Board meeting, September 9th, 2003

Attending:

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

Absent with regrets:

  • Benj. Mako Hill
  • Branden Robinson
  • Bruce Perens

Invitees present:

  • 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

Recorder: David B. Harris (contributing member)

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.

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 JacksonIn favour
Ean SchuesslerIn favour
Martin SchulzeIn favour
Wichert AkkermanIn favour

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

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.

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 I 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 JacksonIn favour
Ean SchuesslerIn favour
Wichert AkkermanIn favour
Martin SchulzeAbstains

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

Date for next meeting

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