EARN REPRESENTATIVES: Alain Auroux, EARN Office, Paris Paul Bryant, United Kingdom Joe Chester, EARN Office, Dublin Frode Greisen, Denmark Michael Hebgen, Germany Jean Claude Ippolito, France Dennis Jennings, Ireland David Lord, CERN Stefano Trumpy, Italy OBSERVERS: Kieran Carrick, Ireland Olivier Martin, CERN
The Minutes of the last EARN EXEC meeting were signed and approved and will be distributed by Michael Hebgen.
The Action List was reviewed and Joe Chester will circulate a new Action List. The agenda for the meeting was reviewed and amended. Items on: Funding Sources for EARN, MDNS and Operating Procedures were added and the item on Management Structure was deferred. Michael Hebgen presented a letter of application for membership from Czechoslovakia.
It was agreed to invite the two observers from the NOG to be present for the entire meeting, unless an Executive member had an objection to their presence for a specific discussion. The two members of the NOG were observers and not co-opted members of the Executive Committee. This decision applied for the current Executive meeting only. Kieran Carrick and Olivier Martin were invited to join the meeting.
Action: Dennis Jennings to write to Czechoslovakia.
The Executive Committee reviewed and amended the agenda for the forthcoming Board Meeting.
Action: Dennis Jennings and Joe Chester to work on the running order and timing for the meeting.
It was proposed to adopt this document in its present form. There was one abstention from the vote on this document. Michael Hebgen abstained because of a current situation in which this document is referenced.
Action: Alain Auroux will send a message to the Board list on this proposal.
Action: Paul Bryant to redraft its proposal on what EARN understands as a shared european infrastructure.
Alain Auroux reported that a meeting of the Program Committee would take place before the Board Meeting and Stelios Orphanoudakis would make a presentation at the Board Meeting. It was agreed that someone from the Executive Committee should attend this meeting and if the requirements for EARN89 as previously laid out were not met, the meeting would be cancelled. If the committee decided to proceed with arrangements, the Executive would have a short review meeting. It was agreed that the Board of Directors could reverse the decision of the Program Committee meeting.
Alain Auroux reported that the EARN name has now been registered in France. The name can also be registered in all countries (approximately 25) which have signed the Madrid Convention. It was decided to proceed with this registration. A number of EARN countries have not signed this convention and Alain will ask Board Members to check the procedure/ cost for countries which are not covered by this convention.
Action: Alain Auroux to send a message to the Board regarding registration.
Frode Greisen presented a proposal to allow scientific publishers access to the network. He reported some contact with Ira Fuchs on this topic. The BITNET bye-laws governing such access appear vague. It was agreed to present this proposal to the Board of Directors. It was further agreed that it must be made clear to these prospective new Associate Members that under no circumstances may the network be used for marketing purposes and that EARN takes no responsibility for the security of data sent over the network.
Action: This proposal will be presented to the Board of Directors.
Alain Auroux reported that all EARN documentation
will be updated and printed. He will solicit contributions on documents from Board Members.
Action: Alain Auroux to distribute the official (French) version of the EARN Statutes. He will also distribute an English translation.
Michael Hebgen stated that a German translation is also available.
David Lord presented a proposal for a new funding model for EARN.
Action: This proposal will be presented to the Board of Directors at the Board Meeting.
The license of NETSERV and LISTSERV was noted and understood.
A discussion took place on the use of the network by organisations such as the International Physics Library. Paul Bryant reported on the situation in JANET where cost-recovery for, for example, sending data is allowed but profit-making is not. Cost recovery is defined as the costs of distribution but not the cost of developing a particular application. Joe Chester proposed that services to the academic community (e.g. ASTRA, EMBL) should be allowed even if there is a small element of profit.
It was agreed that small scale cost recovery is within the scope of the present EARN Charter and Code of Conduct, and can be permitted and encouraged. The Code of Conduct should be sent to the relevant users, while stronger action needs to be taken against large-scale offenders.
Action: Dennis Jennings to write to the International Physics Library.
Michael Hebgen described the current situation:
64KB SNA 64KB SNA
DEARN-----------MOP-----------------CUNY
virtual link
This change was very sensible and has helped the network by bypassing the SPOOL (problems) at Montpellier. It was agreed that the DEARN changes should be minuted and any further changes need to be documented in an impact and scope statement according to the Management of Change procedures.
David Lord explained the new 64KB SNA link CERN-MOP of the ESINET (European Supercomputer Initiative) and potentially planned virtual links to CUNY, DEARN and CNUCE. It was agreed to exploit the existence of this 64 KB ESINET link CERN-MOP to carry existing EARN traffic. Paul Bryant stated that he was unable to support the use of SNA on the CERN-MOP link for EARN traffic until the projected technical meeting on the use of SNA had reported.
A technical meeting between Bonn, Montpellier and CERN is proposed to produce an impact and scope statement on this link and on further virtual links to improve the use of the single transatlantic link.
Actions:
Olivier Martin and Kieran Carrick reported on the EARN Tech meeting - see EARNTECH minutes. The Network Operations Group recommended to the Executive that:
The Executive Committee agreed that the review of problems between the Technical Group and the board of Directors as presented in Eric Thomas' paper "Improving the Quality of EARN Services" is reasonably accurate. However the idea of having two Executives - a technical and a political one - may well be a good long-term solution but it is not feasible in in the short term. It was agreed that there should be more technical representation at the Executive Committee meetings.
A long discussion followed on the parameters and powers of the current Technical Group. It was agreed that there is currently a lack of definition for the Technical Group and there exists mistrust and a lack of communication between the Technical Group and the Board of Directors. Following this discussion, it was decided to recommend to the Board of Directors that
Stelios Orphanoudalcis reported on progress in planning for EARN89. The Executive Committee decided to recommend to the Board of Directors that EARN89 be held in Crete in May 1989.
David Lord mentioned nothing has happened since the Paris meeting with the industrial partners and Michael Hebgen re-stated that the prototype of OSINJE for IBM (VM and MVS) is available since August 1988 for interoperability tests.
Action: Dennis Jennings to clarify the plans for interoperability tests.
Election of Officers
It was agreed that, preceding the election of officers by the Board of Directors there would be a general discussion with candidates for President on the future directions of the network, etc.
Next meeting The next meeting will be in Paris on December 8 and 9, starting at 10.30 am on December 8.