Minutes of IFSO Meetings: 2004

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Minutes of IFSO Meetings: 2005

2004 Minutes

1. 21st December 2004
2. 16th November 2004
3. 19th October 2004
4. 21st September 2004
5. 17th August 2004
6. 27th July 2004
7. 20th July 2004
8. 15th June 2004
9. 18th May 2004
10. 20th April 2004
11. 11th March 2004
12. 12th February 2004
13. 8th January 2004

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Minutes of IFSO Meetings: 2003

21st December 2004

Notes taken by Glenn Strong

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• David Cathcart
• Mel McWeeney

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• Short meeting, since festivities appear to have detained members
• Discussion and arrangements for Georg Greve's visit in January

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16th November 2004

Notes taken by Glenn Strong

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• David Cathcart
• Mel McWeeney
• Teresa Hackett
• A. N. Other

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• Discussion of the need to expand membership
• An update on the patents situation (resulting in an update of the SoftwarePatents page)
  • The situation is moving quickly, making it hard to plan too far in advance.
• Discussion about holding an event in January. Possibly inviting Georg Greve of FSFEurope
• An update on the PO box situation - it is not sensible to purchase now as it is rented January to December and we would have to pay a full six month rental. The decision was taken to purchase in the new year.
• Letterheads were discussed.

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19th October 2004

Notes taken by Glenn Strong

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• Teresa Hackett
• Cathal McGinley

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• Malcolm reported on the T-Shirts situation. The printers have not yet rectified the situation and he will pursue the matter with them this week
• Teresa reported a request from Seth Johnson for mutual cooperation between IFSO and 'infomation freedom' advocates in the U.S. It was agreed that this was desirable and Malcolm agreed to take charge of drafting the response.
• Teresa suggested that IFSO should pursue meetings with Micheal Martin and Charlie McCreevey
• Some improvements to the wording of the latest draft letters were discussed
• There was some question as to what the current status of the Patent Directive was. Glenn agreed to investigate this.
• Teresa proposed gathering information on the Copyright Consultation on the wiki, which was agreed.
• The IFSO AGM and "event" was discussed, and several names were proposed as invited speakers. A tentative date of the third week in January for the AGM was suggested.
• The notion of a document license for the web site came up again. Cathal agreed to investigate this.

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21 September 2004

Notes taken by Glenn Strong

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• Ben North
• David Cathcart
• Harry Tormey
• Mel McWeeney

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• David Cathcart delivered the IFSO CD-Roms, for which the committee record their thanks.
• Malcolm Tyrrell delivered the IFSO T-Shirts, for which the committee likewise record their thanks.
• A number of outstanding debts (primarily for the shirts & CD-Roms) were settled.
• Malcolm Tyrrel noted that the patents letter previously drafted had been sent on behalf of IFSO
• Mel Mc``Weeney reported on the successful Midlands Software Freedom Day (full details at the [http://softwarefreedomday.org/wiki/index.php/Longford Software Freedom Day wiki])
  • Freeduc was very popular, possibly because of the applications
  • For the next IFSO CD it may be worth beefing up the "freedom" aspect of the disc with prominently featured documents explaining the Free Software philosophy
• Some discussion of the use of the wiki:
  • Opinion was generally positive
  • Should be kept publically open
  • It was felt that one problem with using the wiki to draft documents was the danger of having documents stray off-topic. It was generally agreed that each document should be accompanied by a clear statement of the purpose of the document.
• The IFSO letterhead still needs some work, and Ben North agreed to do this
• There was agreement that a PO box should be organised before the next letters are sent, to give IFSO a more professional look.
• The web site needs some maintenance.
  • Now that the merchandise is available an "IFSO shop" should be added
  • A license for the documents, etc. hosted at the site. Probably a creative commons license would be suitable
  • Instructions on how to use the CD should be added to the web site. Initially these can be written on the wiki and moved to the main site when they are complete (join the editing at ["IFSO CD Instructions"])
• More business cards should be printed and made available to all members
• Given the current time commitments of the members it was felt that the best thing was to organise an event to coincide with the IFSO AGM in January 2005.

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17th August 2004

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• Teresa Hackett
• Rory Browne
• Conor Nash

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• We should begin making arrangements for the AGM, etc. in January. Working backwards from the dates, what is the latest people can join and still vote? [update: AGM in January, 4 month lead time on voting. Therefore, anyone wishing to vote must join by or at the next meeting]
• Publicise a list of ways to donate or pay membership fees (cash, cheque, EFT and Malcolm has offered to take PayPal)
• Related to the ongoing letterhead discussion, the idea of using a PO box was raised again. Glenn agreed to price it and report back to the committee.
• Malcolm agreed to find out what the ststus of the T-Shirts is and report back.
• Discussion of the "free software day" event. It seems that there will not be enough people available to commit to doing this properly. There was agreement that the idea is worth pursuing, and it was suggested that we move the event to Halloween and begin publicising it properly now. As well as a possible showing of the Revolution OS film some creative commons videos were suggested. Exploring FSFE affiliation for the same event (and tying the events together) was suggested. Inviting a speaker (such as Georg Greve) was also discussed, and considered a good idea.
• The remainder of the time was taken up with a discussion of the ongoing software patentability directive.
  • Charlie McCreevy will be the commissioner responsible for this, but will he be in place when the next decisions are made? [update: no, which renders quite a bit of the subsequent discussion irrelevant I fear]
  • If so, we should figure out the best way to deal with him. Since he is an Irish politician there was a feeling that we may be in a good position to talk to him. We should coordinate with organisations like FFII to ensure best performance.
  • Would Redhat Ireland be willing to get involved? [update: see for here for the Redhat patent policy]. As a spin off question it was asked if we couldassemble a (even partial) list of Irish or Irish based software companies that have a stated position on software patentability.

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27th July 2004

Note: this meeting was called to confirm decisions made the previous week; see below.

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• Ben North
• Aidan Delaney
• Ciaran O'Riordan
• David Cathcart
• Teresa Hackett
• Conor Nash

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• Recognising donors: mail donors to determine whether they want to be anonymous. Rather than acknowledging specific amounts we will group donations into bands. The only bands that were discussed so far were up to €1000 , and above €1000.
• We want a letterhead. It was agreed to ask on-list for a volunteer or volunteers to take responsibility for producing one.
• Software freedom day: Several events were discussed, and it was decided to pursue the idea of a social event to promote free software. Renting a room, and circulating invitations to ILUG and similar places. We will try to combine this with a showing of "Revolution OS", and possibly a table quiz if prizes can be arranged. David agreed to make initial enquiries after a venue.
• Malcolm will continue to explore the T-Shirts discussions. Ben North suggested an embroidered logo style rather than a printed one.

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20th July 2004

Notes taken by Ciarán O'Riordan

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• Aidan Delaney
• David Cathcart
• David Barrett
• Stephen Howell
• Ciarán O'Riordan

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

Today's meeting was disorganised, so we've decided to hold another meeting next week, probably next tuesday (July 27th). The venue will have to be confirmed, but details will be posted to fsfe-ie, probably today (wednesday 21st).

Some people had to leave early, so we squeezed the official business into a few minutes, and decided we'd confirm or redebate it at the next meeting.

Minutes:

• How should IFSO recognise donors?
  • we should have a "thanks" section on the website, and donors should be grouped i.e. 1-100 euro, 101-250, ... (the actual grouping has yet to be discussed).
• How often should accounts and financial info be published?
  • Once a year, at or just before the AGM, before committee elections.
• When should IFSO apply to become official associates of FSFE?
  • Some time this year, no rush. Maybe we should make a big deal (read: press release) about it.
• Software Freedom Day, what should we do?
  • No one present supported the idea of handing out CDs on Grafton St. Many takers would just bin them. There was also no support for handing out CDs in business districts - fear of viruses would prevent people from using them. Handing out leaflets often needs a permit, and very few takers will be interested when they see what they took.
  • We should do something though, and to get started we should sign up as a team on softwarefreedomday.org
  • IFSO t-shirts? 6 euro for low quality t-shirts (any colour) with one colour print (any one colour). Could be okay - other prices are being looked for.
• Organising Events:
  • Should we go for one conference (multiple speakers), or multiple (2-4) talks with one speaker? There was a lot of discussion about how to organise a conference, but I don't think anyone was behind it by the end. I pushed the multiple talks idea, suggestions being Eben Moglen, Georg Greve, Hartmut Pilch, and Alan Cox. The goal being to get free software users (LUGers, lurkers, etc.) interested in helping IFSO.
  • Malcolm was also interested in events aimed at software users who are probably not currently aware of free software.
• Promoting Free Software:
  • Get people to sign up as IFSO members at freshers week in college? nope, colleges wouldn't let us do that.
  • Get our Live CD put into college (or netsoc?) welcome packs? yes, but who's going to burn all the CDs? We have one offer of mass CD burning which we'll look into, and we'll price other options.
  • We should ask Intersocs, or various individual Socs, if we can work together on some of these things.

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15th June 2004

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• A quiet meeting.
• Reminder letters to MEP's about software patents
• General agreement that we should make more effort to recruit members
• Web site maintenance: use SSI to build management?
• Explicitly license the content of the site for re-use

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18th May 2004

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• This meeting was entirely occupied by discussion of arrangements for the Richard M. Stallman talk organised for later in the week.

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20th April 2004

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• Thanks to Blacknightsolutions we now have our main site at / along with hosting. This service, and the domain registration costs were donated by blacknightsolutions to IFSO. The committee expressed their gratitude for this assistance.
• Discussion on software patents lobbying activities
  • A letter to Mary Harney & Co should drafted for circulation on-list.
  • Can a meeting with ENTEMP be organised? Would it be fruitful? Some discussion on what we would want to achieve with this.
  • More formal contact with sympathetic politicians (for instance, Patricia McKenna who has been in touch). Ciaran has volunteered to make contact.
• Discussion of possible involvement with the indymedia event
  • We have been invited to have a stand and possibly give some talks
  • For this we will need some posters, handouts & flyers and possibly some CDs to distribute.
• Some discussion of the web site (and general net presence), and how it can be improved. Provision of committee@ and committee-position email addresses in the ifso.ie domain was agreed on. Links to talks and events should be provided (David Cathcart offered links to some of Ciarans O'Riordan's previous talks)

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11th March 2004

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• Due to bad weather attendance wasn't good, and as a result we did not discuss very much of consequence.
• Some membership fees were collected
• A discussion on logos - samples were examined and discussed. Some recommendations were made and it was decided to make the final decision after discussion on the list
• Discussion of the time & location of the meeting. It was concluded to try moving the meeting to the third Tuesday of each month in an in an attempt to improve attendance. Benshaws pub on Pearse St. will be reopening, and will be used as the venue.
• A discussion of software freedom day and how we could take part in it
• Related discussion of what we would like to see on an IFSO "free software" CD

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12th February 2004

Present:

• Ben North,
• Ciarán O'Riordan,
• David Cathcart,
• Eibhear OhAnluain,
• Glenn Strong,
• Harry Tormey,
• Malcolm Tyrrell,
• Mel McWeeney,
• Teresa Hackett

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• Malcolm Tyrrell agreed to pursue the idea of an IFSO logo and had a friend producing a drawing that might be useful
• There was an idea that A4/A5 "flyers" or handouts could be useful for talks and events. Glenn agreed to draft one.
• We generally agreed that having an IFSO address for letters (rather than using the address of the individual writing the letter) was desirable. Ciaran volunteered his address in the short term and the issue of a PO box was raised again, possibly as a medium term goal.
• The closure of Benshaws requires a new venue. This was to be thrown out to the list for discussion, but Mahaffey's was discussed as a possibility.
• Glenn agreed to pursue the ifso.ie domain[1]
• Several new memberships were accepted
• Note that Most of the meeting was spent discussing the recent/upcoming directives. Postings on the list have summarised much of this information already.
• Teresa had various updates on the IPRE
  • ISP's are concerned about the effect this may have on Common Carrier status.
  • There is a vote on the 11th of March [2]
  • Data protection people are concerned about circumvention (for instance as applies to RFID tags)
  • Consultation process: it was strongly suggested that we need to lobby/argue for a UK style consultation process.
• Teresa also had information on Software Patents
  • Ciaran was preparing a letter on this
  • Lobbying within Ireland and talking to MEP's should continue - Mary Harney would be an appropriate person.
  • it was proposed we make contact with Green MEP Nuala Aherne on this subject.
• Mel explained the difficulty he had obtaining a blank (no OS) laptop and his conversation with the Competition Authority on the subject.

[1] - There is movement on this; I should have the paperwork done this week[[BR]]

[2] - James Heald of FFII has since posted on list about this as well.

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8th January 2004

Present:

• Glenn Strong
• Ciaran O'Riordan
• Malcolm Tyrrell
• Aidan Delaney
• Teresa Hackett
• Mel McWeeney
• Alan Toner

Discussion, topics and suggestions:

• There was a quick discussion about getting a PO Box, but the cost was considerable. It was decided not do purchase one now.
• There was a general consensus that the web site looks well. A few suggestions were made to improve the content.
• We were asked to note that the mailing list archives are viewable by non list-members.
• Arranging a committee GPG key was discussed.
• Aidan volunteered to act as a contact for new members who wish to join by post.
• We accepted membership application from those present.
• Teresa informed us that Software Patents would be discussed again in May, and that there are some dates quite soon that we should act by. She offered to post more information to the list (which has now happened).
• Ciaran offered to produce a draft letter on patents, which could be circulated for discussion.
• The IPR Directive is on the agenda for the 9th February meeting of the Parliament, and we should consider contacting our MEPs before that date.
• There was some discussion about a possible IFSO conference. It was decided to defer this for further discussion (particularly regarding funding).
• Alan distributed a number of copies of the "World Information" newsletter.
• And, naturally, all the usual discussion on linux distributions, emacs, and everything else.