Present: Tim, Mullet, Sadiq, Si, Bruce, Fluff_eei (5 minutes into meeting), Bucko
Apologies: Polar, Odd Bloke

Novell Presentation on Campus

Benji has emailed exec saying that Novell might be able to present on campus sometime next year. Exec were very pleased with prospect particularly if it could be on Mono as was being suggested.

Action Benji to confirm/Exec to confirm with Benji

Open Source Project

Si said we had not heard anything from the Alumni Office with regards the Open Source Project proposal yet.

Action Si to email Alumni Office with regards O.S.P.

Bruce asked whether we could package and distribute choob.

Sadiq said that this required lots of people to get involved to put the code into a state for download and may require some licence negotiations with Silver, Faux and others. Choob is apparently LGPL but the plug-ins written (JavaScript) may not be.

Mullet asked if this even was an OSP given the nightmare of licencing.

There was a discussion on the merits of choob.

Sadiq said that the core was well documented so it might be in a state where we could release it quickly.

The Exec agreed to re-visit the choob issue soon.

Mullet asked if we could discuss the Alumni OSP. Specifically – were we going to run it with DCS? and how are we going to run it?

Bucko said that getting more than 4 people involved without DCS would be difficult and that even with 4 it was quite a large OSP – it is likely to require to proper manager.

Mullet said that we needed to push forward with DCS in order to attract potential students.

Bucko replied that support from DCS may help contribution but it will take a lot of Exec effort to get the project started.

Sadiq said that we needed to get a firm idea together and make some of the bigger decisions (on project direction) early before we agreed on details to do with implementation etc. These were likely to appear once the project had started so having some clear aims early would be a good base on which to move forward.

Action Tech Team are to create a new OSP email list for potential contributors.

Sadiq proposed that we got this sorted over the summer/late term 3 so we could use it for promotion at the Freshers’ fair.

Servers

Tim stated that all servers in the cupboard were now secured ready for our ITS audit. Surewall is installed but not completely configured, this is a difficult task since there is no network. Fail2Ban and Strong password PAM modules are installed.

Mullet said that we needed to have Backus and Not-Naur tested by ITS so we could put them on the network.

Action Exec to read Security report ready for release to ITS.

Gaming/Socials

Fluff_eei asked what was happening with gaming.

Mullet replied that due to administrative problems it will not be happening this week.

Sadiq (and Exec agreed) that Hot Fuzz had been good and that we should do it again.

BFL

Piggeh had contacted Fluff_eei/Exec to help organize a tournament.

Action Fluff_eei to do tournament organization with Piggeh for BFL.

There was a discussion of signups and how to let people who would only come for say one day of the BFL signup.

Si asked if we could have a signup for each day.

Bucko said that we could split the signups e.g. 50 for the week for people who attend BFL all the time and then say 5 floating signups for each day.

Action Fluff_eei to produce BFL email explaining signups – send to Exec before release to members.

AOB

Karma

Tim asked what was happening with regards Karma.

Mullet replied that it has been removed from the channel, there was currently a vote to bring it back but he felt that the atmosphere of the channels had improved and so we would need to consider what was our next move.

Xing

Bruce asked if this could go in the Newsletter.

Si said he would try to put it in there.

Clothing

Sadiq is ready to place order when the printers re-open next week.

Bugzilla

• Pizza Order: no movement but possible avenues have been investigated
• Prog Comp 2: delay due to Polar not being present.

Action Tim to fix DNS and tell Polar how to fix it.

Present: Mullet, Sadiq, Odd Bloke, Bruce, Fluff_eei, Bucko, Tim
Apologies: Polar

The minutes are partially complete – Si was late due to a research meeting but only general discussion had taken place before hand. For these details see Mulletron’s email.

Removing Karma

There was considerable discussion on the issue of Karma in the Society. Mulletron said that in general, it was often the cause of disagreements on IRC which eventually turned into full-scale arguments. These often became worse when more members joined in the discussion. He proposed that removing Karma would improve this situation since the actual spark (Karma) wouldn’t be permitted in the IRC channel.

Sadiq echoed this point saying that using Karma doesn’t really add much to the channel but is a big cause of people not joining in discussion.

Mulletron added that this was a definite put-off for new members or people wanting to engage with the Society more.

Bucko argued that just removing Karma wouldn’t neccessarily stop these kind of arguments. This was the nature of some of the discussions with our without Karma being present.

There was more discussion relating to specific IRC conversations which are not included here in order to keep reader’s sanity.

Si added that given that we were already being accused of changing the Society too much, further aggrevating members by removing Karma might not be a good idea. He also said he just didn’t understand why Karma was such an issue.

This caused more debate.

Finally, there seemed to be more members supporting for the removal so it was agreed that there would be an indefinite trial run of removing Karma. This would start immediately and would be discussed at a later point.

Technical Officer Position

With Tim leaving the University in June, Mulletron raised the issue of how the Society will replace the Technical Officer.

Bucko opened the discussion by saying in his view we definitely needed a Technical Officer rather than a committee or management group.

Mulletron asked whether this meant an elected officer or just an officer – the Exec agreed to call this the Technical Lead.

Sadiq said tht he was happy to have a tech committee with a Technical Lead. None of which would be an Executive position.

There was much debate as to whether the Technical Officer needed to be an Executive position. Some members felt that there needed to be an officer position in order to facilitate good communications with the Exec. Others felt that this could still be achieved without an Executive position but with a liason style approach used in the LUG.

Si asked whether a committee would be a good idea – assume something had gone wrong, would there be finger pointing rather than responsibility? This wouldn’t help fix the situation but would help complicate it.

Sadiq suggested a rolling committee where members could hold lead positions for a few months at a time. This might help improve the skills level and could give more members the opportunity to become involved.

Odd Bloke raised the point that if we did pursue this setup then the lead might change the procedures every three months so the tech team would be in constant flux rather than addressing the real technical issues.

Si asked whether we could just give the Technical Committee the autonomy to run the servers, if anything went wrong it was their responsibility but when it went right it was all to their credit. This removes the Exec from getting involved in technical issues.

Sadiq and Odd Bloke said that this was OK in principle but not in practice since the buck always stops with the Exec.

The Exec agreed to take a vote on the situation. The winning suggeston was to co-opt a Technical Officer during term 3. The Exec would then review this decision and agree how to proceed at the start of term 1 next academic year.

Next Meeting

Tuesday 29th May, 16:00.

Present: Mullet, Sadiq, Odd Bloke, Bruce, Fluff_eei, Bucko
Apologies: Tim, Polar

ITS/Security Incident

Odd Bloke explained that a security incident had arisen on backus due to there being an account which was hacked. The box had been in development mode and the testing user, which had a weak password, was broken into. This had led to ITS isolating the cupboard and preventing any network based access.

Si explained that the current position was ITS were in the process of writing an incident report which when complete would allow us to have the box checked (by ITS). Once this is complete we can ask networks to re-enable our cupboard port. At the moment the report has not been completed but ITS have said they are looking into this. No personal data has been lost or obtained by the hacked account and it had not gained root access.

Si also explained he had been in contact with Carol Hall and Duncan Woodhouse to try to get this pushed along, both had said they were looking into it.

There was a discussion amongst the Exec of whether they thought that ITS would be able to get this done quickly or whether a temporary solution needed to be found.

Various proposals were discussed including off-site hosting, waiting for ITS, trying to obtain a new port at the Union or DCS.

Sadiq asked if tech team could try to get all of the cupboard services moved to Molotov for now.

Mullet stated that Faux was looking into moving IRC services, possibly tonight.

After more discussion, Mullet said that gaming would be affected since there was no server to download games from. He proposed to copy the data to a USB hard-disk and then either put this on a laptop or a workstation to act as a server. This was a temporary but neccessary move.

Action Sadiq to talk to Phil with regards hosting
Action Mullet to talk to SilentDave with regards hosting
Action Si to email Carol Hall again regards ITS

T-Shirts/Clothing

Sadiq reported that the clothing prices had been sent to the Exec.

Exec agreed to create an event for the clothing order where people could add what they wanted. Once estblished it will go in the Newsletter.

LAN Report

Si started by saying that the LAN had been very successful, there was a round of applause for all involved and much patting on backs.

Mullet told the Exec that not enough of them had turned up to help the clearing away.

Action Fluff_eei to check bookings for BFL

Pub Social (for LAN)

Mullet said that this had been pretty dis-organised.

Fluff_eei (who had a very quiet voice) said that this highlighted something he was unhappy with about the Society in general – that there were ‘old-boy’ groups who didn’t mix well. This meant that the Socials were often very fragmented.

Mullet asked if we could get the LAN Pub Social put on the events system in the future to better highlight it.

Mullet also said that the downstairs had been pretty much unused during the LAN.

Bucko said that it had previously been used for Console.

Exec discussed showing a film downstairs or introducing some Console tournaments.

Mullet said that there had been a FreeCiv event but only two people had joined. He asked if we could increase the profile of tournaments at future LANs.

Bucko said that Crazy Piglet would like to help.

Action Fluff_eei to contact Crazy Piglet with regards helping at LANs/Tournaments

Bruce asked if we could host a tournament on a society server so people did not need to host them themselves. The Exec agreed this was a good idea in principle and we would look into it for the BFL.

Pizza Order at the LAN

Bucko said that he wanted the official pizza order to arrive earlier.

Sadiq said that Sicilian Pizza had made a good offer – 10% for being a student, possibly BOGOF and only £1.50 to deliver to campus. We could probably get some of this reduced for a big order.

There was much discussed over whether Sicilian do stuffed crust pizzas.

Bucko listed a firm which we should not order from (name not included).

Root Users Trustability

Bruce told the Exec that a member of the tech team had used a cracked password to gain access to someone’s computer.

Sadiq said he was concerned that doing technical things at LANs might lead to problems because people are in a relaxed frame of mind where they might not think about important issues – such as security.

Mullet said that Tim would need to ensure this didn’t happen again.

Terms of Service

Si asked if there were any problems with the proposed changes to the TOS.

Exec seemed happy with the TOS including Mullet’s first sentence update.

Mullet leaves for a meeting with his supervisor.

AOB

Sadiq said him and Si had discussed how to assess the success of the newsletter – essentially are people reading it and how are they using the details. There was some discussion that we may use a small give-away which would be communicated in the Newsletter, thus we could check how many had read it.

There was various discussion about the Newsletter including putting it on Planet.

Alumuni list

Has now been created by Tech Team for ex-members.

Sadiq and Bucko both said that we could invite the alumni to a BBQ.

Bugzilla

Three Bugzilla points were closed.

Next Meeting – Tuesday, next week, 16:00, MR3.

Present: Mullet, Si, Dan, Lamby, Bruce, Fluff_eei, Polar, Sadiq, Pete, Bucko
Apologies: Tim

Open Source and Alumni

Si told the meeting that following contact from the Alumni relations office the society could potentially be in a position to be part of a new Open Source project. An Alumnus from Warwick has made contact asking how the University used Open Source. We are currently awaiting specific details.

Mullet continued that he and Si had been to see Mike Joy with regards incorporating DCS in the project.

Various project issues were discussed mainly relating to the topic but everyone agreed to adjourn until more details were received.

Tournaments

Fluff_eei said that some of the hap-hazardness of tournaments could be relieved if we agreed to informally arrange some tournaments prior to the LAN.

Action Fluff_eei to look into tournament arrangements.

Bong

Action Bruce is to order/purchase screw-drivers for the CompSoc cupboard.

The patches for gaming are not currently available on backus due to the bong not being available. Si reported that the new PSUs were now in his office so we could get on into bong if needed.

Action Fluff_eei to make a decision on where patches are to be located.

LAN Details

Various aspects were discussed mainly relating to some games which were played at Gaming.

Action Bucko to bring his Wii to LAN

Mullet stated that he wanted a projector to advertise CompSoc during the LAN.

Action Mullet to decide on presentation/projection during LAN.

Socials

Dan raised the issue of a mid or pre-gaming social. Would we be having this very week?

Sadiq asked whether people would be interested in going to Wing-Wah’s on Sunday. It was decided that this might be included in the Newsletter.

On a non-LAN front, Mullet asked whether Paintballing would be a go-er.

Action Bucko is to contact PaintBall Soc with regards a social.

For the BBQ Pete said that he had a BBQ which could be used. A decision is to be made on this at a later date.

Action Society to purchase two footballs for BBQ.
Action Mullet to check BBQ details (with Bucko/Presidential Box)

Pre-Gaming Social

Dan asked whether we could have a pre-gaming social at Warwick Student Cinema as they were showing Hot-Fuzz. There was much discussion over what Hot-Fuzz was.

Action Dan to contact Student Cinema with regards group social to Hot-Fuzz.

Sponsorship

Polar reported that IBM had made contact with regards a meeting on 23rd May.

Action Bucko to try to move IBM meeting.

There has been no contact from Accenture.

Gaming

Fluff_eei said that gaming had been relatively successful on Friday. Various games did not work due to technical hitches but some of these had been fixed.

Mullet said that there has been some trolling my non-Linux people at Linux in general, given that they had tried hard to make everything accessible this was a bit unfair. Fluff_eei said he would try to sort this out.

Polar asked if when games were fixed for the systems if the details could be put on the Wiki.

Sadiq asked people not to install anything into CompSoc account since it gets cluttered up.

Bruce said that we needed more games, a long discussion started with the results being that we want the following games to work if possible:

- OpenTTD
– FreeCiv
– TetraNet
– bzFlag
– Savage
– Cube
– Generals (if possible)
– Total Anihilation
– Spring
– FreeDom
– OpenArena
– Proball
– Various UT Packages
– Worms
– GTA

Action Pete to check for Worms
Action Andy to poke Pete for Worms

A.O.B.

SSLC Feedback Sheets

Bucko suggested that we had SSLC style forms during LANs to see what was popular in a semi-useful, semi-rip take of SSLC.

Action Fluff_eei: To draw up SSLC forms.

Clothing

Action Sadiq to send prices to exec list for clothing.

Alumni/Ex-Members

Pete raised the issue of Alumni and ex-members and how the exec treated them, specifically was there a policy in how they were or were not included in events run by the society.

Mullet replied that there was no formal policy. Events were generally well publicised for all members and anyone was welcome. Part of the problem was that certain alumni simply wrote emails and IRC messages with nothing but complaints. Some were helpful and some were not. The real focus of the Society was to try to improvement membership and encourage students at Warwick to join otherwise there would not be a society.

Pete replied that various posts of Planet has not helped.

He continued that some past members felt they weren’t welcome anymore, that LANs had in part become programming events and that they were not included in Tech Team any more. The society, he said, was now more like the “Computer Science Society” that the Computing Society. In particular, tech team had seemed very resistent to people who had left.

Mullet said he did not want to be reliant on old members and that we needed to bring new talent in as always to ensure continuity of systems.

Pete asked if exec and tech team could be clearer with the situation.

After various other discussions it was agreed that Tech Team would create the alumni@ email list for people who had left.

Pete said old exec could certainly help with LANs. Also it would be helpful if #gaming would be re-created.

Action Tech Team to recreate #gaming and alumni@uwcs.co.uk

Next Meeting: Tuesday, 16:00, MR3.

Present: Bucko, Bruce, Mullet, Si, Polar, Odd Bloke, Fluff_eei, Tim and Sadiq

Moving Bong Installs/Patches

Bruce stated that Bong usually hosts patches before a LAN to enable members to download/update in their own time. He asked what the plans were for the current systems to support this.

Tim said that Bong was not up but that we could in theory move patches from Bong to Backus if we had disk access (to Bong’s disks).

After various discussions on the sizes of disks, the exec decided to use Backus as the patch server.

Action Fluff_eei to get patches moved to backus.
Action Tim to move Bong’s disk to Backus
Action Fluff_eei to get a backus account.

LAN Power

Sadiq reported that following conversations with Neil Williams, ITS/Estates are now considering what power CompSoc may need when they consider plans for the renovation of LIB 1 and 2.

Promoting CompSoc

Action Fluff_eei to produce LAN poster.
Action Si to send Bucko copy of his sheet once it is finished.

Sponsorship

Mullet reported that Bloomberg were now OK to sponsor the ProgComp and they may be able to design and supply posters for it.

Action Mullet to put Bloomberg in contact with Si regarding posters.

Polar reported that IBM has responded to emails, we now need to arrange a meeting.

Action Polar to arrange meeting with IBM
Action Polar to talk to IBM regarding LPI exams
Action Polar to talk to Warwick Skills and Lifelong learning regarding LPI

Polar reported Accenture had made no reply.

Action Polar to get prizes for LAN

Tech Team Report

Tim reported that migration from Bermuda and Twilight should be complete by week 5 which should free up space in the cupboard for more servers.

Sadiq was now in-charge of backups from Molotov – they are being SCP‘d across to Backus for now.

Tim also raised the issue of finding another backup mail-relay since Faux has removed postfix from his machine. This needed to be external to Warwick and not in the same data centre as PAT.

Action Bruce, Tim and Sadiq are to find a solution to the mail-relay problem.

Mullet also asked Tim to form a Gaming Team to support the LAN.

Action Sadiq to join gaming team.

Tim completed by stating that the migration from Molotov should be complete by Week 10 of term 3.

AOB

Fluff_eei asked where responses to the Gaming Survey should go. After much deliberation and debate it was found that gaming@ was not sensible since this forwarded copies to all members. Fluff_eei is to get responses sent to him.

Action Fluff_eei to produce a spreadsheet of results from gaming survey.

Action All to check previous weeks Action Points

Action Si to buy 2 PSUs

Action Alll to go through Bugzilla and remove completed tickets which relate to them.

Sadiq reported that he had made progress with clothing, results to come to next week’s meeting if back by then.

Mullet raised that issue that Tim may not be here for the 2007–2008 academic year.

Tim replied that there was currently zero probability of him being back at Warwick for a Masters. Therefore the exec would need to consider a replace Technical Officer.

After much debate, various views were expressed as to whether the Society should have a Tech Team officer. Discussion was adjourned until a later meeting.

Next Meeting is 15:00 next week (Tuesday).