Thursday September 10th, 1998, 6:30pm at Mad Hatter pub, Waterloo.
Present: Jonathan, Ian, Steve, David B,
Apologies: Eewei, David C, Martin, Richard,
Absent: Fraser, Andrew
1. The main item on the agenda was discussion of the proposed Rules. We went through them section by section and made a number of changes. Jonathan will post the new version on the website, together with some explanation of the changes. He’s also taken the liberty of making a some embellishments himself in the course of typing them up.
2. We talked about OS (again) and agreed Red Hat Linux was the one we wanted.
3. Decided that a 9G hard disk would be best - but wondered if two smaller ones might not be faster. Probably not.
4. On hardware spec, noted that RAM and disk space can always be added to at a later date, so perhaps we should invest more money now on aspects of the server that could not be so easily upgraded: i.e. the processor (and cabinet?). So, an ideal minimum spec would be:
266MHz (or just below the bleeding edge) 128MB RAM (it’s cheap, you can’t have too much) 9GB wide SCSI disk
5. Spoke briefly about the VIVD offer verses the Wirestation one. Ian said he preferred Wirestation because Dave C would be best placed to troubleshoot if things went wrong. Also, Wirestation is located in central London. We agreed that as long as Dave C didn’t have any objection to the role of on-site troubleshooter, then we should go with Wirestation, even though their bandwidth allocation was more restrictive, and they are (in theory) more expensive.
6. Backup - we thought we should ask the ISP for a recommendation on this. 7. Insurance - again, ask the ISP about this.
8. Money - in order to avoid the final amount payable per person becoming dependent on the final price of the hardware (a chicken-and-egg situation), we agreed that we should simply allocate 2000 pounds to hardware as was agreed at the first meeting. If we spend less than that, then the surplus will go into the "emergency fund" (which, if unused, can be paid back to members if the whole thing folds).
9. Membership - some simple sums indicated that if we assume all prices quoted for hardware and service are exclusive of VAT, then having 10 people may not be enough to keep the individual payments below the 450 pound mark. We’d like to be paying around 420-450, so it looks like we need at least 11 people for the minimum membership.
10. New Members - Spoke in some detail about handling new members after launch, and uncovered a few difficult problems to do with how we allocate their share, etc. For this and other reasons, we thought it best to limit membership to those involved at the start. This would give us time to see how the whole things hangs together, etc. without being hassled by outsiders. We then vote on whether to accept new members (thereby changing the rules) in the second year of operation.
11. Also noted that members should be allowed to make use of and thereby "sell on" any shared server resource - not just web space, but also things like DNS, mail (POP3. SMTP), or whatever - subject to the usual "sharing" and "dispute" clauses in the rules.
To Do Now (in order of precedence):
1. Find some more people ASAP - Jonathan will post to usenet again this weekend.
2. Agree on the Rules. These will be at http://www.ybworld.demon.co.uk/hatters/ (together with the previous set for comparison).
3. Elect our Officers. We need a Treasurer, two or more Nominated Signatories for the bank account, a Secretary and one or more Technical Administrators. We can nominate ourselves without being seconded.
4. Cheques - we should try to send these to the Treasurer by the end of this month (September). They should NOT be post-dated, so as to avoid unnecessary delay, and should be payable to "HATTERS CLUB."
5. Set up a bank account in the above name.