From: yonah@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 1995 20:39:15 -0500
Message-Id: <9512050139.AA25700@bill-the-cat.MIT.EDU>
To: sipb-minutes@MIT.EDU
Subject: it's almost over
Content-Length: 9985


Minutes of the SIPB Meeting of 12/4/95


The meeting was called to order at 19:30 by ghudson.

In attendance were
	Voting members: ghudson, len18, yonah, marthag, jered, cat, hartmans
		| nygren
	Associate members: eichin, marc, srz, mhpower, mwhitson, kcr, jweiss
	Non-voting members:
	Prospectives: daveg, sit, gutnik, stephane, kretch, jemorris,
		elliotte@anime.net, elliot, deberg | katyking, aragorn,
		barker, metcalfe
	Guests:

Treasurer's Report:

	hartmans: The treasurer learned how to fill out req's today.

Chairman's Report:

	ghudson: I noticed someone get logged in on an office machine as
		sipbtest; if you want to log someone in, use sipb0.
		sipbtest is intended specifically for testing and we
		don't want its dotfiles frobbed.  Also, it was given
		to us conditional on being used for testing only.

Office Report:

	kcr: Some time ago we talked about bying another PC to possibly be a
		Linux build engine.  Greg and I did some research and it
		looks like it'll cost about $2700 for a pentium 100 with
		16meg memory, 1gig ide hard drive, 17" monitor, and
		everything else you'd want [for a PC to function].
	jered: From where?
	kcr: Dell Dimension.  The person I talked to at Dell today seemed to
		be not very knowledgable, so I don't have harder numbers.
	jered: What video card?
	kcr: No. 9 accelerated card; 2meg.
	nygren: The XFree86 SVGA server won't work with that.
	ghudson: We can work out things like that offline.  The system with
		frills will be about $3500; $2600 without.
	jtkohl: Why a spiffy monitor for a build machine?
	ghudson: It'll be in the office.
	marthag: Why do people think we need another PC in the office?  We
		have 4 already.
	jered: One is not ours, two are running NetBSD, and the current
		"Linux build engine" is in sorry shape.
	jweiss: What does our budget look like so far?
	ghudson: We haven't used anything and aren't planning any
		major purchases.
	jtkohl: Anything people were talking about?
	jered: A tape drive.
	ghudson: We would still have money for a tape drive.
	mhpower: I don't think it's a good idea to have both zsr and another
		NetBSD machine in the office unless someone works to get zsr
		working.
	kcr: The idea would be to run Linux on this.
	ghudson: zsr crashes when you log out; this doesn't make it
		useless for most people.
	jered: I didn't understand what mhpower said.
	mhpower: We have 1 non-working PC in the office; I don't think we
		should use more space for PC's if we aren't going to
		make the non-working PC work.
	cat: It's also been mentioned that we don't have any machines
		running Windows or DOS, and we do get those questions.
	gsstark: I think it's irresponsible of us not to have a Windows/DOS
		machine to help answer questions.
	ghudson: I'd like to make the observation that we had an OS/2
		machine and nobody (except shabby) learned about it.
	jered: lime had DOS/Windows, but it's gotten nuked a few times.
	marc: I think that having a machine with viable DOS/Windows
		partition would be a good idea.  I think having a dedicated
		machine for it would make it be like the Mac.
	cat: I'm not advocating a dedicated machine.
	marthag: We have had DOS, Windows, and OS/2 installed.  People keep
		on overwriting the partitions.  What would make this machine
		different?
	marc: Are people overwriting out of carelessness or because they
		think the space would be more useful as swap?
	marthag: Carelessness, and people say "we can just reinstall it
		later."
	ghudson: A lot of the PC have to be reinstalled often, but people
		don't care about reinstalling DOS as much as Linux or
		NetBSD.  The bottleneck is people, not hardware.
	kcr: Move to allocate $3500 to get a new PC. [seconded]
	ghudson: Friendly ammendment to up it to $3700. [accepted]
	motion passes 8-2-4

	jered: I checked the prices on DLT drives; lowest price $4400, and
		they're getting back to me on what kind of discount we can
		get.
	jwiess: I think it's a little to early for us to buy one.

	len18: Do we want to think about getting Word 6 for our Mac.  We get
		a lot of questions which need it.
	marc: If we're discussing that, do we also want to get a license for
		MAE for our Sparc5?  This would also involve licences for
		software for it.
	mwhitson: What does this give us more than gene-simmons?
	marc: We can use it to answer user questions about MAE.
	jered: We could get Executor, which is cheaper.
	ghudson: The point isn't Mac applications, but MAE specifically.
	jweiss: How much would an upgrade cost?
	len18: Not much, but I can do some research and find out.
	jweiss: I move to allocate up to $100 to get an upgrade to Word 6.
	white ballot passes

	gsstark: A number of times over the past several terms, I've used
		DCNS keyserver to use the dcns copy of Norton Utilities to
		recover files from users' corrupted disks.  I think we
		should get a copy for ourselves.
	sit: PC versions are about $120.

	len18: We bought 2 chairs.  Do we like them?  Can we buy more?
		Please?  Have we had them for sufficiently long that we want
		to get more?
	ghudson: I like the one that I moved the arms to (the slightly
		cheaper one which is less adjustable).
	jweiss: How about we do this: people should send me mail if they're
		interested in more chairs, and which chairs they like, and
		I'll let people know.
	ghudson: Someone should figure out where that comes from in our
		budget, since it might affect our ability to buy a tape
		drive.
	marthag: It's pretty much all the same money; if we buy chairs,
		that would likely wipe out most of the rest of our budget
		for they year.

	jered: I'd like to ask that people clean the chopsticks after using
		them, and not just wipe them off afterwards.

	jweiss: Nobody offered to look into getting the Mac software.  Also,
		we still haven't gotten a quiche monitor cable.
	kcr: I've been lame.

	gsstark: A number of users have come in and asked about style
		guides; i think it might be nice if we had one.
	ghudson: If it's cheap or someone wants to donate one, that would be
		fine.

	elliotte@anime.net volunteers to look into prices for Word6 and
		Norton Utilities at Microcenter.

	kcr: About the cable- the holdup is actually that Jane is refusing
		to do anything for me until I do something else for her.  If
		someone else can get the numbers from me, I can pick things
		up.

	mhpower: It seems from the info online that to get mae on a machine
		outside of 2-032, we should send mail to MCC and ask them.
		Maybe someone should do that.
	ghudson: Would anyone like to volunteer to send mail?  [silence]

	jweiss: portnoy has a sign saying it's dead and hotline has been
		notified; sipb-staff wasn't cc'd on the notification.
	ghudson: Yeah, someone messed up.

	srz: What happened to the person who wanted to interview people?
	ghudson: He's here.
	srz: For information- what class is this for, who are you, what
		department?
	metcalfe: The class is in the visual arts program; I'm a student in
		the STS program.  I would only do it if there was some way
		which was comfortable; I think that can be done.
	srz: How much time are you looking at having a live camera?
	metcalfe: Potentially, not much; I'm mostly interested in the
		physical setting.  Maybe 30-45 minutes.
	mhpower: I think for consistency with previous practice, people
		should only film here if they're from another continent.
	srz: History- we've had NBC Today show in here.
	ghudson: Given that the major objections I've heard were to being
		filmed, I'm going to say this is okay unless I hear
		objections.
	marc: One thing is you should send to us when you're going to be
		here, so people who may not want to be around can avoid it.
	ghudson: You should be aware that if there aren't members here, the
		office will be closed.

MIT Computing Report:

	hartmans: MCInet went boom today and demonstrated that netops should
		be hit over the head for their router configuration.
		Basically we found out that if MCI loses like it did today,
		then we lose alternet as well (we shouldn't).
	nygren: Users have been having mail problems because of this.
	jweiss: It is known that when MIT loses connectivity with the
		outside world, MIT mail suffers (even internal).

Computer Services: '()

SIPB Backup Report:

	jweiss: I think everything was done last week.  Have we gotten the
		tape we wanted?
	kcr: I've been lame about that too.

	jered: I have a witness that the IBM cleaning tape does indeed
		work when I use it.

Publications Report:

	kretch: I'm working on updating iAthena.  Advice would be
		appreciated.

	sit: I'm pretty much done updating Linux-net-install.  Look at it
		and make comments.

	marthag: 100 copies each of iLatex and Using Discuss have been
		ordered and should show up soon.

R/O Report: '()

IAP Report:

	jered: The IAP guide is out and seems to be correct for the classes
		I know of.

CokeComm Report:

	jweiss: People should read iRefrigerator Restocking and learn the
		difference between redeemable and non-redeemable cans.
	aragorn: Rachel says there will be more coke tomorrow or Wednesday.

Other:

	mhpower: This past thursday, Craig Shergold's doctor established
		that he has been cured of brain cancer.

	hartmans: fubob has been in the med center since Saturday due to a
		virus that got unhappy.

Other Other:

	elliotte@anime.net: I promised someone that I'd clean the fridge, so
		make sure any food you want to keep is properly labeled.

	jered: Last i checked, nic.near.net is still not accepting finger
		connections for trouble tickets.

	nygren: I've been told that my CD player gateway made it into the
		NYT magazine even though it's been saying "nothing is
		playing" for over a year, and I'm still getting a lot of
		hits.
	eichin: The cygnus christmas tree is up now, and already getting 200
		hits a day; it's using VRML.
	jered: There's a program called vrweb in outland for viewing VRML
		worlds.


The meeting was adjourned at 20:05.


Minutes taken and submitted by yonah.