2010.02.15 Meeting Notes

Location

Project Reports

• Installfests — No news.
• LERT — No recent activity. (Though someone from LUGOD helped a bird watching group meeting at Explorit at the same time with computer trouble.)
• Library — The remainder of the LUGOD lending library was out at this meeting as free giveaways. Post-meeting, a suggestion was made that they be donated to a local library, or perhaps the Friends of the Library group in Davis.

Other Business

• News — No news.
• Financial Report — $32.00 in voluntary dues were collected tonight.
• Becoming a UC Davis "Campus Affiliate Group" — No report.
• Explorit membership — Postponed due to other meeting business.
• Constitution Changes — Greg FitzGerald is looking into registering LUGOD as a non-profit with the California Franchise Tax Board, and they have a number of suggestions for wording in groups' constitutions. Greg made three motions to update LUGOD's constitution:
  • Addition to the end of "Article 2: Purpose" stating that our purposes are to be conducted "within the meaning of R&TC Section 23701g" (referring to California Revenue and Taxation Code). Seconded by Bill Kendrick. 12 ayes, 1 nay, 10 abstentions.
  • Creation of an "Ammendments" section, with the following first ammendment: "The organization does not contemplate pecuniary gain or profit to the members thereof and is organized for nonprofit purposes." Seconded by Bill Kendrick. 13 ayes, 0 nays, 10 abstentions.
  • A second ammendment: "Notwithstanding any of the above statements of purpose and powers, this organization shall not, except to an insubstantial degree, engage in any activities or exercise any powers that are not in furtherance of the specific purpose of this organization." Seconded by Doug Barbieri. 12 ayes, 0 nays, 11 abstentions.

Mini-Presentation

• Wes Hardaker of LUGOD demonstrated the Nokia N900 Linux-based mobile internet device and smartphone.
• Presentation slides

Presentation

• Jinesh Varia of Amazon.com discussed cloud computing with Amazon Web Services
• Presentation slides (at Slideshare.net)
• Photos of this meeting
• Notes:
  • Horizontal scalability is very important for taking advantage of AWS.
  • Jinesh is speaking at East Bay Ruby Users Group on 2010-02-16

Attendance

• Greg Fitzgerald
• William Lewis
• Greg Thrasher
• Bill Kendrick
• Nick Schmalenberger
• Doug Barbieri
• Richard Harke
• Alexis Wilke
• Greg Holmberg
• Mahinder Gunasekera
• Gilbert Coville
• Wes Hardaker
• Dave Spencer
• Ryan Starbeck
• Zachariah Johnson
• Bill Broadley
• Hou Kot
• Jinesh Varia
• Brian Lavender
• Bill Alexander
• ...plus 2 others