Minutes of the "Whither SIPB" meeting of January 23, 1992. In Private Dining Room 3 in the student center. Attendees: pshuang, bjaspan, yandros, marc, ckclark, amgreene, tytso, rjbarbal, mhpower, probe, akajerry, mosquito, dcctdw, srz. Meeting called to order by amgreene at 7:43 PM. Charter of the Whither SIPB group: > To identify the short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals of the > SIPB, and to make recommendations to the Board and its Executive > Committee with regard to the implementation of these goals. "Informal working group," which means according to amgreene, we're going to talk. Andrew read a summary of why this committee is needed -- what the SIPB's original purpose was in the "good old days" (e.g. Multics) what we did once Athena came around. We became very Athena-centric, and haven't done much with the Mac or PC, although we did try (e.g. attempts to work on A/UX). Where do we go from here? * continue Athena work, e.g. running news * teach IAP courses, which almost didn't happen this year because of lack of enthusiasm on the part of a lot of people * find new areas into which we can expand and be of more use * becoming more responsive to the user community * what are the strengths and weaknesses of the current membership, and how can we augment it to address the weaknesses Mentioned Athena survey -- didn't happen last term because it was so late in the term that people would have ignored it, perhaps we should discuss doing it this term. Marc says that the reason SIPB members do things is because they want to, or because they're "fun." Discussion ensues -- jik disagrees at least partially with the assertion. Andrew asks: is this putting the cart before the horse? If we decide that it would be good for the SIPB to do work on the Mac, would that spur SIPB members to do such work? Alternatively, if we state focuses, can we then seek members that would help us to aim towards those focuses? Brings us back to the survey -- if we only distribute it on Athena, then we're only talking to Athena people; we should try to find other ways to distribute it -- an add in the Tech, distribution to the dorms, other things? Greg Jackson -- one of the members of the CAC90 committee and now the director of ACS -- is interested in helping us find new goals. Tytso -- if we want to encourage Mac hacking, perhaps we should get another Mac in the office? In other words, the hardware we get in the office might encourage movement in certain directions. Srz asks if there is an agenda. Andrew says that this meeting is going to be pretty general without drawing any specific conclusions. Stan asks if perhaps a top-down approach to what the SIPB is would be useful. Stan says that perhaps we should try to develop a general mission statement for the SIPB, and perhaps that will help us to determine what we should be doing. The bylaws: to improve student access to computers at MIT. Do we want to change it? Has SIPB's mission been accomplished? Has the SIPB been useful? Is the charter in the bylaws still relevant? Andrew says that one of the reasons why the SIPB has been withering is that we've gotten very "into our belly-button-ish", sticking with doing one thing and becoming more focused with each generation. Yandros leaves to go get copies of the SIPB constitution and bylaws. Tytso says that the constitution starts at a much higher level, saying that the SIPB is supposed to promote the use of computers on campus, and gets down to specifics. Perhaps we should be asking, is that still the right goal? If so, are the subgoals given beneath it the right ones? Should there be others, or should the ones that are there be modified? In other words, we should be looking for a framework for the discussion. Jerry: SIPB was originally intended to provide access to computing that wasn't normally available to computing. Perhaps we can still accomplish that goal by providing a step beyond the access to computing that is provided by other sources (e.g. Athena) now. \section{Article II -- Purpose} \subsection{Section 1:} The principal purpose of this Board shall be to provide the M.I.T. community with improved access to computational facilities. Primarily, this will be focused on students who do not readily have access to other computers on which to further some desirable purpose. The secondary purposes of the Board include: serving as a spokesman for undergraduates to the Faculty and Administration in computer-related topics, functioning as an information center for undergraduates interested in the various computers known to the SIPB and in other topics in computer science or computing at M.I.T., as well as conducting, managing, and supporting experiments run by students to advance the techniques of organization, planning, and administration of access to computers. \subsection{Section 2:} To this effect, the SIPB shall administer such funds as M.I.T. has allocated to this Board for these functions, subject in purpose and actual operations to the decisions of the M.I.T. administration. The SIPB shall also enter into negotiations with managers of computers affiliated with M.I.T. research projects, to the end that the M.I.T. community may make use of these facilities. Finally, the SIPB shall investigate the possibility of using computers outside of M.I.T. jurisdiction. \end{insert} Jik: More than half of that Article is obsolete. General agreement. Andrew: What should be aiming for is to draw the disparate elements of computing at MIT together. Example: the SIPB could distribute a program for Macs, PCs and other platforms that would automatically upload a file to Athena with no trouble at all -- just ask for the username and password and do the rest of the work over the modem automatically. Tytso metaissue: Says that Andrew has a particular ax to grind, which might make his role as the chairman difficult. Should someone who is willing not to participate in the discussion be the chair? Also suggests that we focus on top-level issues rather than getting bogged down in details. Should we go back to the statement of purpose and work on that? Matt says that more should be said about the problem being Mac and PC support, since he doesn't think everybody agrees with that. Marc asks if it's really needed that bad, since (for example) the MCR exists to consult for Macs and PCs, and they're very good about it. Barry: a lot of the questions we get are referred to us, and people don't refer Mac/PC questions to us because they know we won't answer them. Jik points out that just as there is a lot of hard-core Unix expertise in the SIPB over and above the OLC consultants, can't we have hard-core Mac/PC support over and above the MCR consultants? Mhpower: On Athena, there are certain areas that IS chooses not to support, e.g. X programming. Should we wait to see if they choose similar areas for the Mac or PC and focus on those? Jerry jumps in and says perhaps we should not discuss whether we want to do Mac/PC work until we decide where we should be getting our priorities from, and doesn't think we should be basing our priorities on what other people aren't doing. Stan says: we can't wait for other organizations to evaluate the needs -- we've got to do it ourselves. Our priorities should come from who we're serving. Ping: when he got hired by IS, he looked up how many people his work would be affecting. There are 1,000 personally owned Macs and 1,000 personally owned PCs. Marc moves to push to purpose. Ted: There are lots of needs out there. There are hungry people in the streets, etc. We have to decide what out purpose is before we start talking about pet projects. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% dave jumps in as secretary. We discuss changing Article II. We discuss the phrase "improve access to computing facilities." Ted posints out that CF used to mean Mutics (and VMA), and access meant accounts. Marc & Ted flame about sematics. srz points out it's general, dammit. more flaming about interpretation; it's supposed to be general (the bylaws, that is) amgreene wants proposed amendments. tytso doesn't like usenet=comp facil. "it can be stretched to include that, but USENET doesn't compute anything". reword: "promote the use of computers on campus" (too specific -- marc) comp facil will be interpreted to =w91 Round robin flaming: srz: change "comp facil" to "computing resources"? y/n: 1/0 mhpower: doesn't like "access"; use "support, dev, consult" (not liked) yandros wants intent, not words akagerry: switch from "computer" to "information" tytso: "access to comp res" != "documentation" No hierarchy of goals; just Primary and Secondary exit mhpower, stage left (8:29) amgreene proposes to get something useful done: assuming prim goal is no longer applicable, start from-- Primary goal is toast (obsolete); start from the middle and go up. Secondary goals? {amgreene: ARA brownies are actually palatable; the report [CAC] wasn't.} summary: we are spokesman to MIT (we should be for students, not community -- an issue bjaspan raised; answered by amgreene) srz: change this sentence from "undergrad" to "student" m-x repl-str "undergrad" "student" srz: info center for various stuff -- we're a breeding ground for hackers amgreene: perhaps we should do more, where we bring people together? -lots more flaming where stuff really doesn't get said- -we are now firmly stuck in details of no point- -this secretary is now very bored- rhu wants to combine the primary goal with the secondary. srz disagrees -- need replacement for primary. "info center is reasonable" -- srz -more flaming- -at this point, an orange baby grand piano appears in the corner of the room- ping: nuke after "info center"; append "for computing at MIT" -the orange baby grand piano disappears- %%% Editor's note: Dave's comments were amusing enough to leave in. -Rhu amgreene: anyone disagree with this clause enough to keep flaming? No. Moving on to the last clause... something about maintaining accounts; lots of people snicker. amgreene: remove, or replace with "hacking" etc... experiments meant things like let's try to crack Multics security. the secretary feels that it's more ala Let's see what happens when we teach Perl to too many people. amgreene: "hacking" is missing from Section II; we need to include it. Preserve this clause (mostly); terminate "access *" and put in a PC-version "hacking" -the secretary would like to note at this point that DCNS sounds a lot like a dish at Mary's whose name he forgets...- -a telephone booth falls from the ceiling and lands in a different corner of the room- -correction: the telephone booth falls on akagerry and tytso.- -the secretary feels like screaming right now because of all the useless semantic flaming.- -the telephone booth disappears into the floor of the room.- srz points out that we aren't getting anything done, and that we still are looking for a primary goal. amgreene: big picture: "to provide info about, support for, and access to, computers and computer resources at mit." -the secretary is STILL wondering what the hell "ed" is (not the editor -- he does know what that is- srz wants "improved" in there... fill in holes which are distinct improvements, and get someone else later on to take it over. tytso: "to promote and further the use of computing and info resources at mit" -- use as top-level goal; use amgreene's as transition (amgreene concurs) white-ballot? hearing no objection... rjbarbal: need "student"? -gee, useful discussion about "student" etc...- -this quickly changes- Time and Place: amgreene, two weeks from tonight? Ok. Plan: to polish this for submission to sipb-ec; solicit info via survey enter mkgray, stageleft, 9:14 exit rjbarbal, stageleft 9:16 srz: let's clue in about concepts (to make sure thread doesn't fray) -- ted's sentence: top level, right? (Right.) -the thread not only frays, but disintegrates- {amgreene: netnews does not strike me as an improvement to anything} -the secretary is annoyed the M-f doesn't exist on this stupid laptop- -more flaming -- uh, i think they're talking about the points in the SIPB meetings. oh, joy, oh, rapture, oh, bliss.- -a UFO lands on the ledge behind Rhu.- -Gee, it's Spaceman Spiff!- -Spaceman Spiff vaporizes everyone here save this laptop and the secretary.- We know what we want to say; a few people will wordsmith, and the others will return later to flame. srz: now we have to figure out what we want to do from now. we have goals; now we need plans exit akagerry 9:28 stageleft amgreene proposes that in addition to Mondays at 7:30 we have another meeting during the week: to discuss Things To Do (i.e., implementation) -more jokes about Ed. Obviously, we're also not talking about the horse. but the secretary already knew that.- tytso wonders if amgreene's solution will work. srz suggests responsibility system. tytso concurs. 1: we're having trouble finding people willing to champion projects. that's sometimes enough for some projects. 2. there are some projects which are big like sipb-RO tours where we found a champion but we couldn't get manpower. Eit. (Gee, that sounds just like APO, which the secretary points out.... a lot of groups have been having downturns) amgreene notes that Fuzzy said the SIPB in the past was a homogenous social group; because of this, the only time SIPB members see each other at the Mon meeting. srz: sipb-mary trips: wasn't always there (the trips, that is). -the secretary bangs his head again the table. he feels much better.- anyways, srz's point is that this was a way to get people together. tytso: says something that the secretary doesn't understand. ah, because the Execcomms of various groups are a unit social group, things got done -- in the past. not now. if people aren't part of the same social group, then they're not going to do shit... people need fun first, rather than Spiffy Goals. Gee, we need more social activity. yes, there are problems with this. mkgray: was surprised how social SIPB is. (Hmm.) ping: you don't want SIPB to sponsor, say, a semi-formal. amgreene: at some point, we should discuss what we expect from people (groupies issue) -- have we been allowing the blood to thin? srz: YES! in the interim: do we want to poll people? -the secretary thinks that a Tosci's run is most definitely in order after this meeting- -bjaspan tells the secretary to save. Good point. c-x c-s.- Operation SIPB Shield is adjouned.