peter@usenix.UUCP (Peter Salus) (11/18/87)
Summary of the Board of Directors' Meeting San Jose, CA; October 26-27, 1988 Attendance Present at the meeting were: Stephen C. Johnson, Rob Kolstad, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Alan G. Nemeth (President), John S. Quarterman, Deborah K. Scherrer, Waldo M. Wedel, David A. Yost -- Directors; Rick Adams, UUNET; Judith F. DesHarnais, Conference Coordinator; John L. Donnelly, Tutorial and Exhibit Manager; Donnalyn Frey, Public Relations; Lou Katz, FaceSaver; Sam Leffler, San Francisco Program Chair; Susan Nycum, John McKenzie, & Daniel Appelman, Baker & McKenzie; Peter H. Salus, Executive Director. UUNET Adams reported that the UUNET activity was ahead of expectations and had exceeded the capacity of the Tymnet lines on occasion. There was a discussion of the Trailblazer modems and whether the new technology and the use of 800-numbers might make the use of Tymnet unattractive from a cost standpoint. The Association must make two decisions: organizational status of UUNET and status of the Sequent machine (either a lease or a loan arrangement backed by the Association). Foreign Trade As the Association has one South African member and that member has requested a UUNET connection, John McKenzie, a lawyer expert in export controls, addressed the Board on the status of the 1986 Anti-Apartheid Act and the Department of Commerce regulations. It is clear that without special permission from the Department of State, the Association cannot send distribution tapes, manuals, conference proceedings, or ;login: to a South African member. It was decided that Appelman would supply appropriate wording for a letter which Salus will send to the Institutional Representative, terminating the membership. Common Carrier Status After a discussion, the lawyers were requested to suggest procedures for clarifying the common carrier status of UUNET. Public Relations Donnalyn Frey submitted a proposal for public relations services for the Association for the period up to and including the San Francisco meeting. The Board was enthusiastic about /etc/motd and some other services. The question of vendor support for Donnelly and another Editorial Roundtable was discussed. Frey was told that Salus would communicate the Board's decisions to her. Meetings and Workshops DesHarnais reported on the Phoenix Conference, the Graphics Workshop, and the POSIX Workshop. All had gone well. The C++ Workshop is already oversold, a second hotel (across the street in Santa Fe) is handling the overflow. Though the general reaction to the Graphics workshop was good, it was less enthusiastic than the reaction to the previous ones. It was decided to "skip a year" and have another one in 1989. There will be a cooperative workshop (with IEEE) on Real Time Computing in Washington in May. Melinda Shore of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center has proposed a Supercomputer and UNIX workshop, probably in Pittsburgh in the Spring of 1988; Scherrer will coordinate this. Matt Bishop of Dartmouth has proposed a UNIX Security workshop for September 1988. Kolstad was asked about a second Systems Administration workshop. Salus was requested to communicate with Alix Vasilatos (Project Athena) about this. Kolstad spoke about the Dallas program. There will be two half-day sessions about MIT's Athena and CMU's Andrew projects. There are about 80 submitted abstracts. Scherrer is acting as liaison where a keynote speaker is concerned. Leffler reviewed the San Francisco program. The reception will be held in the Exploratorium. The Program Committee is to review full papers the week after the Dallas conference. The was a discussion of the need for a program chair for Baltimore, summer 1989. The options for summer 1992 (New Orleans and San Antonio) were discussed. Budget The Board decided that the Association should run on a balanced budget for 1988. Because of the expenses entailed by the office move, the initial funding of UUNET, the acquisition of the Sun 3, and the undertaking of several new projects (like the FaceSaver), the Association has used some of its cash reserves this year and run over its additional budget. It was decided that the membership dues would have to be increased. The new rates will be: Student $15 Individual $40 Educational Institution $125 Other Institutional $275 Supporting $1000 It was decided that in the future, Salus would notify the sponsor of a project when expenditures reached 80% of budget; notify the Board at 100% of budget; and cease paying for expenditures at 120% of budget. 2.10BSD Salus reported that 25 copies had been sold and that there were several unfulfilled orders, pending copies of the tapes. 4.3BSD Manuals Salus reported that 6,744 copies of the User's Manual Sets, 5,944 copies of the Programmer's Sets, and 3,596 copies of the System Manager's Manual had been sold. The Association had a first printing of 5000 of each set and a second printing of 5000 of the User's and the Programmer's sets. Membership The membership as of the end of October was 2,690. 1987 Software Distribution Kolstad reported that 70M of software had been received from Plus5 and that the Explorer Troup had copied this onto 550 sets of 2-2400' tapes for distribution, using Convex' machinery. The tapes will be mailed to all institutional members shortly. The Board voted a one-year Supporting membership to the Convex Computer Corporation in thanks for their cooperation. There are 35M of further software which will most likely comprise the 1988 software distribution. Journal An agreement has been signed with University of California Press and it is expected that the first issue of Computing Systems will appear next February. FaceSaver Yost circulated proof copies of several pages of the Phoenix attendee list. He said that typesetting was imminent. Katz proposed FaceSaver service for Dallas and San Francisco. He is to have a demonstration project complete by January 15, 1988, at which time a final decision concerning Dallas will be made. Standards Quarterman continues to be the Association's representative to P1003. The POSIX workshop appears to have been quite successful and important to the standards community. Peter H. Salus Executive Director