2009-01-21

This is the proposed agenda for the Board meeting of Wednesday, January 21st, 2009, to be held at 20:00 UTC in #spi on irc.spi-inc.org.

  1. Opening
  2. Roll call (Tentative regrets from Bdale Garbee; Regrets from Michael Schultheiss)
  3. President's report (Bdale Garbee)
  4. Treasurer's report (Michael Schultheiss)
  5. Secretary's report (Jimmy Kaplowitz)
  6. Outstanding minutes
    1. Neil's responsibility
      1. March 19th, 2008 (prepared by Martin Zobel-Helas, will be HTMLified later)
        • Will need slight amendment later to add list of registered guests and the text of resolution 2008-03-19.jrk.2
      2. April 16th, 2008 (prepared by Martin Zobel-Helas, will be HTMLified later)
      3. May 21st, 2008 (prepared by Martin Zobel-Helas, will be HTMLified later)
      4. June 18th, 2008
      5. July 2nd, 2008 (annual meeting)
      6. August 20th, 2008
    2. Jimmy's responsibility
      1. December 17th, 2008
  7. Items up for discussion:
    1. Resolution 2009-01-09.jdd.1: New affiliated project: Helios Initiative (Joshua D. Drake)
  8. Any other business
  9. Next board meeting - Wednesday, February 18th, 2009, 20:00 UTC

President's Report

(none)

Treasurer's Report

(none)

(Secretary's note: The Treasurer has been busy dealing with a family emergency and will get the December 2008 financial reports done ASAP.)

Secretary's report

  • On December 20th, 2008, Fabian Keil emailed in an acceptance on behalf of the Privoxy team of SPI's invitation to become an associated project, thus finalizing Privoxy's association with SPI. Fabian's email was PGP-signed with DSA key ID BF2EA563.

  • A meeting occurred among SPI systems administrator and VP Joerg Jaspert, SPI Secretary Jimmy Kaplowitz, and SPI contributing member and website volunteer MJ Ray, where it was decided to transition the SPI website to ikiwiki and git for easier maintenance. A git repository is being set up for this purpose, as well as to enable SPI contributing member Ian Jackson to write a bot to announce meetings and agendas.

  • Martin Zobel-Helas has generously spent time helping SPI catch up on the minutes from before my time as Secretary. Three of them are ready for approval today, or at the February meeting if board members need more time to review them.

  • The OpenWRT project has officially applied for associated project status. Certain details need to be resolved, but a resolution will hopefully be ready in time to vote on their application at the February meeting.

Resolution 2009-01-09.jdd.1: New affiliated project: Helios Initiative

WHEREAS

1. Helios Initiative is a substantial and useful open source project.

2. The Helios Initiative would like SPI's support and assistance,
including taking donations.

THE SPI BOARD RESOLVES THAT

3. The Helios Initiative is formally invited to become an SPI
Associated Project, according to the SPI Framework for Associated
Projects, SPI Resolution 1998-11-16.iwj.1-amended-2004-08-10.iwj.1, a
copy of which can be found at
https://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/2004/2004-08-10.iwj.1

4. Currently, Ken Starks is recognised by SPI as the current
authoritative decision maker and SPI liaison for the Helios Initiative.
Successors will be appointed in turn by the sitting project liaison.

5. This invitation will lapse, if not accepted, 60 days after it is
approved by the SPI Board.

Joshua provided the following background to the resolution, in the form of an email from Ken Starks to him:

Hello Joshua,

Please consider this our official application for an Associate
Membership into Software in the Public Interest.  As well, bear with us
as we revamp our new website <http://www.heliosinitiative.org/>, it
should be completed in a couple of days.  You can see the official blog
for The Helios Project here <http://www.heliosinitiative.org/blog/>
.

"The HeliOS Project" began in 2004.  It was simply three guys gathered
around a dining room table in my home, watching baseball and rebuilding
computers from discarded equipment we had gathered.  We in turn took
these machines and found homes for them with socially and financially
disadvantaged kids in the Austin Area.

As we perceived the increased need for these computers in the community,
we have organized ourselves to meet the challenge.  I began putting
together an organization that would allow me to maximize the resources
of the Open Source Community, therefore increasing our ability to
produce these much-needed machines.  We have grown through efforts such
as the Tux500 project
<http://news.cnet.com/2300-11389_3-6186004-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg>,
and the more recent Lindependence 2008
<http://www.lindependence.net/>Project. Larry Cafiero and myself built
the Lindependence effort in July of 2007 and we've held events in Felton
California and Portland Oregon.  2009 promises several events in the US
and many others world-wide.

In 2008, The HeliOS Project built, placed and supported 329 computers
for our disadvantaged kids.  This has entailed an enormous amount of
work but for every trying moment, there were twice as many gratifying
ones.  This project has dual purpose.  The obvious one is to get
computers into the hands of those who normally would not have one.  The
second and equally-important mission is to proliferate GNU/Linux and
Free Open Source Software on the everyday desktop user's computer.

We have achieved much success in the limited scope of our efforts.
Becoming an Associate Member of SPI will allow us to leverage the
nonprofit status of the organization and not only bring our efforts into
a wider spotlight, it would give us the much-needed ability to issue
letters of tax exemption to our donors.  For every one donor we gain, we
lose 3-5 because we do not have the 501 federal designator needed to
issue such letters.

We will of course need the nonprofit status that this membership brings
as well as the book keeping that comes with it.  Membership within SPI
brings a level of credibility and reliability to any worthwhile project
and we are excited that you find us a good match for SPI.  Dealing with
hardware donations, we will be happy to assign the dollar amounts for
the donations and forward them to the appropriate contact at SPI.  We
keep an accurate eye on current hardware prices, both new and old.  Tom
King, our Secretary/Treasurer will maintain our records and inventory
locally as well if you need them.  We will provide SPI with a "chain of
custody" record of every item donated through your organization and
given donated by us, should you require it.  The International exposure
of our organization via our membership in SPI is invaluable and we thank
you for considering this as our official membership application.

Kenneth Starks will be the liaison between SPI and The HeliOS Project.
In his absence or the improbable event he cannot be reached, Larry
Cafiero will act as our official liaison.

Sincerely,

Ken Starks
The HeliOS Project