General VOICE Meeting - 5 March 2005

Agenda
~~~~~~
1. Call the meeting to order.
2. Old Business
     a) Report on the status of the new OS/2-eCS news service.
     b) Status of future SpeakUps.
     c) Treasurer's Report
     d) Page on the VOICE website for Treasurer's Report
3) New Business.
     a) MOTION: That in future there will be one IRC VOICE General Meeting each month on the first Saturday of the month.
     b) MOTION: That on-going communications with members be maintained using a moderated forum, with read available to all and posting available to members only.
     c) Support for OS/2 development - What? How much?
4. Other Business
     a)
     b)
5. Announcements
     a)
     b)Next meeting will be 19th March 2005
6. Adjournment

Summary - Decisions/Announcements Made
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. (a) The new OS/2-eCS news service is still in development and has not come into effect yet.
1. (b) Status of SpeakUps - is delayed
1. (c) Treasurer's Report - Current membership is 146 and the bank balance is $12,068.00 Canadian. The Treasurer also reported that he is investigating a change in the banking arrangements.
1. (d) The Treasurer also reported that a page on the VOICE website for Treasurer's Report is in development.
3. (a) MOTION: That in future there will be one IRC VOICE General Meeting each month on the first Saturday of the month. Motion was passed.
3.(b) MOTION: That on-going communications with members be maintained using a moderated forum, with read available to all and posting available to members only. The motion was not voted on at this time in order to get more information about the setup.
3. (c) Support for OS/2 development - What? How much? Several projects were proposed and motion(s) will be presented at the next meeting.
5. (b) Next scheduled meeting is the 2nd of April 2005.

Meeting Log
~~~~~~~~~~~
Chairman of the meeting Roderick Klein called the meeting to order at 15:22:46 EST
<eCSNL>
<eCSNL> OK its 22 minutes after
<eCSNL> the original starting time of the session.
<eCSNL> I hereby declare this VOICE meeting opened.
<eCSNL> The agenda has been send out.
<eCSNL> John did you start logging?
<JWE> Logging has started.
<eCSNL> Thank you.
<eCSNL> Secretary is John Edwards, chairman of the meeting (me) Roderick Klein
<eCSNL> First point is the news system.
<eCSNL> www.os2news.com
<eCSNL> A thanks goes out to Robert Henschel of the German OS/2 usergroup from Dresden
<eCSNL> (A note when you visit the page there is no content, but there is functioning system)
<eCSNL> We are in touch with other websites like os2world.com and os2.org.
<eCSNL> Some of these sites are working on redoing some of there systems and that is why
<eCSNL> usage of system is not yet up to the amount of websites we wish to use it.
<eCSNL> That is what there is on news on the newsystem.
<eCSNL> I'm putting point 2c forward now.
<eCSNL> Gordon how is VOICE doing with the financial numbers
<eCSNL> and how many members have we got?
<Gord> Very well.
<Gord> Membership, as of today: 146
<Gord> Bank balance, as of 15 Feb: 12,068.00 Canadian
<Gord> The conversion to a US dollar account is almost complete. (I still have to pick up the new cheque book.)
<eCSNL> Just a silly question.
<eCSNL> Is it not cheaper to use electronic banking?
<Gord> Walter is arranging to go to his bank to become a second signatory.
<eCSNL> And less hassle?
<Gord> I will investigate electronic banking.
<Gord> but I don't think so.
<eCSNL> Its not cheaper to use electronic banking?
<Gord> Ken K is working to set up a web page to show VOICE financial statements.
<Gord> I will investigate that.
<Gord> End of report
<eCSNL> Thank you.
<Gord> What about the agenda item on future speakups?
<eCSNL> Well I wanted to mix the agenda items so that I'm not typing that long parts.
<eCSNL> Not that I'm to lazy to type, but I want to keep a nice mix who is "talking" and who not.
<eCSNL> On the speakup item. I have had no time to move things forward sadly.
<eCSNL> To much time has gone into working on the media refresh and other eCS related items. I will get back on this later during the meeting. I hope other people can do some work.
<eCSNL> The roadmap on ecomstation that's on the website is a year old.
<eCSNL> Today or tomorrow the new eComStation roadmap should be published.
<eCSNL> I think when you read it all you will be shocked in a positive sense what is in the queue...
<frmike> Is this on the ecomstation.com site or os2voice?
<eCSNL> ecomstation.com
<eCSNL> I will now move on the new business.
<eCSNL> The two motions, I'm having doubts
<eCSNL> if there should be a vote on this topics now since also the vice president is not present.
<eCSNL> The motions can be put to a vote, but I personally think the Vice president should also be present.
<Gord> Yes, lets vote.
<MADodel> Sorry I'm late.
<JWE> I move motion 3a That in future there will be only one IRC General Meeting each month on the first Saturday of the month.
<JWE> Looking for a seconder.
<Gord> I second that
<eCSNL> OK I will put the motion to a vote then.
<eCSNL> Who is favour of motion 3a. "That in the future the VOICE business meetings will be held only once a month and then on the first Saturday of the month.
<Gord> Aye
<JWE> Aye
<MADodel> Aye
<frmike> abstain
<KenKrchnr> Aye
<Gord> Hi PsiFire
<eCSNL> PsiFire just so you can also join the vote.
<eCSNL> Who is favour of motion 3a. "That in the future the VOICE business meetings will be held only once a month and then on the first Saturday of the month.
<eCSNL> We have 4 aye's in favour of the motion.
<eCSNL> and one abstain
<PsiFire> AYE
<PsiFire> tis fine with me
<PsiFire> since I really don't get to attend often
<eCSNL> We have 5 aye's in favour of the motion
<eCSNL> who is against this motion?
<eCSNL> Type nay
<eCSNL> Motion accepted.
<JWE> I move motion 3b That on-going communications with members be maintained using a moderated forum, with read available to all and posting available to members only.
<JWE> Looking for a second.
<frmike> second
<Gord> First I would like to know which forum we are using.
<frmike> I'd sure propose a forum on the os2voice web site. A forum is asynchronous; chat is not.
<Gord> OK. What shall be the name of this forum?
<Gord> Ken, can we do this?
<KenKrchnr> There are forum capabilities available.
<Gord> Good. Can a forum be set up? If so, how soon?
<KenKrchnr> Walter is the forums "owner". He'd have to answer that :-)
<Gord> Walter needs a second signatory.
<Gord> Can we vote on this at all without Walter?
<JWE> My motion is an enabling motion and the details can be worked out in the future. This does not have to come into effect immediately.
<Gord> It's been moved and seconded. I guess we have to vote.
<KenKrchnr> It can be done, it's just that Walter has been taking care of the forums, so he'd need to answer any specific questions.
<Gord> Yes it should copme into effect immediately. We've already voted to cut back our IRC meetings.
<eCSNL> OK in detail.
<eCSNL> Walter has to create the forum?
<KenKrchnr> Walter *should* be the one to create the forum as he has been maintaining all the forums.
<KenKrchnr> If it is decided that the forum should be created it should be no problem to have it done by mid-month which is when the next meeting would have been.
<MADodel> Don't we have a limit on the number of forums the license allows?
<KenKrchnr> Yes, but I'm not sure how many that is.
<KenKrchnr> And, if it is at the limit there is at least 1 or 2 forums that have been moribund for years.
<frmike> Yet this is an important forum to have. Aside: how is it os2voice is not using a open-source forum solution?
<MADodel> The forum software was purchased by VOICE several years ago.
<eCSNL> Looking at these questions I'm personally thinking its best to wait until Walter can answer this and maybe other questions.
<Gord> Agreed.
<eCSNL> I don't know why he is here, but to push this forward without his input...
<Gord> Can we move on to other items?
<eCSNL> OK motion is then not voted on.
<eCSNL> yes
<eCSNL> VOICE wants to support an important project for OS/2/eComStation.
<eCSNL> An open source project that will benefit OS/2!
<eCSNL> As we have seen, doing a project with some funding has much more result.
<Gord> Who knows of one?
<eCSNL> There are enough OS/2 developers, but most people have a filled up agenda.
<MADodel> How about the win32PRT project?
<Gord> What is that?
<PsiFire> I vote for the Eclipse project
<MADodel> A driver to allow running win32 printer drivers under OS/2-eCS
<Gord> Who is doing it? And how would money help?
<Gord> What is Eclipse?
<MADodel> http://www.gtech-ua.com/vit/en/win32prn.jsp
<PsiFire> Eclipse is an IDE for java that would allow various java programs to work under os/2.....like Azureus
<PsiFire> http://eclipseos2.netlabs.org/
<PsiFire> Eclipse for OS/2 is a transitional project on porting the Eclipse platform (www.eclipse.org), an open extensible Java IDE, to the OS/2 operating system. The project has the "transitional" status because we are planning to join the main stream of the Eclipse development when we complete the greater part of this work and get a functioning OS/2 version.
<Gord> I get a 404 on that winPRT site.
<Gord> How would money help Eclipse?
<eCSNL> win32prn is not an option at the moment and there funding has gone to the project.
<PsiFire> http://about.netlabs.org/?detailcontentregions_id=3
<PsiFire> could hire a programmer to help get the port done
<PsiFire> Having Eclipse on os/2 would probably keep me around a while longer
<PsiFire> as it stands I'm heavily contemplating a move to linux as my primary OS by years end
<PsiFire> I had to really REALLY push myself to buy ecs 1.2
* eCSNL invites Psifire to look at the roadmap for eComStation coming out in today or tomorrow
<PsiFire> huh?
<eCSNL> Point your browser to www.ecomstation.com and keep an eye on that site :-)
<PsiFire> if not supporting a new project, why not create our own and hire someone to develop a bunch of drivers for the most commonly used devices
<MADodel> eCSNL: I don't understand "win32prn is not an option at the moment and there funding has gone to the project." Is someone else already funding it?
<PsiFire> like better USB support - I shouldn't have to jump through a million hoops to get a generic USB hard drive working
<PsiFire> or firewire....no sign of firewire anywhere on the horizon
<eCSNL> firewire.netlabs.org
<MADodel> Firewire is actually in the works
<eCSNL> Its on the move and there is a working beta stack
<frmike> Might it not be better to wait until the publication of the roadmap before committing to a project? They might already be pursing whatever we'd decide today.
<MADodel> at least for disk drives
<MADodel> USB works pretty well here

<eCSNL> Since I have a version of the roadmap here on my hard drive I can just as well tell a few things. Its going to be pushed out the door very shortly anyway.
<eCSNL> And you are right.
<PsiFire> and don't get me started about stability lately
<eCSNL> First off all for USB MSD devices like hard disks there are two important components.
<eCSNL> One is USBD.SYS.
<eCSNL> Which is the heart of the USB stack.
<eCSNL> First of all USBMSD. Basically there is being worked on replacing the IBM USBD.SYS
<eCSNL> and USDMSD.SYS.
<eCSNL> Some devices don't work because of improper device enumeration.
<frmike> It's been a mixed bag with USB. My PDA/phone, for example, will work fine as a modem, but not for synching. Mass storage--floppy, CD, Microdrive--works just fine. I've been using Chris Wohlgemuth's driver for that.
<eCSNL> Second firewire is working and storage device should work soon with a public beta.
<eCSNL> frmike it not good enough.
<eCSNL> Psifire is right hdd should also work.
<eCSNL> The roadmap for eCS will show you we take OS/2 to a next level.
<eCSNL> There will be Samba and OpenLdap support.
<frmike> Can't say I've tried hard disks (other than Microdrive) over USB. My question is WHY would anyone want to do that over such a slow bus!
<eCSNL> Its already possible to logon an OS/2 box to a active directory running on Windows 2003.
<PsiFire> I think for OS/2 to truly get to the next level requires access to the kernel code and the ability to rewrite the underlying system.....get rid of the freaking SIQ problem
<eCSNL> Resources also get assigned on the OS/2 box.
<eCSNL> Look I will just put it clear and simple.
<eCSNL> OS/2 has problems
<eCSNL> Windows has problems
<eCSNL> and Linux has problems.
<eCSNL> And we are working as hard as we can to remove as many problems as possible.
<eCSNL> I think you have to agree eCS has come a long way.
<PsiFire> problem is it doesn't take windows or linux 2-3 years to fix their problems.... unfortunately for OS/2 it does
<eCSNL> And that is where a lot of people are wrong since a lot of projects have been under construction over the last 1 to 2 years
<eCSNL> and a lot of the stuff is in working condition
<eCSNL> and in beta phase right now.
<eCSNL> With that I would like to close this part of the discussion and move back to the agenda.
<PsiFire> exactly....it takes 1 to 2 year to go to beta? some people don't like the wait...and unfortunately that's a huge disadvantage for us
<PsiFire> your right...back to the agenda...enough of my ranting
<PsiFire> I should go anyways
<PsiFire> have to head to the in laws
<JWE> I would suggest that if anyone has a specific project to suggest that they send an e-mail describing the project, giving the name of a contact, and a description of how a monetary donation would help get the project completed.
<Gord> Good idea.
<eCSNL> I think the Eclipse project would the best thing.
<PsiFire> me too
<eCSNL> Its to often heard that that is required.
<PsiFire> Eclipse would be a HUGE step forward
<eCSNL> And PsiFire is not the only one who has been saying that!
<PsiFire> like I said...if someone got eclipse working, I could move forward on a port/conversion of Azureus
<eCSNL> OK.
<PsiFire> anyways..I'mm off
<PsiFire> l8r all
<eCSNL> Here is the motion.
<eCSNL> VOICE should fund the development of a port of Eclipse to OS/2.
<eCSNL> http://eclipseos2.netlabs.org/
<Gord> How would a monetary donation help?
<Gord> What would they do with the money?
<MADodel> But I don't see eclipse helping the basic user. that is more of a corp client thing. I don't use Java here.
<Gord> Me either.
<MADodel> If there are no working printers then all the Java apps in the world are useless.
<frmike> The agenda indicates the next meeting is on the 19th. I think that, notwithstanding the passage of the motion that eliminated that meeting, that there be a meeting anyway since no forum is in place. Funny, discussion of what project to support ought to be in the forum!
<Gord> And what is "Azureus" anyway?
<eCSNL> The organization guiding this project would guide this project would be Netlabs.
<eCSNL> And to answer the question why there should be funding is because not a lot of people
<Gord> Yes, we need a meeting on the 19th. (But I know already I can't make it.)
<eCSNL> seem to be active in porting this.
* eCSNL suggest we stay on the present item please.
<frmike> I am very much in favor of the printer-driver development. I hate having to start Windoze in Virtual PC just to get good photo printing.
<Gord> Why not fund native driver development?
<Gord> OK, I can see why.
<frmike> There are just too many printers. It might work that a printer-driver converter could turn a Windows or Linux driver into an OS/2 driver, but it would be too much to write drivers from scratch. Besides that, most drivers are proprietary.
<JWE> Going back to eCSNL's motion to fund Eclipse, how much funding is he suggesting?
<eCSNL> It would be a 2 to 4 thousands dollars
<eCSNL> what I'm reading from Adriaan Gschwend
<eCSNL> Guess how most eCS development gets done.
<eCSNL> Plenty of Russians
<eCSNL> OK I'm afraid this agenda point has to be pushed to the next meeting.
<eCSNL> OK I will come with the next meeting with a motion.
<eCSNL> I'm afraid we need to close this meeting.
* eCSNL looks at the time
<frmike> I move we adjourn
<eCSNL> Who is favour of closing this meeting?
<eCSNL> Say aye
<frmike> aye
<Gord> aye
<JWE> aye
<KenKrchnr> Aye
<eCSNL> anybody against closing this meeting say nay Hello
<eCSNL> I hereby declare this meeting closed
<JWE> Note that based on the earlier passed motion the next scheduled meeting will be 2nd April 2005.
Meeting adjourned 5 February 2005 at 17:06:52 EST