Squeak Oversight Board meeting – 7/16/12

Board members present: Colin Putney, Craig Latta, Chris Muller, Levente Uzonyi, Chris Cunnington, and, special guest Ken Causey

– The topic of the meeting was moving to a new server

– There are several offers for free hosting available to Squeak

– Squeak is accepting the offer from Softlayer [1]. It is also looking at an offer related to the Software Freedom Conservancy at Gandi. [2]

– The Board realized that the moving process is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Pieces can be moved over time. Perhaps even on different servers. So, the Softlayer offer will now be accepted and closed.

– The difference between a VPS and a dedicated box was debated with Ken having strong feelings in favor of a dedicated box, as you knew better what your resources were

– Ken is willing to help make the transition to a new server given a window of ninety days, so he can contribute, while not interfering with his other commitments

– One of the early pieces to be moved will be the http://www.squeak.org image, which will be a Seaside image. The old design of http://www.squeak.org will be retired in favor of a very small website emphasizing the download of Squeak. The site will then grow into a fuller and more complete resource over time

– A major consideration in the move is the mailing lists run by the GNU Mailman [3] application. Other parts of the move are the images, FTP archive, and Mantis SQL database

– Details of the moving process will be recorded to provide documentation to assist with upkeep and any future move

[1] http://www.softlayer.com/

[2] http://www.gandi.net

[3] http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/index.html

Squeak Oversight Board minutes – 7/2/12

Board members present: Colin Putney, Craig Latta, Randal L. Schwartz, Chris Muller,  Chris Cunnington

– the decision on which server we will move to is getting closer. The decision will be taken by the end of the month

– one idea suggested is that we find a web designer to give the homepage a new look; Craig suggested one of the designers he knows in Amsterdam

– when the move takes place, a process using a wiki or Google Docs will be used to record what we have and how we moved what we have

– Craig is going to ESUG next month

– Spoon documentation for beginners is coming as well as Naiad, the Spoon module system, integration with GitHub

– Some ideas for using Environments posited were controlled updating of code in a deployed web image; using an Environment with the Xtreams API; loading Squeakland.org’s Etoys into a Squeak Environment

– More talking to people about a location for a Squeak specific event is underway (and Squeak may already have its first sponsor)