Dec 13 minutes
Jeff Davis
Spartacus Books, 13 Dec 2007, 6:30pm
PRESENT:
Jeff (minutes), Joe, Kevin, Robert, Mike, Roland (briefly)
OLD BUSINESS:
1. Portland Hotel Society (PHS)
- Scott picked up the nodes to deliver to PHS. Someone there has a
$500 cheque for us but we're not sure who it's written out to.
- Responsibility for the PHS relationship has been unsettled on both
sides. For future projects, we'll need a clear contact person.
- ACTION: follow up with Scott/PHS -- JOE
2. Vancouver Community Network (VCN)
- Scott told Joe that VCN may be able to fund a part-time person to
manage FTN network.
- ACTION: follow up with Scott -- JOE
3. Merhaki/ROBIN + WifiDog
- Open Mesh (http://open-mesh.com) has announced their platform. We
want to collaborate (we use a lot of the same code for ROBIN and
the router, and may want to borrow some of their NoDogSplash
code). But we also want a lot of features they don't currently
offer, e.g. we're looking at per-user monitoring and banning, and
a more full-featured backend generally.
- Mike got a FTN-style map set up and did some other geocoding stuff
(he wants the system to automatically add your node to the map);
this will need to be merged into rest of the code.
- Joe is working on DogOnRails to handle BATMAN heartbeats as well
as WifiDog heartbeats. To clarify: we're using WifiDog for memory
usage, users, up-and-down bandwidth; the client heartbeat monitors
stuff on the node and sends info to the central server.
- Mike and Joe think that ex-Meraki users' demand for user-based
control and blocking, captive portal and pay type stuff will
encourage WifiDog development.
- DogOnRails is in alpha/early beta. 5GB has gone through so far.
It will not give us the situation where everyone has admin on
everyone else's nodes (which is how things had to work with
Meraki), but admins will still be able to see others' stats.
4. Incorporation of Not-for-Profit
- Roland created a page on the wiki for discussing this.[*]
- There was discussion of the "FreeTheNet" name. Joe said we can
keep FTN as the name of the network for now, but could go to a new
name for the society (see below).
[*]:
http://freethenet.scribblewiki.com/Naming_and_Organizational_Structure
NEW BUSINESS:
1. What Is FreeTheNet?
- Joe reported that 20 people showed up to the Hack Night at Free
Geek. We flashed a bunch of routers, and lots of people asked
what we were -- which suggests we need to figure out what we are!
- There was agreement that we should simplify our web presence.
- We want a new, simpler website. It should be easy to post. A
single user account for all parts of the site (wiki, blog
etc.) would be nice.
- Meeting announcements should primarily go on our site. They
can also be posted to Upcoming and so on, but third-party
sites should not be the single source for announcements.
- There was more discussion of the co-op vs nonprofit question. Joe
mentioned that at the last meeting, people generally preferred a
nonprofit structure to a co-op for the time being.
- There was agreement that we should have a legal entity given the
amount of money floating around among FTN people. It would allow
us to get funding and do transactions, and help ensure that we
stay on top of paperwork and logistics and where the money is at.
- There was agreement that from now on, you pay when you get your
hands on the hardware (if you can afford it) -- in other words, an
end to the IOU system, which has gotten convoluted. This way we
can keep closer track of individual nodes, too: it's not just the
money that's a concern, but also the fact that there are nodes out
there that have never been online and their status is somewhat
uncertain, which is bad for various reasons.
- ACTION: flesh out the mission statement on the wiki -- KEVIN
2. Naming
- After some discussion, we settled on the name "Vancouver Open
Network Initiative" for the nonprofit society, of which the
FreeTheNet mesh network is a project.
- After the name registration, we can incorporate as a nonprofit,
set up a bank account, and so on.
- There was agreement that we should find ways to raise a little
money (e.g. charging a flashing fee). Once we're a legal entity
it will be easier for us to get donations ... but we can figure
out the donations angle later.
- ACTION: submit a name request and register the voni.ca domain --
KEVIN
- ACTION: get a PO box and handle weekly mail runs -- JEFF
3. Interim Board of Directors
- DEFERRED until we get the name registered and so on.
4. January Switch/Flip
- Joe said we are looking at an early January switch off of Meraki.
He will be recompiling the Merhaki software in a week or so.
5. New Sources of Hardware
- We are out of new Merakis at the moment. We discussed several
potential solutions for getting new hardware:
- Reclaiming old FTN hardware that's not being used.
- Buying FONs for reflashing ($40/node).
- Arranging bulk deals through Net Equality/Open Mesh
($40/node).
- Arranging bulk deals in cooperation with other Canadian
community wifi groups such as Ile Sans Fils.
6. Infrastructure and Server
- Joe said that if we become a nonprofit and do social housing
stuff, we can probably arrange to get fibre from BC.NET down to
DTES (only 500 ft). Teraspan is a relatively cheap option for
laying fibre, so that may be a possibility. Owning our own
infrastructure would be good eventually.
- ACTION: follow up with Scott and Sim from FG about server space
for the switch/flip -- JOE
- ACTION: get virtual server space with SFU up and running -- JOE
- ACTION: talk to Scott about hooking up with BC.NET -- JOE
7. Other News
- Cory Cipra, ex-CEO of EarthLink Municipal Networks, called Joe and
expressed interest in what we're doing. He will be introducing
the Civitium rep for Vancouver to us (Civitium is handling the RFP
process for Vancouver's municipal wifi initiative, which would
cover libraries, Olympic venues, and possibly DTES/Gastown -- not
the whole city). This might mean we could have a role in muni
wifi, e.g. physical installation of nodes. Joe will talk to the
Civitium rep.
- Boris emailed Joe about Mobile Muse, which funds cellphone/wifi
experiments. We may be able to get funding from them if we can
find a cultural partner, which shouldn't be hard.
- Joe wants to hook batteries up his Rogers WiMAX modem and some
nodes, take them onto the Skytrain on Dec 31 and have a New Year's
Eve Skytrain Wifi Flash Mob party. Let him know if you're
interested in taking part. We could do the same portable-internet
thing in the future for other events like Under the Volcano.
- Kevin asked about legal issues around connection sharing. We
agreed that possible terms-of-service violations are entirely the
responsibility of the node owner; we tell this to everyone who
gets a node from us.