General VOICE Meeting - 10 December 2005

Agenda
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No Agenda distributed.

Summary - Decisions/Announcements Made
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. The Treasurer reported on the financial and membership status.
2. Informal Warpstock Report.
3. A discussion was held on acquiring PM Mail.

Meeting Log
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Chairman of the meeting Roderick Klein called the meeting to order at 16:04:29 EDT
<eCSNL> Ok its time for this meeting to get started.
<eCSNL> Welcome everybody.
<eCSNL> The secretary is John=JWE and the chairman of the Roderick Klein=eCSNL
<eCSNL> JWE have you started logging ?
<JWE> Yes
<eCSNL> Let me start by saying that time flies when having fun.
<eCSNL> Well I have been covered in to much work at Mensys.
<eCSNL> We have been running so many projects besides each other.
<eCSNL> over the last couple of months.
<eCSNL> Last night it was 03:30 in the night...
<eCSNL> (Ok but that was an exception)... :-)
<eCSNL> I do hope everybody sees OS/2 is being improved and we will soon also release a new demo CD again with open office.
<eCSNL> Getting to OS/2 VOICE.
<eCSNL> Gordon could you give us an update
<Gord> OK will try.
<Gord> Treasurer Report for 10 December, 2005
<Gord> We have 110 paidup members.
<Gord> The balance in the Canadian dollar account is C$9,582.45
<Gord> At an exchange rate of C$1.00 = US$0.85
<Gord> this comes to US$8,144.
<Gord> The balance in the US dollar account is $1,189.00
<Gord> for a total of US$9,333.
<eCSNL> on the OS2 VOICE financial situation and member statics ?
<Gord> I am working on closing the Canadian dollar account
<Gord> and moving the money to the American dollar account.
<Gord> One issue on this subject is:
<Gord> Can Mensys pay us in American dollars?
<Gord> End of Report.
<eCSNL> Yes we can pay in US dollars.
<eCSNL> Did we not do that already ?
<Gord> Maybe. I forget.
<Gord> Anyway Mensys should be paying us soon.
<Gord> I'll send you new SWIFT numbers.
<Gord> when you are ready.
<eCSNL> Ok thank you.
<eCSNL> VOICE has made a substantial financial contribution.
<eCSNL> Gordon could you approach the board of directors and ask what they financial position is of
<eCSNL> Warpstock.
<Gord> OK.
<Gord> Is that Stanley?
<eCSNL> Then we know what next year our contribution might have to be.
<eCSNL> one moment please
<eCSNL> Do you know what the finacial position is of Warpstock org ?
<JWE> Yes, Warpstock is in reasonable financial status. Warpstock did turn a profit this year.
<WalterOS2> Sorry to be late. What did I miss?
<JWE> The financial status will not be final until after the taxes are paid.
<JWE> Warpstock is currently reorganizing after a large turnover in directors.
<JWE> The new treasurer is Lewis Rosenthal and I am the new President.
<Gord> Walter: You missed the treasurer's report.
<JWE> Hopefully I will be able to be provide more info in the new year.
<WalterOS2> Looking forward to it. :-)
<eCSNL> ok back
<eCSNL> Its the same with Adrian Gschwend and me, we are covered in work.
<eCSNL> It still seems its extremely important to get a port of Eclipse done.
<eCSNL> So that is still on the back burner (darn I wish things would move faster).
<WalterOS2> Eclipse?
<eCSNL> http://www.eclipse.org/
<eCSNL> Every developer I know keeps hammering on this Eclipse thing will be usefull for OS/2 development.
<eCSNL> But it seems it requires some work to do it.
<eCSNL> I just send an email of again to Adrian.
<eCSNL> Another item I would like to mention is that I'm trying to work to unload Christiaan Hennecke a bit.
<eCSNL> The newsletter is chronically late.
<eCSNL> But I gues its because there is so much work with the new layout.
<eCSNL> I can tell you I'm owner now of www.os2ezine.com and I need the time now
<eCSNL> to talk to people and see if the small group of authors of os2ezine could write for VOICE.
<eCSNL> We have the complete archive of os2ezine.com.
<eCSNL> So besides not having organised a meeting the last couple of months I did try to squeeze VOICE related stuff on the agenda :-).
<Hawklord> eCSNL: Eclipse - me too!
<eCSNL> BTW hawklord have you seen the latest eCS ?
<eCSNL> ACPI and bootable JFS working (just as a side note).
<eCSNL> ACPI is still on the move and iRQ above 15 working
<Hawklord> 1.2 refresh?
<eCSNL> and improving.
<Hawklord> or 2 beta?
<eCSNL> Its not in the refresh, its for 2.0.
<eCSNL> Refresh English has been released and is shipping.
<Hawklord> Well no
<eCSNL> ahaaa beta 2.
<eCSNL> We had to come up with a fix to install on bootable JFS.
<eCSNL> We got trapped with an old installer from IBM. But this has been fixed and is being tested.
<eCSNL> Walter a question for you.
<WalterOS2> Shoot.
<eCSNL> The idea is that forum would be used for ongoing discussions.
<eCSNL> It kind of snowed in because I did not do a meeting for quite some time.
<eCSNL> And because you where not around always.
<eCSNL> How can we start using the forum ?
<WalterOS2> Those who are members can start now. You/they don't need anything from me.
<Gord> Except passwords.
<WalterOS2> There are several updates I've received from Gord that I need to make to bring it up-to-date.
<WalterOS2> Everyone except the few above have been sent emails with their temporary passwords.
<Gord> WalterOS2: How easy/hard is it to have Ceilidh dump out its member list?
<WalterOS2> They can change their passwords themselves.
<WalterOS2> I can prepare/dump the members list, but I won't be able to include the passwords in the dump without a considerable amount of work.
<Gord> Passwords not necessary.
<WalterOS2> Basically, once changed, passwords are unknown to everyone except the member.
<Gord> Just want to sync the forum members with VOICE members.
<WalterOS2> Then it's not too difficult.
<WalterOS2> After I've done the updates, I could have dump ready in a day or so.
<Gord> That would be good. Could you send to me?
<WalterOS2> Sure.
<Gord> Or do you just want tme to send you current VOICE list?
<WalterOS2> Depends what you want.
<Gord> Just want Forums and VOICE in sync.
<WalterOS2> I have a db with a list of all forum members, minus the updates you've emailed me.
<WalterOS2> Your list should be considered the master, so I'll send you the forum list.
<Gord> OK
<WalterOS2> It could work the other way around, I supposed.
<WalterOS2> But your list should always be considered the master, because it's tied to $$.
<Gord> No, my list should be master. I get the dues.
<WalterOS2> :-)
<wdl> Late lurker here.
<Gord> Hi, wdl
<wdl> Hi all.
<WalterOS2> Hi Bill
<Gord> WalterOS2: Had you considered giving me Ceilidh admin authority?
<WalterOS2> I've thought about, but I'm afraid of one of doing something that conflicts what the other is doing.
<WalterOS2> It's a good idea, though. I have a db in which I keep the forum member info. If we were both admin, then both of us would have to manage the same database.
<WalterOS2> Let me think about it some, and get back to you.
<WalterOS2> some=some more
<WalterOS2> We need a virtual network between us, set up using tunnel/2. :-)
<Gord> OK
<WalterOS2> Gord, do you know what a VPN is?
<Gord> Virtual Private Network?
<WalterOS2> Yes.
<eCSNL> Walter you might want to look at Stunnel...
<Gord> Software available?
<eCSNL> its on the betazone of ecomstation.com
<eCSNL> Or did you mean stunnel ?
<Gord> Hi EdgarScru
<WalterOS2> There's also Injoy Firewall 3.0 . I like that because it is so well documented and supported.
<WalterOS2> Hi Edgar
<EdgarScru> Hello Gord
<EdgarScru> & Walter
<WalterOS2> Gord, what type of Internet connection do have?
<Gord> Dialup
<WalterOS2> Dialup, cable, DSL, etc.
<WalterOS2> I guess I won't try to tinker with VPN, then.
<Gord> How does firewall relate to vpn?
<Gord> eCSNL: Where are we on the agenda? hi
<Gord> Hi hi gorden, how are you feeling
<eCSNL> I think that wraps up this meeting.
<eCSNL> I have looked at other points on the agenda.
<eCSNL> Are there any other points people would like to bring forward ?
<Gord> Walter had an idea for financial support for something.
<WalterOS2> That idea has been hanging around for a year or more. We should do something or kill it.
<Gord> Who was the party and why should we support them?
<WalterOS2> Initially, we were going support a Netlabs project.
<WalterOS2> OTOH, I would like to see PMMail enhanced/developed, and that is in SourceForge.org
<WalterOS2> I wonder if we could get PMMail moved to Netlabs. I know I'm not the only person who still prefers it, but it badly needs some work.
<eCSNL> I don't know the exact details but it seems PMMAIL for OS/2 is toast.
<eCSNL> Somebody should pursue it.
<eCSNL> It did NOT move to Netlabs.
<WalterOS2> That's because you don't use it!!
<eCSNL> ?
<eCSNL> I use pmmail
<eCSNL> look at my headers :-)
<WalterOS2> I'm saying I wonder if it COULD be moved to Netlabs.
<eCSNL> There I think still a page at source forge but that has not been updated.
<Hawklord> Why not ask the owner?
<Gord> Trevor Hemsley (sp) tried to buy the rights and got nowhere.
<eCSNL> I can confirm it did not move to Netlabs...
<WalterOS2> I'm in a chat client. Your headers aren't visible. :-)
<Gord> I think BluePrint Software currently own the rights.
<WalterOS2> IS THERE ANY POSSIBILITY OF MOVING IT NETLABS???
<eCSNL> Its up to BluePrint software I gues...
<Gord> Maybe VOICE could ask for a sale price?
<eCSNL> Who wants to pursue this ?
<WalterOS2> I can't find it in the Forge anymore.
<Gord> Who knows who the right person to talk to at BluePrint is?
<WalterOS2> I would like to. :-)
<WalterOS2> We should find out how many people use or would use PMMail/2
<Gord> Good. I'd like to see it continue.
<Gord> I do.
<Gord> I'm sure more would if it were updated.
<Hawklord> I have moved to Thunderbird
<EdgarScru> Idea: Why don't you sell 'shares' or 'user licenses' for say $5. or $10. (a nominal amount) to about 500 users and raise the cash for your PMMail caper? Would there be enough users?
<WalterOS2> The Mozilla derivatives seem to have so much overhead.
<Gord> First we need to know if it is for sale.
<WalterOS2> Right.
<Sander> Are you discussing using voice funds toward PMMail?? If so, I would think there are MUCH more universal needs within the OS/2 community. Any OS/2 / eCS user still active has LONG SINCE chosen their mail client. Mozilla Thunderbird is maturing at a rapid pace into a world class client. MR/2 ICE is still actively maintained. etc.
<Gord> Walter, can you find that out?
<WalterOS2> One of the reasons many of us still use is that we like to have choices.
<Gord> If there is a price set on it VOICE may/may not be able to afford it.
<WalterOS2> still use OS/2--eCS
<Gord> *IF* we get a set price maybe we could do something like we did for Norman.
<Sander> It is one thing to have choice. It is entirely another thing to finance that choice for the few with the funds of the many. There are most certainly more pressing needs at Netlabs.3
<Gord> Offer it at a lower price, with VOICE membership.
<WalterOS2> I would hate to see only one thing become available for OS/2 email, even if it is a Mozilla product.
<WalterOS2> We don't know that is only "the few".
<Sander> I also doubt that there are many PMMail users left.
<WalterOS2> Again, assumption.
<Gord> Then why won't BluePrint sell?
<WalterOS2> Do we know they won't?
<Sander> Perhaps there is more to the story of who actually owns the code wholly.
<Gord> You ask them, please?
<WalterOS2> I think we need to set a poll to find out many PMMail/2 users are "out there".
<Gord> OK
<WalterOS2> Unfortunately, I don't know how to set up a web poll.
<WalterOS2> I suppose we could ask OS2World.com to do it.
<WalterOS2> I volunteer to contact BSW and ask them if PMMail/2 is for sale, and at what price.
<WalterOS2> I also volunteer to contact os2world.com and ask them run a PMMail/2 poll for us.
<WalterOS2> Do we need a motion of some kind?
<Gord> No, you have volunteered.
<WalterOS2> OK. I'll keep you informed on the admin list.
<WalterOS2> Roderick: Any other business?
<eCSNL> Nope not realy.
<JWE> Move that we adjourn.
<eCSNL> anybody in favour of this motion say aye.
<Gord> aye.
<WalterOS2> Aye
<JWE> aye
<EdgarScru> bye
<Gord> Is the motion carried?
<eCSNL> yes
<eCSNL> Anybody who still wants to stay ?
<eCSNL> :-)
<eCSNL> Say no....
<eCSNL> Because of a mayority of yes voters.
<eCSNL> Meeting adjourned
<eCSNL> good night
Meeting adjourned 27 August 2005 at 17:53:13 EDT