XSF Discussion - 2014-03-19

dwd: ping?

How're we looking on that sponsorship for replacing Athena? One of its disks now seems to have died, which suggests it has a very limited life expectancy.

MAM question (looking particularly at Zash and MattJ):

Is there ever a reason to store an archived element?

e.g. if a MUC adds an archived element, and then that stanza gets stored in the user's archive, is there ever a reason the user would want the archived stanza to contain the archived element?

It would make sense for the server to strip it and then replace it with its own

The prosody implementation attaches the archived element after successful storage of the stanza (and strips it right after carbons for outgoing messages)

what do you think of the <hr> above the <h2>? Like it? hate it?

sorry - wrong room.

Oh, yeah, definitely an hr above an h2.

Either someone tweaked XMPP.net's scoring or someone tweaked jabber.org's ciphers.

psst, xnyhps, could we get a list of previous tests? :)

Simon: Kev did the latter.

So, we want a before and after :)

Somethng like this? https://xmpp.net/result.php?id=3

That was the first test ran against jabber.org

:D

I'll write a small post about it for jabber.org here in a few minutes, because it's possible that some clients can't connect any longer

xnyhps: would it be possible to alter the format of the permalinks a bit? It's very easy to iterate over all results this way ;)

Do you want old results to be private?

Do you want external parties to be able to fetch all results sequentially? If so, keep 'em like they are now :)

I don't really mind other people using this info

yeah, I don't particularly see what the attack might be

If it included "this server has open registration" then it'd have spamming potential. But it doesn't.

Right

An 'older results' link for a certain domain might be a nice addition. Saves me spidering all results ;)

(or doing a binary search if I happen to remember the approx datetime of the rest)

rest=test

Afternoon all.

hi dwd

Just prior to the Board meeting, I repeat my earlier question: "How're we looking on that sponsorship for replacing Athena? One of its disks now seems to have died, which suggests it has a very limited life expectancy. Kev @ 9:55"

Gotcha. We should probably discuss this in the meeting.

If the money is there, at this point I suggest we just buy a new one.

Athena dying would be, roughly, catastrophic.

Kev: +1

But my personal response is that I got the distinct impression that people only wanted to offer the exact sponsorship levels we have without any distinct treatment for a hardware sponsor, so I didn't persue. I can revisist it though.

I don't think it needs to be exact.

I do think it needs to not be disproportionate.

hardware sponsorships seem messier than just pulling in the money and spending it :-)

stpeter, True, but hopefully we'd get more out of a hardware sponsor, as well as some incentive for them to provide a service contract.

dwd: I had not thought about that angle

but meanwhile, let's just buy the damn disk

stpeter, But a sponsorship deal is absolutely going to take longer to arrange, etc.

ralphm: It's not, as I understand it, quite as straightforward as that with these ancient SCSI disks.

some of these machines are old

old as the hills

dwd: I think generally we shouldn't let someone donating hardware give them a logo on every page, where an equivalent sponsorship would only show on one page, for example. I could be talked around quite easily to variations on the normal sponsorship deal if they seemed proportionate.

do we need to have another iteam discussion about whether we really really need physical machines or whether we'd be comfortable with something like rackspace or whatever at this point?

That is, as long as it ends up looking 'fair' to other sponsors, I don't think we should dogmatically stick to the standard levels, but they should be used as input.

Kev, That seems reasonable.

stpeter: in terms of as a 'web host' or as a VPS provider type of thing?

more VPS - we do need source control and such, not just web

Right.

if I understand you correctly

Not having to admin the hardware side of things sounds appealing to me.

me too

If we still get 'our own box'.

AFTERNOON

Less shotuing

Hi

hi Laura!

Laura, Was that a hint we should get started?

Well, have you seen the time?

Is there a Bear?

Laura, I'm an unemployed layabout, I don't look at clocks anymore.

You should never poke a sleeping bear.

although it's usually not best to poke a bear

Kev: VPS would be nice. Or possibly not virtual, but a colocated private server where the hardware side is under contract.

dwd: enjoy while you can

Laura, I would, if my wife hadn't produced a list of jobs the length of my limbs.

no reply from bear yet

so I suggest we start without him

For the agenda: UPnP Liason team, please.

Trello bord?

Ok, I'll chair

I was on holiday last week, not yet up to speed

Ralphm: shall we go through the tasks for last week first and see what's outstanding?

Simon: I'll make that agenda item 1

and other agenda items?

0. Welcome

Hi!

ralphm: sent you a link to the list.

Simon: hm?

ralphm, Trello list; we discussed last week.

I don't know what that means

I note that a decision still needs to be reached on membership-applications XEP

m&m, Thanks.

this is a one-week warning, the editor MUST have the answer by 03/26

m&m: I think you are confused by Council rules on this

ralphm, No, they're the same rules.

dwd: please point me to where that's stated?

Simon, dwd: any way, what is a Trello and why do I want it?

The trello board is our list of items, what we are working on etc

Something to keep us focussed

ralphm, Trello is a kanban-board-onna-web. Simon started using it to track Board items, seems to be more useful than the previous system.

It's great

ok, I missed that it was already in use

I hate it on principle (it's a cloud service I do not control), but other than that it seems good.

Were there minutes of last week's meeting?

Not AFAIK.

in any case, we can list the agenda items here, no?

I think that's a good idea

while raphm gets setup:

Wiki: it's a mess

UPnP liaison team, website, London reimbursements, new machine / VPS, etc.

2. website update.

stpeter: I'll list the agenda items, sure

Could we order them so I can walk away in a bit? :)

Unless we're anticipating running to time.

Kev: yes that's why I suggested liaison team first

TY.

Kev: you can leave any time you'd like to

Seems Ralphm had a good holiday.

ralphm: we have some Council-Board coordination

ralphm: No, I think I have to be here for the Council's report on UPnP

And possibly also for the iteam saying "buy us hardware".

But especially Council.

stpeter: sure, but still

anyway let's get underway.

1. Last week's action items

Is that the 'by next week' list?

Yes, I think so.

'website building'

I'll start. I have a skeleton website building now - will commit that soon. No news on @xmpp (will follow up). Email sent for ideas on DNSSEC grant application.

ok

OK. For my items, I have a template invoice for which I need to pick Peter's brains on one thing; then I'll invoice and finalize sponsors tomorrow.

ok

That seems it then

thanks, dwd

I'd note that the membership XEP has had some more comments, by Peter, who suggested removing corporate membership from the bylaws would be his preferred option.

hear hear. +1 on that!

I'd still like to accept the ProtoXEP to put it into the XSF "system"; it'll be experimental (and therefore without force) anyway.

dwd: I thought we were still at action items

I'll need to propose that bylaws change before the next XSF members' meeting

ralphm, Sure, just covering "Membership XEP discussion and vote".

Let's go on with that item then

2. Membership XEP

I have no objection to accept this as an experimental XEP

Nor do I, FTR.

happy with it as experimental

Laura: any objections?

Sorry, no

Laura: why sorry?

Laura: not having objections is a good thing

Was apologising for not being on the ball! Just grabbed some water

She's British. "Sorry" is part of the language :)

Canadian originally, so even more so. Sorry.

I don't think we really have to wait on bear to have this published. So I'll request our editor to publish it.

stpeter: can you please do that?

ralphm: the Editor Team will take it under advisement ;-)

but yes

3. UPnP liasons

stpeter: splendid

Council would like to propose Peter, Peter, fippo and Joachim as the UPnP liasons.

Kev: noted.

I wish them luck and "great success"!

I move we take the Council's recommendation and install the UPnP liasons accordingly.

+1

+1

Just for the sake of clarity, that's Peter Saint-Andre, Peter Waher, Joachim Lindborg, and Philipp Hancke?

Right.

+1

dwd: indeed. thanks

I conclude we now have 4 UPnP liason people

Do we need to discuss further steps here?

I think this is now Done.

Cool

agreed, done

4. The Wiki

(it's a mess)

I don't have much to say on this, other than who manages the content?

Because it is a mess

Laura, Thanks for volunteering?

Laura: everyone :-D

Not until the website is done!

No more big projects. One at at time

do we really need a wiki or shall we just put that effort into the real website?

Step forward dave?!

stpeter: I think we should step back a bit

what in the wiki is a mess

Depends on what we want from the wiki.

?

Peter: I thought a lot about this. I do think there is a need for a wiki.

it is used for many different things

If we want to share info - this should be the website

FWIW, there is the email I forwarded to Board for last week, which discusses someone wnating to do something with the Wiki.

If we want to use it as a wiki (chuck content in here for collaboration / review), then we need one

The way that Laura and I are working on the static site, we're going to need a way that "everyone" can quickly update wiki-like content for different projects.

My goal with the xmpp.org site is that it can be good enough that great content from the wiki can bubble-up to it and be presented more professionally.

seems sensible

I do like things such as the security guides, which benefit from anyone being able to add information into the page quickly.

but, we have a huge amount of work with xmpp.org still so I'd like to avoid any other wiki clean-up work until we have a good understanding of what the main site is for, doing, and how well it's working.

I still want to get a feeling of what 'a mess' means.

And yes, I think if good content can bubble up, that's also good.

Simon: do you mean that (a) we'd use the wiki as a scratchpad of sorts and then move stable information from the wiki to the real site, or that (b) the real site would be editable enough that we would no longer need a separate wiki?

oh, I see that you mean (a)

I'd prefer that the real site was never quite as openly editable as the Wiki.

because you say that there is a need for a wiki

so carry on

stpeter: the main site will be editable with pull requests. I'd like to get a good workflow before promising anything more.

Agreed

yep

I sense we just keep things as-is, for now

5. Hardware

sure the wiki is a mess but I'd prefer that we put energy into the main site

ONE FOR THE BACKLOG?

Laura: yes!

+1 on that (Laura - lets get our content written/delegated to authors, then see what overlap there is with the wiki and clean up post-launch)

Kev mentioned before the meeting really started that we have some hardware issues that need urgent attention

Options are either than we spend money (fast, simple, costly) or that we persue specific sponsorship.

Ralphm: you are missing the website topic. (4) I hope we can come back to that after the HW discussion.

Simon: I saw it as a bag, not and ordered list

^an

:)

as long as it's in the bag.

is there a good reason to be running and maintaining our own hardware in 2014?

Athena is running on one disk. We need to address this sooner than later.

dwd: so I saw mention of a vps. Does it need to be dedicated hardware, or is a cloud box ok, as well?

Simon: own hardware not so much, own "system": yes.

intosi: I get that.

sure

ralphm, I can't answer - that's a question for the Infrastructure Team.

dwd: I see Kev and intosi here, they have voice

Simon: I think if someone can come up with a way of us getting an appropriately specced server, of any nature, that's OK.

Provided our expectations of uptime etc. can be met.

Kev: what is this server used for and what is it's spec?

It's very old.

It has something like 100G of storage, if that.

Kev: I would be happy to see if I can get something arranged at Rackspace

And 512meg RAM maybe?

74G disk

4G RAM.

intosi, What's our timeframe here? 1 week? 1 month?

How much are we paying for this?

intosi: Oh, so it has.

Simon: Nothing.

dwd: when will your disk crash?

intosi, Tomorrow, I have it in the calendar.

dwd: As soon as humanly possible, I think. Likely the disk will not crash. If it does, this is ~=catastrophic.

I mean, we can recover, but we're websiteless in the meantime.

Are there backups?

Zash: Yes.

Zash: yes

OK, then we should just pay money, if only as an interim.

dwd: Pay money to rackspace or for a machine?

Finding a suitable disk isn't very straightforward. It's ancient. Setting up a VPS as an exact mirror might be quicker.

Rackspace or similar seems fastest.

websiteless but also without source control

stpeter, Which is frightening, yes.

yep

Kev: I'd prefer not paying anything, obviously

I don't have a significant issue with going with Rackspace or similar. I just note that our current arrangement has served us well for many years, so I have a natural concern about changing models that work.

so this machine is ancient - I move that we simply get a VPS/new machine and migrate. Our time is all more valuable than hunting down old SAS disks.

Kev, Yes, indeed. But I think we should find an *interim* solution as rapidly as possible.

I'm fine with that.

I even have personal credit of $200/month

Of course this is a call for the infrastructure team but this box does sound like it's well past it's prime.

Kev, That should give us sufficient breathing sp[ace to consider the next steps.

Simon: the machine needs replacing.

Simon: Well, we need money or sponsorship for a new 'box', which is why it's Boardish too.

A new disk would be interim as well.

Simon: iteam asked for a new machine some time ago (years?) as I recall.

Kev: at least two years back.

Kev, intosi, let you and I work this out OOB?

Would it not make sense to use our budget for a http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/ex40ssd and be done with this hardware maintainance problem?

ralphm: That works fine for me, thank you.

or quivalent in equivalent land.

ralphm: works for me

(assuming Ralphm can't get something worked out)

ok

We do have ds0039 as a quick diversion, which is also quite old.

Simon, Quite possibly. That said, we do have a very good hosting deal for solid tin right now, so I wouldn't want to make that kind of decision under this much time pressure.

The big issue is going to be database migration. I don't suppose we're near the website being ready? Migrating to the static site would be easier :)

In the meantime, do we have a relatively hot backup of git?

dwd: I don't think it needs to be an either/or thing

ralphm, This is also true.

dwd: Yes, I think Git is something we can be confident to be able to easily get back a recent version.

Kev: nowhere close on the website - still loads to do.

6. Website

I can update

Site map is drafted and each page has a ticket on the Trello Board.

Trello link: https://trello.com/b/ml9e82sE/xmpp-org-website

(Note - this is the 'amrketing' front, Simon is collating all info for Technical)

Marketing even

The trello links through to a google doc where the content will be drafted for each page

Yes, I'm drafting in victims^Wauthors, so if you see something that you can help with, please jump in.

I am going to email the Group so people know where to suggest / add content

As we complete each page, we nudge Bear and the build / design begins

Over and out.

Still early days though but we'll start speccing out bits in more detail soon: eg Audience, length, etc.

that's it from my side on the topic.

How much of the content can be directly reused from existing resource?

Lots. That is my job this weekend

It just needs a freshen up and a bit of tweaking

We have lots, the key is cutting it down to be consumable and useful

And tweak the language

So how far off the "minimally viable website" are we?

We will have the first pages of content next week. I need Bear to estimate more

DWD: it's more that it doesn't make sense to yank down the old one until we have a good enought replacement.

It should all move quicly now - the behind the scenes stuff that has gone on does take time

Simon, No, I get that. I'm wondering when we'd have a basic site up on a staging site.

Also, please make sure old URLs redirect properly (forever)

Simon, In particular, I'm thinking that once something's visible, we might well get a lot more contributions going on.

dwd - as soon as I have the build actually working and deploying I'll send around a shadow site that we can then pivot over.

do we have any analytics on the current website so that we can see what people are actually interested in?

I REALLY want this on the new site so we can make changes as needed / dictated by use

Simon: I heavily suspect that the vast majority of hits are to the XEPs themselves, rather than the other material. I could be wrong.

ok, we don't actually need to hash this all out in the meeting, I think

Probably true.

more updates next week on the topic I'm sure.

sorry folks I need to depart here, but will be back later

Let's make it an action item that we get a better estimate, that shows up in the minutes Simon is writing (right? RIGHT?)

heh

I can do.

thanks

ok

7. AOB

Haven't heard any.

None from me.

8. Date of next

+1W1H

oh, wait

+1W still

When is Stupid Time Zone Change Day?

dwd: last weekend of March

WHat about for the US?

they already switched

dwd: Already happened.

Let's keep it the same time one week more

9. Close

Thanks all!

Bye!

Bye everyone

FRIETJES!

ralphm: enjoy!

Re: unnatural persons being members.

I'd feel happier if someone could come up with a reason why we might want to allow it.

At the moment it seems we're unanimously against it, which makes me worry that we're missing something.

Citizens United!

Well, first you need to consider what it means to have it.

(In as much as someone thought it was important enough to include in our bylaws, and I don't currently understand why)

I'd love to discuss this, actually, but I'm being called to eat Toad In The Hole.

(Yum!)

I'll be back later though.

dwd: didn't you mention BGP hijacking recently?

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/375278,google-dns-servers-suffer-brief-traffic-hijack.aspx

intosi, I mentioned routing-based attacks as the sole attack against a DNSSEC/Anon-TLS dialback. BGP hijacking being the likely case.

Ah, that must be why I remembered BGP hijacking ;)

BGPSEC!

dwd: presumably in such an attack, you have some notion of upstream keys and software would/could warn #thinking-aloud.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Public_Key_Infrastructure

fwiw, I've implemented SRV lookups for incoming s2s connections in the Prosody DANE plugin. It's messy, but it works.

zash: I think this is the preferred solution - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2385 but most operators ignore it according to posts I see on the nanog list.

Zash, Still feels ugly to me, to be honest. But I suppose it'll have to do.

Seems it'll be a tradeoff between code complexity and operational complexity

right

Ash, "Un-natural members"? :-)

m&m, I suppose there's also weight-zero. Though that'd require an update to SRV itself.

weight zero?

So you have an SRV record with various priority/weight for incoming, but if there's also records with weight zero, that might indicate an outgoing-only endpoint.

That'll require an update to SRV, yeah

that's a big might

and would break a few existing delpoyments

I thought weight 0 was legal, and would only be used when the total weight for that priority was 0?

xnyhps: eh, effectively

well, they're all equally treated as the last kid picked

since you can have multiple weight=0 for a given priority

xnyhps, Oh, yes, might be that. I vaguely recall.

dwd: Yeah. It was supposed to be funny. I probably should have put quotes round it or something!

Ash: are you worried about zombies applying?

m&m, I have wondered if some of our members *are* zombies.

I'm pretty certain we don't have any "un-natural" members (as opposed to natural persons), but thought I'd bring it up!

Ash, We don't, no.

dwd: I was going to say his concerns are too late for the current membership

:)

hmmmm....brains...

The interesting question is what would happen if we had a company apply.

it would be voted on

Has it ever actually happened?

I assume not

Ash, Not to my knowledge. Possibly before my time.

not to my knoweldge

knowledge

Jabber, Inc. considered at one point

ralphm, Right, but assume it gets in. It then has voting rights, etc.

yes, but only one

ralphm, Moreover, Council is made up of members, and nothing appears to limit that to only natural members.

right

I haven't seen a problem with that yet

I'm personally not entirely against companies being members, but a company being on Council I do worry over; I don't think it'd be useful (or right).

It'd be a bit weird

more than a bit

ah

Is a company an individual?

Well, let me rephrase. We assume a company will act in corporate interest - this is of debatable use, but probably little harm, for operating the XSF, but outright dangerous when dealing with Council issues.

exactly

What would a company gain from being an XSF member?

is there any limit on board members being people?

ralphm, "person", "individual", etc are all non-restrictive terms in US law; they can apply to natural persons, corporations, and even estates in probate.

m&m, Well, I got in.

Legal entities :)

Zash, Right - though that term includes natural persons as well.

dwd: That was what I meant.

I wasn't sure if 'individual' is legally narrower

only if explicitly defined

http://thelawdictionary.org/individual/

Oh, when I examined the details of what manner of entities can become members of the XSF and Council, I also realised that sovereign states can also join.

Hah

and the EU

Zash, I'm not absolutely sure about the EU. Probably, though.

UN?

m&m, Pass. :-)

not that it would matter, they don't do anything anyways

well, we might get a strongly worded letter at some point

dwd: including the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, I assume, then

dwd: even though I am not a lawyer, I am mostly sure that 'invidiual' is a natural person, even in the US.

ralphm, See the link I pasted?

ralphm: you assume incorrectly

ralphm, "this restrictive signification is not inherent in the word, and that it may, in proper cases, include artificial persons".

As an adjective, though, it seems to preclude artifical entities.

noted

Can robots join?

Zash, Nope.

The Robot Party objects!

m&m, BTW, Bylaws, §4.2 - "Directors may only be adult natural persons".

dwd: I did find that

interesting that this is defined for the Board only

then I read < http://www.rfc-editor.org/errata_search.php?rfc=7159&eid=3922 >

(and officers)

m&m, did they already add the much demanded comments :D

ralphm, I think that'll be because it's legal boilerplate from some stock bylaw set.

people should just write their JWKs in CSON (CoffeeScript Object Notation), which supports comments, and compile it to JSON as the hip kids do with JavaScript nowadays

ralphm, Whereas the Council, as you say, only talks about "individuals" - I suspect the *intent* may have been to preclude artifical persons, but I don't think it's likely to be quite the effect.

Tobias: you're behind the times … it's all about CBOR now

m&m, You mean PHOF?

lol

haha

I appeal!

m&m, Instead of appealling, how about I look into it, agree you're right, but decide not to do anything about it?

oh, Barry

dwd: what do you think is the chance of getting an artificial person on the council, in practise?

I must say I have never liked the term "natural person"

yeah, what about Data

such a lawyerly phrase

ralphm, Well, luckily, our sharp-eyed members would spot such a thing and vote against, being the careful and discerning voters that they are, right?

or the Crystaline Entity?

more likely it was happen based on how close to the first entry in the voting bot it is

stpeter, I always think "natural person" suggests a nudist hippy.

s/was happen/would depend on/

Philosophically, what is the difference in producing a sentient robot (when that becomes a reality) and biological reproduction of, say, a human.

ah, philosophy

stpeter: yeah, since you wandered in, I thought it was appropriate

ralphm: maybe when that happens we could revisit the bylaws…

Ash: why?

Ash: I'd love to have Data on the Council

Becuase we may want a sentient robot as a member

Data, sure … but not OMNI Corp

Ash: I don't think that's a problem right now

If they had an XMPP interface they could vote so quickly...

even Lore might be some fun

ralphm, Speaking personally, biological reproduction of humans is a heck of a lot more fun.

if folks are concerned about "natural person" vs. "individual" (I'm not), I will review my bylaws proposal

stpeter, No, it's unaffected.

stpeter, The "individual" bit comes into play with the Council wording, which inherits any restrictions on members anyway.

stpeter: I'm not concerned at all, really

Has anyone ever looked into https://github.com/JabbR/JabbR?

Specifically https://github.com/JabbR/JabbR/issues/709 is amusing.

I am still no lawyer, but I can't see how that doesn't violate the Jabber trademark.

I wish I hadn't see that

Well, I think it is utterly stupid to call your project that.

For various reasons.

But most prominently the fact it *doesn't* do XMP.

XMPP

for any of the trademarked definitions of Jabber™ I know of, this is most likely problematic

m&m: I assumed so. I also thought that as a Board member of the XSF, who sublicense the TM, I should bring it up.

that project was poorly named, yes

:/

Board folk, you've a sample invoice to look at. (I chose not to bore the member's list with that one).

/sigh

well, that form is filled out

Would it have mattered if I told you in private first?

not really

right

I remember having a talk with a colleague of yours yeaaaars ago (2003) about a potential patent thing in a proposal of a change to one of our XEPs

but was smart enough not to mention what it was about exactly

that I'm completely unaware of

yeah, fortunally, I think we dodged the issue by coincidence

Oh, look, the Netherlands is being occupied by US armed forces

http://liveairtrafficcontrol.blogspot.nl/2014/03/180314-amerikaanse-legerhelikopters.html

a large part of the urban area in the west of the Netherlands will be in total lock down for the Nuclear summit

unprecedented

Excellent.

Heh, used to live really close to that.

xnyhps: here? http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/2014/03/nucleaire_top_cleansweept_nede.html

xnyhps: or, eh, say, here: http://www.geenstijl.nl/archives/images/EH-eSUP-2014-01-NSS.pdf

No, I mean near Rotterdam Airport.

xnyhps: which includes Eindhoven