !vote: yes
20:18:51 <zobel> !vote yes
20:18:57 <cdlu> 4 yes 1 abstain 1 missing
20:19:10 <bdale> who didn't vote?
20:19:13 <bdale> luk
20:19:18 <luk_> !vote yes
20:19:21 <bdale> thanks
20:19:21 <Ganneff> yay.
20:19:23 <Ganneff> November 19th, 2008 then
20:19:31 <cdlu> oct 15 yes: 5, no: 0, abstain: 1. passes
20:19:36 * cdlu seconds nov 19
20:19:44 <slef> Voting for "Approve minutes for October 15th, 2008" closed: yes 5, no 0, abstain 1
20:19:44 <bdale> moved and seconded, let's vote
20:19:49 <cdlu> !vote abstain
20:19:52 <schultmc> !vote yes
20:19:53 <bdale> !vote yes
20:19:55 <zobel> !vote yes
20:19:58 <Ganneff> !vote yes
20:20:11 <luk_> !vote yes
20:20:13 <cdlu> yes: 5, no: 0, abstain: 1. passes
20:20:13 <slef> Voting for "Approve minutes for November 19th, 2008" closed: yes 5, no 0, abstain 1
20:20:19 <bdale> cool, thanks all
20:20:31 <bdale> [item 7, Items up for discussion]
20:20:31 <bdale> [item 7.1, Resolution 2008.12.17.bg.1 - Privoxy as associated project]
20:20:38 <bdale> My apologies to the board for being late getting the text to our secretary. If any
20:20:38 <bdale> board member present today objects to voting on this resolution today, we will wait
20:20:38 <bdale> until our next meeting. However, this was discussed on the lists and got unanimous
20:20:38 <bdale> support, and mentioned in my report at our last meeting, so if everyone is willing
20:20:39 <bdale> to vote on it today I'd like to proceed. Any objections?
20:21:18 <Ganneff> none from me.
20:21:26 <zobel> none from me either
20:21:41 <bdale> any further discussion, or would someone like to move we vote on it?
20:22:00 <luk_> where can I find a member list or something similar?
20:22:01 <Ganneff> lets vote
20:22:08 <bdale> luk_: of what?
20:22:14 <luk_> of Privoxy
20:22:23 <cdlu> bdale, I did not see their request to join that I can recall
20:22:43 <cdlu> oh, there it is, back in august
20:22:52 <cdlu> before the election, my tape ran out
20:22:52 <bdale> cdlu: right, this has been going on a while
20:22:58 <bdale> my fault, actually
20:23:20 <luk_> is someone from privoxy in the channel btw?
20:23:22 <cdlu> ya, I can vote on it
20:23:25 <bdale> luk_: I think the three folks listed in the resolution are the three primary commiters
20:23:28 <zobel> it might happen, that i will be unresponsive the next 3min. pia crawling through the flat and me being alon with ghere ATM.
20:24:16 <bdale> luk_: privoxy.org is the web site for the project, I believe
20:24:22 <luk_> ah, apparently http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/copyright.html has a list of the current privoxy team
20:24:41 <bdale> any surprises?
20:25:31 <luk_> I didn't know RoRo was involved :-)
20:25:36 * cdlu doesn't know any of them, but that's not a surprise :)
20:25:37 <zobel> RoRo
20:25:43 <bdale> ok, we have a motion from Ganneff to vote... second?
20:25:47 <cdlu> seconded
20:26:00 <bdale> ok, let's vote then
20:26:04 <cdlu> !vote yes
20:26:07 <Ganneff> !vote yes
20:26:09 <bdale> !vote yes
20:26:09 <luk_> !vote yes
20:26:09 <schultmc> !vote yes
20:26:18 <zobel> !vote yes
20:26:23 <cdlu> privoxy: yes: 6, no: 0, abstain: 0, missing: 0
20:26:26 <bdale> great, thanks all!
20:26:38 <zobel> brb
20:26:42 <bdale> I'll sync with Hydroxide regarding which one of us should send them the invitation letter
20:26:54 <bdale> Do any board members have other items for discussion they would like to address briefly?
20:27:17 <zobel> bdale: seen my query?
20:27:23 <Ganneff> just the short notice that SPI now owns the madwifi domains
20:27:26 * schultmc has something
20:27:26 <cdlu> as of Monday I'm no longer with Sourceforge, so if anyone needs me to work for them, I'm available. :)
20:27:28 <cdlu> other than that, no
20:27:32 <Ganneff> today all got transferred to us
20:27:39 <bdale> zobel: yes. I don't think it matters who prepares the minutes.
20:27:55 <bdale> Ganneff: ok, thanks
20:28:07 <zobel> bdale: okay, then i will try to work on them during the XMAS holidays for the next meeting.
20:28:20 <bdale> zobel: that would be great
20:28:33 <bdale> for everyone else, zobel is offering to help catch us up on the un-voted minutes
20:28:44 <cdlu> cool, thanks zobel
20:28:49 <Ganneff> the maulkin ones. great
20:28:51 <bdale> [item 8, Next board meeting]
20:28:51 <bdale> I believe our default would be Wednesday 21st January, 2009 - 20:00 UTC?
20:28:55 * cdlu thinks secretaries should be banned from serving more than one year
20:28:58 <bdale> that will be while I am in Australia for LCA
20:29:03 <cdlu> since many secretaries have done great first year, and totally lost it after
20:29:12 <schultmc> bdale: I had one thing to note
20:29:18 <bdale> schultmc: ok
20:29:20 * schultmc was waiting to be called on
20:29:32 <schultmc> Tux4Kids has expressed interest in obtaining some trademarks
20:29:34 * cdlu cannot assure his attendance at US-eastern business hour meetings any further, depends on what new work I find.
20:29:43 <bdale> schultmc: sorry, I just missed it
20:29:54 <bdale> cdlu: noted
20:30:05 <schultmc> I (or someone else) needs to discuss this with our lawyers and keep the Tux4Kids representative up to date with the status
20:30:09 <bdale> schultmc: right, saw those emails
20:30:26 <bdale> schultmc: if you're willing to take the lead on that, great, if not, say so and we'll see if someone else is
20:30:43 <schultmc> I'm willing to take the lead
20:30:47 <Ganneff> hf
20:30:51 <bdale> ok, cool. let us know how it goes.
20:30:57 <schultmc> will do
20:31:06 <bdale> any other quick items before we get back to the next meeting date/time?
20:31:36 <bdale> ok
20:31:58 <bdale> I think I'm ok with the next date despite the fact that I'll be in Hobart for LCA then. anyone else have serious objections?
20:32:25 <Ganneff> other than what i had for today, no.
20:32:37 <bdale> ok, then let's go with that date and time
20:32:44 <bdale> Ok, thank you to everyone present for participating today.
20:32:44 <bdale> *GAVEL*

Hope that helps,
--
MJ Ray (webmaster since 1994, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk )
Member of http://www.ttllp.co.uk - a webmaster cooperative -
Turo Technology LLP, reg'd in England+Wales, number OC303457
Reg. Office: 36 Orchard Cl., Kewstoke, Somerset, GB-BS22 9XY

MJ Ray writes ("Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> [item 7.1, Resolution 2008.12.17.bg.1 - Privoxy as associated project]
>
> <bdale> luk_: I think the three folks listed in the resolution are the
> three primary commiters. privoxy.org is the web site for the project,
> I believe.

I'm terribly sorry to keep banging on about this but this process is
NOT ACCEPTABLE.

The membership should have the chance to review all of the important
content of a resolution beforehand (unless it's an emergency of
course). That _includes_ stuff like the people we recognise as being
in charge.

In this case I don't hear any howling from anyone from Privoxy that we
have accidentally taken sides in some kind of internal power struggle
but if we do associated project resolutions with no external review of
the nominated people that's bound to happen eventually.

For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
COMMENT!

Ian.

Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote: [...]
> The membership should have the chance to review all of the important
> content of a resolution beforehand (unless it's an emergency of
> course). That _includes_ stuff like the people we recognise as being
> in charge. [...]

Just to refresh members' memory, the email about Privoxy to
spi-private dated Fri Aug 15 22:04:19 UTC 2008 proposed:-

The first liason would be [Fabian Keil]. The liason can be changed
by any of the Project Admins as listed on the SF project
site. Currently the admins are Hal Burgiss, David Schmidt
and [Fabian Keil].

There were several comments (but only one member comment that I saw
IIRC) and no-one expressed concerns about that selection of people.
It did change slightly in the resolution, though.

> For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> COMMENT!

In general, I agree with this sentiment. Whole trucks are being
driven through meetings as late/urgent/other business. Although
little has been controversial so far, is it really so hard to show
some respect for members responsibilities and send stuff a few days
earlier?

Please, president, this resolution sat idle for four months - if
no-one could submit it before the agenda announcement, would it have
hurt badly to defer it another month and let the members be notified
of the updated resolution? Was there some reason to rush it as urgent
business, like Privoxy expecting a Christmas present donation?

Regards,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 10:13 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> MJ Ray writes ("Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> > [item 7.1, Resolution 2008.12.17.bg.1 - Privoxy as associated
> project]

> For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> COMMENT!

Wouldn't it make sense to make this argument on -private, where the
contributing members are?

Joshua D. Drake

>
> Ian.
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>
--
PostgreSQL
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 10:13 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> > problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> > COMMENT!
>
> Wouldn't it make sense to make this argument on -private, where the
> contributing members are?

No, because discussions should be in public if there is no reason for
them to be private. We had already agreed that, surely ? I can't
seem to find a resolution about it right now.

Ian.

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 16:27 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> > On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 10:13 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> > > problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> > > COMMENT!
> >
> > Wouldn't it make sense to make this argument on -private, where the
> > contributing members are?
>
> No, because discussions should be in public if there is no reason for
> them to be private. We had already agreed that, surely ? I can't
> seem to find a resolution about it right now.
>

I recall a motion that said we should discuss on private (I could be off
my rocker) but the thing is... the *only* people that can do anything
about what you are arguing is contributing members. E.g; they are the
ones that can vote. So -general may consider this noise.

I don't know honestly but what I do know is that there are many
contributing members that do not bother to read let alone subscribe to
-general.

Joshua D. Drake

> Ian.
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>
--
PostgreSQL
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 16:27 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> > > On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 10:13 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > > For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> > > > problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> > > > COMMENT!
> > >
> > > Wouldn't it make sense to make this argument on -private, where the
> > > contributing members are?
> >
> > No, because discussions should be in public if there is no reason for
> > them to be private. We had already agreed that, surely ? I can't
> > seem to find a resolution about it right now.
> >
>
> I recall a motion that said we should discuss on private (I could be off
> my rocker) but the thing is... the *only* people that can do anything
> about what you are arguing is contributing members. E.g; they are the
> ones that can vote. So -general may consider this noise.
>
> I don't know honestly but what I do know is that there are many
> contributing members that do not bother to read let alone subscribe to
> -general.

It's easy to paint the bikeshed of what list to give notice to. It
would be a lot better to have an answer to the actual gripe:

> > > > For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> > > > problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> > > > COMMENT!

Any thoughts on that?

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvherre/
"Ciencias políticas es la ciencia de entender por qué
los políticos actúan como lo hacen" (netfunny.com)

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 08:42:45AM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> I recall a motion that said we should discuss on private (I could be off
> my rocker) but the thing is... the *only* people that can do anything
> about what you are arguing is contributing members. E.g; they are the
> ones that can vote. So -general may consider this noise.

Ian's right that -general is the appropriate place for general discussion about our procedures for passing resolutions and admitting new projects:

http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/2007-02-15-jrk.1.html/

However, for discussing potential new associated projects before they join,
-private is appropriate, so that if e.g. the members disapprove of a potential
new project, we don't air all of that dirty laundry for the world and the
search engine indexes to see.

I'm going to try very hard not to post further on-list messages in this thread,
to cut down on the very noise you were concerned about.

> I don't know honestly but what I do know is that there are many
> contributing members that do not bother to read let alone subscribe to
> -general.

That's their loss. The spam problems have been long since fixed, so there's no
real reason not to be on it if you care about SPI enough to be a contributing
member.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 13:50 -0300, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

> > I don't know honestly but what I do know is that there are many
> > contributing members that do not bother to read let alone subscribe to
> > -general.
>
> It's easy to paint the bikeshed of what list to give notice to. It
> would be a lot better to have an answer to the actual gripe:
>
> > > > > For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> > > > > problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> > > > > COMMENT!
>
> Any thoughts on that?

I have no problem with the transparency.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
--
PostgreSQL
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 13:50 -0300, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> > > > > [Ian Jackson:]
> > > > > > For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> > > > > > problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> > > > > > COMMENT!
> >
> > Any thoughts on that?
>
> I have no problem with the transparency.

I'm not sure whether you mean

(a) you feel that there was sufficient transparency in this case,
and therefore you are happy that the Privoxy resolution
was dealt with as it was, and would support such a process
in future;

or

(b) you agree with me that there should be more transparency
and feel that in future a different process with greater
transparency would be better.

or something else ?

Do you support Resolution 2007-01-16-iwj.5.html ?

Ian.

MJ Ray writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> Just to refresh members' memory, the email about Privoxy to
> spi-private dated Fri Aug 15 22:04:19 UTC 2008 proposed:-
>
> The first liason would be [Fabian Keil]. The liason can be changed
> by any of the Project Admins as listed on the SF project
> site. Currently the admins are Hal Burgiss, David Schmidt
> and [Fabian Keil].

I admit that I didn't check the spi-private archives, only
spi-general, and those details had passed me by at the time. So I was
mistaken to imply that contributing members had no notice of any of
these important details of the resolution, for which I apologise.

But I still think it's necessary that non-contributing members (and
the world at large) can see who we are proposing to recognise so that
they can bring to our attention any internal dispute or difficulty of
which we may not be aware.

> There were several comments (but only one member comment that I saw
> IIRC) and no-one expressed concerns about that selection of people.
> It did change slightly in the resolution, though.

And of course critical details like these should not be changed at the
last minute with no opportunity for review.

Ian.

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 17:00 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):

> (b) you agree with me that there should be more transparency
> and feel that in future a different process with greater
> transparency would be better.
>
> or something else ?
>

b.

> Do you support Resolution 2007-01-16-iwj.5.html ?

I do not have a problem with that resolution.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)alvh(dot)no-ip(dot)org> wrote:
> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> > I recall a motion that said we should discuss on private (I could be off
> > my rocker) but the thing is... the *only* people that can do anything
> > about what you are arguing is contributing members. E.g; they are the
> > ones that can vote. So -general may consider this noise.

Well, members are auto-subscribed to -private, while everyone on
-general is here by choice. Also, while discussions about potential
associations happen in -private, this is now an actual association so
can be public in -general. Finally, it arise from the meeting log,
which was posted here. So this list is fine - how about responding to
the point made?

> > > > On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 10:13 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > > > For other kinds of resolutions there are of course other isomorphic
> > > > > problems. That is why THE MEMBERSHIP MUST BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO
> > > > > COMMENT!
>
> Any thoughts on that?

Personally, I've already stated my position: I'd like to see members
given the support they need to fulfil their responsibility to oversee
SPI. I've offered to help a few times (most recently the website, but
that seems to be taking a long time to arrange a meeting to discuss
possible action and so on and so forth), but I also think not enough
members want me to take more action to support democratic member
participation because I wasn't elected when I ran for the board and
included that in my platform. Also in my platform, I included
suggestions like semi-automated scheduled notice emails, but none of
those who were elected have seen fit to steal those ideas.

So, the members re-elected these improving-but-off-target board
members in preference to me (and in preference to Ian too in 2007), so
maybe the membership in general don't want chances to comment? If
that's not true, a member could propose reminding the board of the
need for notice, or even dismissing some offending board member(s) and
see if it gets N seconds.

Hope that explains,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 17:00 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > (b) you agree with me that there should be more transparency
> > and feel that in future a different process with greater
> > transparency would be better.
>
> b.

Great.

> > Do you support Resolution 2007-01-16-iwj.5.html ?
>
> I do not have a problem with that resolution.

Excellent. Can you explain why it wasn't followed in this case ?

I see you were at the meeting where the Privoxy reolution was
approved. Were you unaware that the membership hadn't seen an
accurate draft (only a summary), and that the public and
non-contributing membership had seen nothing at all ?

Ian.

On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 17:38 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> > On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 17:00 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > (b) you agree with me that there should be more transparency
> > > and feel that in future a different process with greater
> > > transparency would be better.
> >
> > b.
>
> Great.
>
> > > Do you support Resolution 2007-01-16-iwj.5.html ?
> >
> > I do not have a problem with that resolution.
>
> Excellent. Can you explain why it wasn't followed in this case ?

Unfortunately not.

>
> I see you were at the meeting where the Privoxy reolution was
> approved.

That is correct, I had an unfortunate VirtualBox event happen that
kicked me offline for 40 minutes.

> Were you unaware that the membership hadn't seen an
> accurate draft (only a summary), and that the public and
> non-contributing membership had seen nothing at all ?
>

I admit that I wasn't aware that the resolution had been brought forth.
It isn't on the website (nor is anything since January)[1]. I do
remember initial discussions of privoxy however and that there was
overwhelming support for having them as an associated project. The
discussion appears to have taken place in mid-august.

And actually now that I look at the meeting announcement, it stated
there were no motions and the agenda says that privoxy was up for
discussion. So I guess I am confused as to why there was a vote at all.

Joshua D. Drake

1. http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions-list

> Ian.
> _______________________________________________
> Spi-general mailing list
> Spi-general(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org
> http://lists.spi-inc.org/listinfo/spi-general
>
--
PostgreSQL
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 09:57:51AM -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> And actually now that I look at the meeting announcement, it stated
> there were no motions and the agenda says that privoxy was up for
> discussion. So I guess I am confused as to why there was a vote at all.

Please reread the announcement. It explicitly mentioned that there was a
possibility of one or two associated project resolutions being brought up,
where the associated projects in question had been discussed with the
contributing membership and were viewed positively by them.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
secretary(at)spi-inc(dot)org

Jimmy Kaplowitz writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> Please reread the announcement. It explicitly mentioned that there was a
> possibility of one or two associated project resolutions being brought up,
> where the associated projects in question had been discussed with the
> contributing membership and were viewed positively by them.

The exact wording of the relevant part of the announcement was:

At the time of writing, zero motions have been raised, and there is one set of
minutes to approve for the November meeting, currently linked from the agenda,
as well as a correction to the attendee list from the October minutes. No
regrets have been received. No president's report has been received. A routine
treasurer's report is expected, as is a secretary's report relating to website
volunteer status, and possibly one or two resolutions to grant SPI associated
project status to free software projects who have approached us (already
discussed on spi-private with the members generally supporting such status).

The names of the projects and the names of the people that we are
going to regard as the representatives, are not presented.

This message was sent 2 days before the meeting rather than the 7 days
that we should have expected for an announcement of a draft resolution
(which should have contained those details - although a draft version
those details was indeed sent to -private), or the 5 days that we
should have expected for an announcement of the meeting agenda.

Also if this the paragraph is to be regarded as an agenda, I would say
that it is not well-formatted. 2007-01-16.iwj.5 says that there
should have been a complete list of non-emergency business to be
transacted, and this running text format is not a list. It makes it
very easy to overlook the meat of the business.

The agenda should have been sent 5 days in advance and should have
said:

The following business will be transacted:

1. Emergency business, if any arises
2. Approval of minutes for the November meeting
draft minutes: <###(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org> on spi-general
3. Correction of attendee list in minutes for October meeting
proposal: <###(at)lists(dot)spi-inc(dot)org> on spi-general
4. Treasurer's report
Not yet received
5. Informal discussion of any other business
- Secretary's comment on website volunteer status

Report(s) not yet received are due by 20:00 UTC on 15th December.
If not received by this point they will be considered at the next
meeting instead.

The Secretary is aware of the following potential business items
which will now be deferred as resolutions/reports were not submitted
by the cutoff:

* Two Associated Projects, already favourably discussed on -private
Next step to move forward, in both cases: Draft resolutions
to be posted to -general

Ian.

ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk (Ian Jackson) writes:

> Joshua D. Drake writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
>> On Fri, 2008-12-19 at 17:00 +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
>
>> > Do you support Resolution 2007-01-16-iwj.5.html ?
>>
>> I do not have a problem with that resolution.
>
> Excellent. Can you explain why it wasn't followed in this case ?

Because I violated it. I apparently dropped the ball on getting the
final text of the resolution to the secretary before the usual deadline,
despite the fact that it was ready well in advance of the meeting.
That was entirely my fault.

As you will see from the IRC log of the meeting, I offered to defer
the vote on this resolution until January if any board member present
objected to voting on it at this meeting. Lacking such objection, we
went ahead and voted approval of it. I presumed at the time that this
was because the other board members were satisfied with the discussion
to date and understood and approved of the resolution text as presented.

Bdale

Bdale Garbee writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk (Ian Jackson) writes:
> > Excellent. Can you explain why it wasn't followed in this case ?
>
> Because I violated it. I apparently dropped the ball on getting the
> final text of the resolution to the secretary before the usual deadline,
> despite the fact that it was ready well in advance of the meeting.
> That was entirely my fault.

Not just to the secretary, but also to the membership and the public.

Note that for an Associated Project resolution the public at large are
an important constituency because if there is some kind of dispute
surrounding or problem with a project, it is most likely that people
involved _with that project_ will know about it - not necessarily SPI
contributing members. So a timely public disclosure is essential.

> As you will see from the IRC log of the meeting, I offered to defer
> the vote on this resolution until January if any board member present
> objected to voting on it at this meeting. Lacking such objection, we
> went ahead and voted approval of it. I presumed at the time that this
> was because the other board members were satisfied with the discussion
> to date and understood and approved of the resolution text as presented.

But how could the board know whether or not they were doing the right
thing, when the membership and the public haven't had the opportunity
to comment ?

I'm afraid that simply isn't good enough. The question should have
been deferred as a matter of course. You shouldn't have suggested
going ahead with it anyway, and the rest of the board should not have
acquiesced.

Ian.

Ian Jackson writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> I'm afraid that simply isn't good enough. The question should have
> been deferred as a matter of course. You shouldn't have suggested
> going ahead with it anyway, and the rest of the board should not have
> acquiesced.

Let me expand on that.

If it is the practice that we `try' to get resolutions drafted and
published `in time' but that if we don't manage that for some reason
the board goes ahead and transacts the business anyway, there is no
real pressure for doing it better.

We just get a constant stream of ever more bitter complaints from the
membership, and a constant stream of apologies from Board members
(well, when we're lucky the membership gets an apology!)

The only way this can possibly be made to work is if late business is
AUTOMATICALLY DEFERRED unless it's an emergency.

At the moment the 7-day deadline for drafting a resolution is not a
real deadline. It's written down in a document which is ignored. It
is not mentioned in the announcements of meetings; it is not preceded
by a reminder which would encourage people to get their preparation
done in time; and when the deadline is missed there are no
consequences. This all needs to change.

Ian.

Ian Jackson writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> This all needs to change.

Since we're all geeks perhaps we should try to address a social
problem with a technical solution.

If I went and wrote a webform/emailscanning robot which enforced these
rules and automatically prepared meeting announcements, agendas, and
so forth, would people use it ?

Ian.

ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk (Ian Jackson) writes:

> Ian Jackson writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
>> This all needs to change.
>
> Since we're all geeks perhaps we should try to address a social
> problem with a technical solution.
>
> If I went and wrote a webform/emailscanning robot which enforced these
> rules and automatically prepared meeting announcements, agendas, and
> so forth, would people use it ?

That's a really interesting idea. On general principles, I would use such
a thing. Are you up for drafting some sort of specification the current
board and officers could review to see if it's something we agree would be
an improvement in process? If it made doing the right things easier and
didn't overly burden folks with process details, it could be a genuinely
good thing for SPI.

Bdale

Bdale Garbee writes ("Re: Meeting log for 2008-12-17"):
> That's a really interesting idea. On general principles, I would use such
> a thing. Are you up for drafting some sort of specification the current
> board and officers could review to see if it's something we agree would be
> an improvement in process? If it made doing the right things easier and
> didn't overly burden folks with process details, it could be a genuinely
> good thing for SPI.

Here's a draft:

* Data structure maintained is
For each meeting:
- Meeting date
- Whether the meeting is forthcoming or past
- List of agenda items, which have a title (normally
the Subject line of some email)
- Each agenda item may have zero or more draft resolutions
or zero or more formal reports, each of is
a message-id of an email on spi-general; normally emails
in the same thread (done by Subject line) are counted as
the same agenda item.
- Because reports may exist on the agenda before a draft
is available they have a `report name' too (see below).
Also maintains a list of reports to have by default, so that
a new meeting cycle starts by default with a Treasurer's report
and perhaps some other report(s).

* Scans incoming emails on spi-general.
If you put some magic keyword at the beginning of one of the
first ten lines of the body,
FOR BOARD MEETING - DRAFT RESOLUTION
FOR BOARD MEETING - REPORT - FINANCIAL
perhaps, it treats the thread that your email was posted
to as an agenda item and adds your email to the list
of documents.

* Web interface for Board members (nominally Secretary's job,
but other members should be encouraged to be proactive
particularly when there is a short window for actions to
be confirmed):
- enter date of next meeting
- add/remove a proposed report from the agenda
in advance of the report being available
- manually link/unlink a previous email to an agenda item
as a draft resolution or as a draft report
(eg if it wasn't really a draft resolution, or
conversely if the magic keyword was misspelled)
- merge and unmerge agenda items
- manually add emergency agenda items
- manually add secret agenda items (these show up as
`[confidential business; please see ...]')
- manually add notes to parts of the announcements
- indicate that the meeting is about to start and
to send the final agenda
- cancel a meeting (makes it `past' and therefore
inactive without sending any emails)

* At the following times
- entry of meeting date
- T-14
- T-10
sends announcement to spi-announce with current
draft agenda and instructions for adding items
to agenda
- T-7
sends announcement to spi-general and spi-private
containing current draft agenda and instructions
for notifying the Board of any mistakes
(Secretary and board members should proactively
fix up any problems in these two days.)
- T-5
sends announcement to spi-general containing
final agenda listing all non-emergency business
but still possibly with placeholders for reports
- T-2
sends announcement to spi-general containing
final agenda listing all non-emergency business
including all reports
- T-0
when Secretary says meeting is to start, sends
final agenda listing all business (and makes
meeting be `past')

* Also of course agenda on web page.

Personally I would like to see reports 7 days in advance if for no
other reason than that it would make this simpler.

What if there are two forthcoming meetings in quick succession ?

My implementation language of choice would be Perl (or perhaps Python)
but I'm happy to use something else if that would make
co-maintainership with th4e Secretary and others, or interoperability
with the rest of the website, easier.

Do we already have an https server and user management system that I
can piggyback on for the `board members' part ?

If this meets people's rough approval I can write a set of quick hack
code and set some test instance up on my own colo.

Ian.

Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote: [...]
> What if there are two forthcoming meetings in quick succession ?

I think the reports and so on would be going to one meeting or the
other, so I guess a "this is for YYYY-MM-DD" tag would solve it.

> My implementation language of choice would be Perl (or perhaps Python)
> but I'm happy to use something else if that would make
> co-maintainership with th4e Secretary and others, or interoperability
> with the rest of the website, easier.

I'd maintain such a Perl package.

> Do we already have an https server and user management system that I
> can piggyback on for the `board members' part ?
>
> If this meets people's rough approval I can write a set of quick hack
> code and set some test instance up on my own colo.

Just in case anyone's interested (and I think I might have emailed
this to some SPI list in the past), here's my quick hack for periodic
reports to cooperative members. No web interface, but people can
email in and the hosting user can save to an IMAP folder, or write bits
into their .project file. There's a bit of cruft in there to check GPG
signatures and encrypt the report, which I guess is unnecessary here.

#!/bin/bash

DOMAIN=ttllp.co.uk

# Compile any emails into .project
for i in $HOME/Maildir/.reports/{new,cur}/* ; do
[ -e "$i" ] \
&& ( sed -n -e '/^From: /{;s///;s/$/ wrote:/;p;q;}' "$i" ; \
( gpg -q <"$i" 2>&1 || sed -e '1,/^$/d' "$i" ) | sed -e 's/^/> /' ;
echo ) >> $HOME/.project \
&& rm "$i"
done

# Send the signed email
if [ -s $HOME/.project ] ; then
echo Please send GPG-signed news items to reports(at)$DOMAIN >> $HOME/.project
( echo "This report was sent automatically by a cron:"
gpg -sear members <$HOME/.project ) \
| mail -s "$DOMAIN summary of $(date -I)" -a "From: $USER(at)$DOMAIN" \
members(at)$DOMAIN \
&& mv $HOME/.project $HOME/reports/$(date -I).txt
fi

Regards,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

> Here's a draft:
[...]

Not commenting much on the draft right now, just technical

> My implementation language of choice would be Perl (or perhaps Python)
> but I'm happy to use something else if that would make
> co-maintainership with th4e Secretary and others, or interoperability
> with the rest of the website, easier.

Perl, Python or Ruby should all be ok. No Java please.

> Do we already have an https server and user management system that I
> can piggyback on for the `board members' part ?

https is no problem, even if our main website currently doesn't have
it. We just put one up where we need it. User management - yes we do.
But I'm not sure one wants to use it. And not just have an own file that
basically goes like (yaml format here)

--8<------------------------schnipp------------------------->8---
joerg:
email:
- joerg(at)debian(dot)org
- joerg(at)spi-inc(dot)org
- joerg(at)ganneff(dot)de
groups:
- board
- admin
- vp
jimmy:
email:
- jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org
groups:
- board
- secretary
--8<------------------------schnapp------------------------->8---

As you, for your email reading, sure want to have the ability to detect/sort
based on sender address too, and for that you want multiple
email addresses. Or do you want to force people to always just use one?
And with the groups: you can give out access in various levels,
depending on what they are.

> If this meets people's rough approval I can write a set of quick hack
> code and set some test instance up on my own colo.

If this gets anything near stable code this should, of course, end up on
an SPI machine. Maybe even the test instance. Let see me during
Christmas holidays where we put that.

For the website, do not assume we stay with Plone much longer. Currently
you can assume we are switching to ikiwiki and have the storage in
git. So thats where you want to base your code on, but that should be a
few $VCS add/comit/push commands only.

--
bye, Joerg
> Or write yourself a DFSG-free replacement for that piece of software.
Using the copy and paste method from the old source, obscured by
irrelevant changes.

Previously Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> https is no problem, even if our main website currently doesn't have
> it. We just put one up where we need it. User management - yes we do.
> But I'm not sure one wants to use it. And not just have an own file that
> basically goes like (yaml format here)

All members are in a postgres database as far as I know - why not
leverage that?

> For the website, do not assume we stay with Plone much longer. Currently
> you can assume we are switching to ikiwiki and have the storage in
> git. So thats where you want to base your code on, but that should be a
> few $VCS add/comit/push commands only.

Out of curiosity: why?

Wichert.

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

Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> wrote:
> Previously Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> > For the website, do not assume we stay with Plone much longer. Currently
> > you can assume we are switching to ikiwiki and have the storage in
> > git. So thats where you want to base your code on, but that should be a
> > few $VCS add/comit/push commands only.
>
> Out of curiosity: why?

We (Ganneff, Hydroxide, me, bdale, luk_ and mc in roughly that order
of culpability) considered plone, ikiwiki, drupal, MT and wordpress.
As I understand it, ikiwiki is the current plan because:-

1. all currently-interested webmasters seem comfortable with
ikiwiki+git and some have previous experience with it;

2. it should allow easier contributions from people without prior
approval - able to edit stuff without ever touching an spi machine;

3. both web-based and text-editor-based contributions are possible;

4. ikiwiki creates static pages which are served up by a normal httpd,
so the core website should break less often;

5. we failed to add a new user to plone, then corrupted the database
by trying to download a copy of the page content from its webdav, then
discovered that a special "copy-the-plone-db-in-a-consistent-state"
command should have been run at backup time. It's mainly by the
persistence of Ganneff and kind help from some (unknown to me) Plone
experts that most of the current site was recovered.

All errors and misunderstandings above are mine :-)

Hope that helps,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

Previously MJ Ray wrote:
> Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> wrote:
> > Previously Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> > > For the website, do not assume we stay with Plone much longer. Currently
> > > you can assume we are switching to ikiwiki and have the storage in
> > > git. So thats where you want to base your code on, but that should be a
> > > few $VCS add/comit/push commands only.
> >
> > Out of curiosity: why?
>
> We (Ganneff, Hydroxide, me, bdale, luk_ and mc in roughly that order
> of culpability) considered plone, ikiwiki, drupal, MT and wordpress.
> As I understand it, ikiwiki is the current plan because:-
>
> 1. all currently-interested webmasters seem comfortable with
> ikiwiki+git and some have previous experience with it;

Excellent reason.

> 2. it should allow easier contributions from people without prior
> approval - able to edit stuff without ever touching an spi machine;

Plone should make that just as easy. Why do people find this painful
currently?

> 3. both web-based and text-editor-based contributions are possible;

Plone does that as well.

> 4. ikiwiki creates static pages which are served up by a normal httpd,
> so the core website should break less often;

I almost never see Plone sites break, but a static httpd is bound to be
more reliably or at least scale better without much effort.

> 5. we failed to add a new user to plone, then corrupted the database
> by trying to download a copy of the page content from its webdav, then
> discovered that a special "copy-the-plone-db-in-a-consistent-state"
> command should have been run at backup time. It's mainly by the
> persistence of Ganneff and kind help from some (unknown to me) Plone
> experts that most of the current site was recovered.

Wow. I wonder how you managed to do that! That sounds like extremely
unlikely breakage.

Wichert.

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

Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> wrote:
> Previously MJ Ray wrote: [...]
> > 2. it should allow easier contributions from people without prior
> > approval - able to edit stuff without ever touching an spi machine;
>
> Plone should make that just as easy. Why do people find this painful
> currently?

Sure - these aren't necessarily solid arguments *against* Plone
(except that we're inexpert at it), but rather *for* ikiwiki+git.

Could you point me at how, please? I've not been an admin on a Plone
site for 6 or 8 years, I didn't know disconnected editing was possible
and I'm writing for other projects using Plone for their websites in
the near future, so it would be useful for me to know. I didn't find
anything useful searching plone.org for "disconnected" or browsing the
documentation.

[...]
> > 5. we failed to add a new user to plone, then corrupted the database
> > by trying to download a copy of the page content from its webdav, then
> > discovered that a special "copy-the-plone-db-in-a-consistent-state"
> > command should have been run at backup time. It's mainly by the
> > persistence of Ganneff and kind help from some (unknown to me) Plone
> > experts that most of the current site was recovered.
>
> Wow. I wonder how you managed to do that! That sounds like extremely
> unlikely breakage.

Actually, "corrupted the database by trying to download" is my
mistake. I don't know that for sure. I just think it's the most
probable explanation, but it could have been the attempts to add a new
user to plone which broke it, or simply the phase of the moon.

As far as I know, the download attempt was simply a davfs mount, then
tar czvf content.tar.gz mountpoint. It seemed an extremely unlikely
breakage to me too, but that didn't make anyone any happier with us
after www.spi-inc.org was replaced by some error messages!

Thanks,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

Previously MJ Ray wrote:
> Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> wrote:
> > Previously MJ Ray wrote: [...]
> > > 2. it should allow easier contributions from people without prior
> > > approval - able to edit stuff without ever touching an spi machine;
> >
> > Plone should make that just as easy. Why do people find this painful
> > currently?
>
> Sure - these aren't necessarily solid arguments *against* Plone
> (except that we're inexpert at it), but rather *for* ikiwiki+git.
>
> Could you point me at how, please? I've not been an admin on a Plone
> site for 6 or 8 years, I didn't know disconnected editing was possible
> and I'm writing for other projects using Plone for their websites in
> the near future, so it would be useful for me to know. I didn't find
> anything useful searching plone.org for "disconnected" or browsing the
> documentation.

I did not understand you were talking about working disconnectedly. That
is something Plone does not support (nor is it very high on the
todo-list).

> [...]
> > > 5. we failed to add a new user to plone, then corrupted the database
> > > by trying to download a copy of the page content from its webdav, then
> > > discovered that a special "copy-the-plone-db-in-a-consistent-state"
> > > command should have been run at backup time. It's mainly by the
> > > persistence of Ganneff and kind help from some (unknown to me) Plone
> > > experts that most of the current site was recovered.
> >
> > Wow. I wonder how you managed to do that! That sounds like extremely
> > unlikely breakage.
>
> Actually, "corrupted the database by trying to download" is my
> mistake. I don't know that for sure. I just think it's the most
> probable explanation, but it could have been the attempts to add a new
> user to plone which broke it, or simply the phase of the moon.
>
> As far as I know, the download attempt was simply a davfs mount, then
> tar czvf content.tar.gz mountpoint. It seemed an extremely unlikely
> breakage to me too, but that didn't make anyone any happier with us
> after www.spi-inc.org was replaced by some error messages!

I can see that producing errors if you had some magic filenames in there
that conflicted with some ids plone uses internally. But that is
something different than a corrupted database, and generally easy to fix.

Wichert.

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

On Tue, 2008-12-23 at 10:03 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> wrote:
> > Previously Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> > > For the website, do not assume we stay with Plone much longer. Currently
> > > you can assume we are switching to ikiwiki and have the storage in
> > > git. So thats where you want to base your code on, but that should be a
> > > few $VCS add/comit/push commands only.

> 5. we failed to add a new user to plone, then corrupted the database
> by trying to download a copy of the page content from its webdav, then
> discovered that a special "copy-the-plone-db-in-a-consistent-state"
> command should have been run at backup time. It's mainly by the
> persistence of Ganneff and kind help from some (unknown to me) Plone
> experts that most of the current site was recovered.
>
> All errors and misunderstandings above are mine :-)
>

If we are using a wiki, please make sure it is a wiki that has proper
page based acl. Which means:

A page can be assigned to any role (user or group) and can be controlled
at that level. If it is like most wikis I know, it can't do that. If it
can't do that we are wasting our time.

Joshua D. Drake

> Hope that helps,
--
PostgreSQL
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

>> > > 5. we failed to add a new user to plone, then corrupted the database
>> > > by trying to download a copy of the page content from its webdav, then
>> > > discovered that a special "copy-the-plone-db-in-a-consistent-state"
>> > > command should have been run at backup time. It's mainly by the
>> > > persistence of Ganneff and kind help from some (unknown to me) Plone
>> > > experts that most of the current site was recovered.
>> > Wow. I wonder how you managed to do that! That sounds like extremely
>> > unlikely breakage.
>> Actually, "corrupted the database by trying to download" is my
>> mistake. I don't know that for sure. I just think it's the most
>> probable explanation, but it could have been the attempts to add a new
>> user to plone which broke it, or simply the phase of the moon.

>> As far as I know, the download attempt was simply a davfs mount, then
>> tar czvf content.tar.gz mountpoint. It seemed an extremely unlikely
>> breakage to me too, but that didn't make anyone any happier with us
>> after www.spi-inc.org was replaced by some error messages!

> I can see that producing errors if you had some magic filenames in there
> that conflicted with some ids plone uses internally. But that is
> something different than a corrupted database, and generally easy to fix.

What we had was a corruption of Data.fs in a way that the server did not
start anymore. It simply wouldn't come anywhere near its normal status,
floogin the log with "exiting, error 1\n starting, exiting\n...."
messages until it had enough of them and stopped entirely.

I don't know how exactly we got there. My tries to add a user all failed
with weird error messages (how about a ! as a response to "Add user"?)
and at the same time Jimmy was using the webdav foo. Thats all we had as
action at that time.

No known tool (to me or the Debian Zope People) was able to convince it
of getting back up. Nor fixing it. Yet most of them did their work. Like
fspack actually packing it for example. Without giving even the
slightest hint of a problem.

In the end we found a "space.py" somewhere in the zope tree. Which broke
on the file, denying to work. But did output some text for an old
backup. Modifying its code to not just die at a broken entry, we found
13 non-working OIDs (transactions?).
*Somehow* we then have been able to fix that damn filestorage to a point
a new zope instance was able to read it. Then we could do an export.
Which we have been able to import. Not that it worked then, I then
needed to go and export all the various subpages on their own, then
using an old Data.fs backup. Removing the subpages there and reimporting
those I just exported.
Voila, the page is back.

Somehow I doub't ikiwiki with git as backend or movabletypeopensource
with *sql or *anything* with a sane backend (read: not a
single-large-file storage) would have made it that complicated.

--
bye, Joerg
If the autobuilder tells me that my package failed to build from source,
it's probably doing that on some obscure architecture I don't have
access to.

>> All errors and misunderstandings above are mine :-)
> If we are using a wiki, please make sure it is a wiki that has proper
> page based acl. Which means:

> A page can be assigned to any role (user or group) and can be controlled
> at that level. If it is like most wikis I know, it can't do that. If it
> can't do that we are wasting our time.

As much as I am in favor of limiting access: What do you plan that needs
this? I mean, it will be a wiki, but not one thats open to the wide
public. It will always be a limited set of people who have access
to. (Board, Admins and the few people board wants in as webmaster).

And then we have the VCS behind it, which will surely mail commit
messages to a list. And allows easy reverts of broken changes. Etc.

--
bye, Joerg
I read the DUMP and agree to it.

On Tue, 2008-12-23 at 21:33 +0100, Joerg Jaspert wrote:
> >> All errors and misunderstandings above are mine :-)
> > If we are using a wiki, please make sure it is a wiki that has proper
> > page based acl. Which means:
>
> > A page can be assigned to any role (user or group) and can be controlled
> > at that level. If it is like most wikis I know, it can't do that. If it
> > can't do that we are wasting our time.
>
> As much as I am in favor of limiting access: What do you plan that needs
> this? I mean, it will be a wiki, but not one thats open to the wide
> public. It will always be a limited set of people who have access
> to. (Board, Admins and the few people board wants in as webmaster).

O.k. if we are going to limit it like that, then I don't see a big
problem. I was envisioning something like wiki.postgresql.org where
there is "official" stuff but also it is an open wiki. So only certain
people can unlock and lock pages. Just makes things obnoxious.

>
> And then we have the VCS behind it, which will surely mail commit
> messages to a list. And allows easy reverts of broken changes. Etc.
>

Nod.

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL
Consulting, Development, Support, Training
503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997

"Joshua D. Drake" <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote: [...]
> If we are using a wiki, please make sure it is a wiki that has proper
> page based acl. Which means:
>
> A page can be assigned to any role (user or group) and can be controlled
> at that level. If it is like most wikis I know, it can't do that. If it
> can't do that we are wasting our time.

Information about ikiwiki ACLs is at http://ikiwiki.info/todo/ACL/

The desired purpose of it isn't stated above, so I can't comment on
the suitability of the implementation. At worst, the highest-level
role could be responsible for controlling all publication until a
suitable ACL is implemented.

As I understand it, no users with access and time can create new users
on the current system (Plone), so what other routes forwards are open?

Regards,
--
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237

>> As much as I am in favor of limiting access: What do you plan that needs
>> this? I mean, it will be a wiki, but not one thats open to the wide
>> public. It will always be a limited set of people who have access
>> to. (Board, Admins and the few people board wants in as webmaster).

> O.k. if we are going to limit it like that, then I don't see a big
> problem. I was envisioning something like wiki.postgresql.org where
> there is "official" stuff but also it is an open wiki. So only certain
> people can unlock and lock pages. Just makes things obnoxious.

Well. I don't think SPIs website should be open to the wide
public. While we do want people to edit it / provide content, it is
mainly the site telling people about SPI.
So I think there will always be a limited set of people editing[1], and
someone going crazy will be noticed/fixed by the rest that has access.

[1] As I said, per default probably Board, Admins and Webmaster. Maybe also
all project liasions(sp?) for a /projects so they could update
their own one. And for special areas like members/ or maybe committee
based subpages, those people.

--
bye, Joerg
<DarkRider> also dies ist so ziemlich der einzige chanel wo ich meist 0 peile
<DarkRider> ich schreibe etwas dann rennen se alle gegen die wand und schreien aua

Joerg Jaspert writes ("Re: Meeting agenda robot"):
> Perl, Python or Ruby should all be ok. No Java please.

Yes. I started with Perl but I had too bad a cold and couldn't
comprehend simple manpages. I'll try again when I'm feeling better
:-).

> > Do we already have an https server and user management system that I
> > can piggyback on for the `board members' part ?
>
> https is no problem, even if our main website currently doesn't have
> it. We just put one up where we need it. User management - yes we do.
> But I'm not sure one wants to use it. And not just have an own file that
> basically goes like (yaml format here)

Well, we just need to distinguish people authorised to explicitly edit
the meeting details from people who aren't. So the membership
database isn't really relevant.

> As you, for your email reading, sure want to have the ability to detect/sort
> based on sender address too, and for that you want multiple
> email addresses. Or do you want to force people to always just use one?

No, I was just going to ignore the sending email address (well, apart
from displaying it). I don't think we need to worry about attacks
from unauthorised agenda-setters.

> If this gets anything near stable code this should, of course, end up on
> an SPI machine. Maybe even the test instance. Let see me during
> Christmas holidays where we put that.

Right.

> For the website, do not assume we stay with Plone much longer. Currently
> you can assume we are switching to ikiwiki and have the storage in
> git. So thats where you want to base your code on, but that should be a
> few $VCS add/comit/push commands only.

I think being able to serve static pages and a simple standalone CGI
program will suffice.

Ian.