Mesh/27 Mar 2018

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People's Open Network Weekly Meeting - 27 March 2018 7:30pm-9pm

Agenda

  • Introductions and Meeting Roles (10 mins)
  • Check in on previous action items (5 mins)
  • Updates & Reportbacks (20 mins)
  • Next Sunday (5 mins)
  • Proposal: Concretize Formal Relationship w/ Omni (15 mins)
  • Discussion: Tabling @ Google (5 mins)
  • Discussion: Gigabit bandwidth from Paxio (15 mins)
  • Action Items (5 mins)
  • Breakout Groups

Introductions

Introduce yourself: Name; Preferred Pronoun; Icebreaker Response; BRIEF Announcements

  • Icebreaker question: any comfort objects/blankets growing up? (do you still have it & have you washed it)
  • grant - on a plane, 3hrs in the future, been making some progress on bug #4 and bug #13
  • benny - stuffed hippo, still has it, hasn't washed it.
  • mai - she or they pronoun. Blankets. Growing up, I would freak out if I lost my blanket. I still have a blanket that I snuggle with - that I wash regularly.
  • sierk - he/him/they, no comfort objects, but imaginary friend when 4 who took me around the neighborhood
  • seth - he/they - I had this metal cup that I would always drink out of for a really long time. I grew up where it was really hot. Had it for a decade or something.
  • jorrit - he/him, my mom made a quilt when i was really young--no teddy bear, but piece of cloth named koose. Still have it. I do wash it.
  • ben - he/they, had stuffed animals for sure--one that stands out is a soft baby blue small blanket w/ small pink angels printed on it--very distinctive, no longer have it
  • patrick - 1-3, plastic fireman's helmet, refused to take off forever, aunt accidentally broke it, she says i never forgave her for it. refused to take it off even for baths.
  • jeremy - he/him - I had a large Pooh-bear. When I was two, I wore Pooh's shirt. I think I still have it.
    • Shilpe and I are hosting an art event on April 21st in East Oakland. Having folks contribute art experiments! Starts midday, runs late. Ask Jeremy for more info for attending or contributing.
  • jenny - she/her, stuffed tigger and would bite on its tail--no idea where it is
  • juul - he/him - I don't think so / don't remember having a "comfort object."
  • carl - had a pillow growing up

Meeting Roles

Check in on previous action items

Check previous meeting minutes at https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/Minutes and past action items below:

  • Need coordinator for next Sunday office hours! - mai
    • wuz jorrit, great jorb!!
  • Finish the "hey, awesome, you have a node now!" messaging (Benny) - Not finished, will continue this Sunday
  • Add cash mesh donations to accounting (peoplesopen.net/donation) - Jenny
    • added inventory quantity instead, as amount paid (by juul) and cash received (to me or juul) don't touch sudomesh finances
  • Make generic list of hardware to stock up for outdoor mounts - Doug
    • Doug added stuff to the mounting page
  • Reach out to needabee & praveen re: fruitvale mesh - jenny
    • done 3/26, awaiting reply
  • coordinate w/ Doug about planning a mounting safety training - jorrit
  • send email to mesh list about omni legal structure - jnny

Updates & Reportbacks

Bugs/Technical

Priority bugs we need help with are located at: http://peoplesopen.net/helpwanted - For a high-level overview of recent Github activity, see the Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/r9l5ouQ4/3b2eecd83bb9e7a57a339cf1ee038288/sudo-mesh-github-repos


Node Mounts & Outreach

Node Mounts Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/DtzngKaM/49e1c21fc9da199fcdeceb8623b5117a/node-mounts

  • jnny - Lotsa good inquiries from folks in Fruitvale/E Oakland
    • Email from someone with a site in East Oakland hills
    • Someone who wants to spearhead a mesh in Fruitvale - see trello comms board
    • Friend from food not bombs with LOS to tower!
  • Ben - Plans to work on node mounting outreach

Communications & Events

Comms Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/f3ugMPNU/94033ee6c2cef93fc1b1637b727c902a/sudo-mesh-communications // Events Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/Y3XfDK85/2b6fcb4fa92788609692a53a96fb4614/peoples-open-events

  • Request for endorsements for Battlemesh v11
    • jnny - we got another inquiry for info from the organizers
    • Battlemesh is an annual conference in Europe centered on testing out different routing protocols
    • In Berlin this year, in conjunction with Freifunk's Wireless Community Weekend meetup. May 13, 2018! https://battlemesh.org/
    • Any objections to endorsing Battlemesh v11?
    • juul - we're at the point where the meshing protocols aren't the bottlenecks anymore. Nowadays, Battlemesh is a good community thing.
    • jnny - there's talk of a battlemesh west, maybe in Argentina? But calling it something less competitive like snugglemesh
    • folks - we're down to spread the word and let them use our name / logo
    • Jorrit - peoplesopen or sudomesh?
    • folks - sudomesh!
  • Mai - we discussed our submission to AMC last week. https://www.alliedmedia.org/amc
    • Jorrit - is there any work involved?
    • Mai - Reaching out to Detroit EII, figuring out if we can do a joint workshop. Conference is June 14-17.
      • Would be good to have a more technical workshop and a more discussion-y workshop
      • Technical: bring cow and chicken, maybe an extender node. Walk folks through setting things up.
      • Requested four tickets
    • Sierke - Liberated Lens was discussing going and trying to get a table.
    • jnny - I've presented this to Omni at large, including LL and FNB, for tabling for the space
  • "We offer a sliding scale registration rate of $60 - $500. (...) The true expense of the AMC is $150 per person."

Internal Logistics / Finance

Internal Logistics & Bureaucracy Trello: https://trello.com/invite/b/LzVQlW3X/1bb8bd543c8633688175365d2554c2c2/internal-logistics-bureaucracy-brainstorms

  • jnny: No War Tax Grant submitted last Friday to Peace & Life Foundation or something like that: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4_Q7DQvNFT-SHpBR0duZDN1NFU
    • Funds requested for workshops (printing, food, etc), power supplies for the donated laptops we're working to distribute, and for creating hackpacks for youth
  • jnny: 2017 state & fed e-postcard taxes filed 3/27, receipts in Taxes gdrive folder
    • Set up Quickbooks accounting for the mesh
    • also, financial reports for 2014-2017 now in drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=10MWx6shMohvV8DDWfd1lEowpdYFWM59O
    • This gets us most of the way to what we need for insurance for the board. Just need to wrap up our business plan!
    • Should we also get liability insurance? I'll get a quote. - jnny

Next Sunday

Node Mount

We try to arrange a rooftop node mount every Sunday afternoon. Ongoing spreadsheet is located at: https://peoplesopen.net/sundays

  • Next Sunday's mount:
    • Interest from Chuck McIntyre (361 Santa Clara Ave., Oakland, CA via webform) available this Sunday 4/1 or next 4/8 or other Sundays,
    • We'll need ladder! Who's available to transport equipment?
    • Potential connection to Driveway Follies? (grant will adjust that node to point toward Chuck's address)
    • grant - i'm trying to schedule for Sunday 4/1 at 3pm (that's easter btw)
    • sierk has a lead for a mount at Ed's
      • free sunday which is rare!
      • steep roof but lotsa balconies and turrets
    • jorrit - Outreach Experience . I talked to a friend of [blank] who has a place near the lake about possibly mounting.
      • I learned that "me explaining how shit works" doesn't really help, even though he has experience as an electrical engineer.
      • He said, "I think most people just care about fast, cheap, reliable internet." also "I run a restaurant, so I need someone to yell at."
      • juul: we provide "slow unreliable internet where you only have yourself to blame"
      • sierk: im kind of surprised this comes up--most people who are two steps away assume it's like comcast but w/o a bill. At an ISP you go, pay your bill, you dont have to worry about anything. But you lose net neutrality, covering people who can't afford it, etc. etc. hidden costs of net neutrality eg netflix getting slower. wouldnt worry about that now, those people, but continue building the network and maybe become reliable at some point. those who want at&t-esque service without the bill
  • ben - How do we relay this to outreach? We need to center our outreach on building out a network, we need saturation. Our conversation should not be centered on what they get but more about what they can be involved in and how they can contribute
  • sierk - the hook is that people who want fast internet ...
  • Jorrit - to clarify, this person was open and into it, offered to share info with building manager. This was just useful feedback that they provided. Doesn't have to be right now; just eventual goals.
    • ...and I brought it up to pursue clarity around to what extent our goal is reliable and affordable internet vs being a project people can be involved in.
  • mai - should have a meeting about communications framing wrt outreach. prior to that have a bit more clarity on our goals - attempted at strategy meeting - goal for next few months -> 5 years. exciting to have enthusiastic node hosts but could be more deliberate about where and with whom we put our energy
  • various folks - we'd like more discussion / strategic meeting around this. Let's have more meetings on that.
  • jeremy - it's not just a strategy meeting but a philosophical meeting about what we're doing as a group
  • sierke - I heard some folks didn't want more strategy meetings. I do. But the middle ground could be to occasionally use office hours for that, or breakout group on a Tuesday, maybe once a month.
    • jorrit - +1
    • Clarification: I have previously pushed back against these meetings, because I felt like we know what we want to do. My resistance was specific to having more meetings that didn't involve more outside participants that could contribute how they would want to be involved with the project, as opposed to more internal discussion.
  • Action item created; breakout group to follow tonight's meeting.

Office Hours

We host office hours every Sunday from 1-3:30pm in Sudo Room. To sign up for a shift, fill in your name here: https://ethercalc.org/byoi_office_hours

  • Next Sunday's volunteer: Mai
  • Notes from this past Sunday's session:
    • doug edited wiki, had an idea for a place to do great documentation of a node mount (ben is very interested, can also use ed's place for that)
    • seth, matt, and jorrit applied patches to nodes and found bugs in patch procedures
      • Bugs found in patch procedures as a result! :)
    • mai, jorrit, and benny flashed nodes
    • decorated nodes!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • Ben worked on notes from node whisperer sessions

Proposal: Concretize Formal Relationship w/ Omni (15 mina)

via Jenny 3/13: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/13_Mar_2018#Discussion:_Legal_Relationship_w.2F_Omni_.2810_mins.29

  • Proposal: Allocate $100/month to Omni in exchange for storage & meeting space usage, plus a percentage of donations or set amount for ballroom space usage for workshops
  • All groups that utilize the building contribute something financially, which enables the Omni to remain fiscally solvent. we've had a free ride for a minute now, and now have financial resources we can share.
  • Optional, secondary proposal: We could become a member collective of the Omni, since Sudo Mesh is its own organizational entity with hella upswing right now. It's mostly a position of responsibility: attending 2x meetings per month (via a Delegate representative, tho all meetings are open to the public. any collective can also go 'inactive' after missing 2 meetings and that's totally okay - we all bizzy) + minimum 2 members in Omni working groups (jenny & robb already are). These meeting are super on-point at this point in time and good learnings for anyone interested in representative democracy, consensus processes, and grappling with issues of intersectional oppression. See also: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lQrDIBz1zg5xUl2quCA3RBWvINBnABb6UkWHoVsq400/edit#

Discussion

  • jnny: more orgs & voices at omni makes us stronger, more resilient. if folks are in support of becoming a paying member collective, i think it would be rad
  • sierk: chiapas for instance pay $200, uses the space infrequently (monthly classes in basement, quarterly ballroom events, weekly meetings in upstairs office, and storage in said office)
  • jorrit: from a benefits perspective, i hope it doesnt sound too businessy, jenny seems like a treasurer conflict of interest thing since you are treasurer of omni and sudomesh
    • jnny - I also wanted to bring that up. I'm involuntarily treasurer of both. For now, I'll be staying out of related discussions within sudomesh.
  • jorrit: want to understand more about the terms of the lease, and point out that in addition to using the space we also bring people to the space
    • jnny - fwiw, every collective brings folks to the space.
  • mai: clarification that there're two proposals, one to pay the omni monthly, one to join the omni
  • Jorrit - In favor of dedicating 5, 10, 15% of what we take in from workshops, grants, etc.
    • jnny - I was thinking similarly, but I also want to be cautious about large percentages in case of larger donations. 15% of a 10k grant is a lot.
  • sierk - we should put a cap on our contributions to the Omni
  • jorrit - do we have a consensus on some base level, like $1 and give a % of our income to the Omni
  • sierk - I have another proposal, that we set some $ aside for our annual budget. This sort of commoning project doesn't work unless we all contribute.
  • jeremy - if we think of this as a fiscal sponsorship, 5-7% getting space, access to networks, administrative help. Typically you'd get a lot of support from the fiscal sponsorship
  • mai - could we use Loomio to come to consensus on this proposal?
    • Folks - Yes / topic is perfect for that / cool
    • Action item'd!
  • Consenso?

Discussion: Gigabit bandwidth to Omni Commons

  • Tim connected Mai with someone that can provide bandwidth— He said that we'd need LOS to downtown Oakland to get it
  • What questions/issues should Mai respond with to see what is possible in terms of access/gear we'd need?
  • sierk - locksmith has a LOS to downtown Oakland?
  • mai: what questions should i ask them? issues?
    • ben: what mounting infrastructure do they have? do they have an AP on site that we can use or do we need our own? point-to-multipoint that we could just link up to, or do we have to mount something on their shiz? Do we need to install from both sides?
    • benny - how do we prove to them that we have LOS?
    • ben - we'd just communicate with them about that. What their address?
    • sierk - if it's just the storage building then we could go with the locksmith
    • jnny - lynn & jim have a node nearby on Shattuck, could be a possibility
    • sierk - ed's is a possibility if it's on the lake merritt side of downtown Oakland
    • mai - would they be comfortable connecting to omni via an intermediate link or only direct to omni? private residence vs community space?
      • jorrit: why not? seems like it has to happen or
  • jnny - I'll ping Jehan for thoughts on how to capitalism our way through this

Discussion: Tabling @ Google (5 mins)

via Jenny 3/13:

  • Tabling @ Google: Jenny's been in correspondance with Greg Keilian, old sudoer who works for Google.org. Wants to support mesh/sudo/omni.
    • Two proposals from him -
      • 1) invite to table @ the Google campus, collect donations, generate interest. Needs one month lead time. If anyone wants to table, we can suggest dates in April
      • 2) coordinating Google volunteers to help with the project. Google pays the org $10/hr per volunteer and matches any donations. Greg said he'd lean against software dev tasks, probably node mounts are better. Jenny waiting on response re: any liability concerns/requirements from Google.
  • previous discussion notes @ https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Mesh/13_Mar_2018#Communications_.26_Events
  • jeremy - I like hawking things to people
  • mai - me too, but/and I feel like it would be good to preempt this with the aforementioned strategy meeting about our goals, so we can communicate those goals in said hawking.
    • kick to post-strategic planning meeting!
  • jnny - the Patreon angle looks good. Recurring donations are cool.

Action Items

  • Respond to emails for node mounts - Mai
  • Action item - doodle + email for meeting time? - mai
  • Set up Loomio group to discuss and make a decision re: concretizing relationship with the Omni - mai and jnny
  • Ping Freifunk/Battlemesh organizers re: a live interactive something w/ them :D

Breakout Groups

At the end of the meeting, break out into small groups to hack on or discuss specific topics.

  • organize meeting re: purpose / vision / goals

Breakout Meeting: Strategy Meeting Notes

  • What should be the format, scope and goals of the next PON strategy meeting?
  • benny - what happened in the last meeting?
    • mai - we focused on the bigger picture. Overall objectives, approach, collective braindump, SWOT analysis, and summary of things we wanted to work on as a group: https://peoplesopen.net/pad/p/pon-roadmap
    • High-level, not-so-concrete outcomes (Can someone post notes / wiki?)
    • benny - People could bring an appeal, what they would say/show to others to bring new peoples on
  • mai - I'd love to come out of this meeting with three potential real-world projects that we'd like to accomplish by the end of the year.
    • Projects (Three to keep momentum when one hits a temporary roadblock (example: a high bandwidth link))
      • Potential: SOLspace/The Village, Richmond tower/Berkeley, Omni gigabit
    • Communication/Messaging strategy
    • Fundraising model
    • Technical goals
      • sierke - There are definitely "bugs" that impact outreach; e.g. access to services like Netflix
      • grant - We fix bug as we come. Something important to come out of the strategy meeting is to decouple the technical aspects from the projects, since the bugs do get fixed. We could make a clearer outline of bugs
      • sierke - Services on the mesh? This could be technical. How about documentation to node owners or end users?
  • ben - Something isn't clear to me — What the purpose of this strategy meeting? Is this about communication and messaging only? (Ben - Just trying to clarify scope)
  • jeremy - like mai's idea of concrete projects we're working on and create our messaging/outreach plan out of that
    • ben: jorrit had 2 questions - how do we want to present ourselves? and, what is our end goal? felt there were competing visions about what people want to do and prioritize. can we address diverging goals adequately?
    • jnny - historically, we advertised "free wireless internet in Oakland" because we thought that would engage people best. However, everyone just looked at us as an ISP.
      • This is a community project. The only way it's worked so far is for people to share their connections with their ISPs. Expanding the network might give us more options, but at the time we had to move away from presenting ourselves as providing more than a community.
  • jeremy - do we want this to be a meeting about the philosophy about the organization or concrete goals?
  • grant - we did a lot of that in the first strategy meeting. Now, we need to nail down how we're presenting ourselves, which is very much what jnny was getting at.
  • :::: a wild blake arrives :::
  • mai - I think it's important to have these projects in mind. I don't think we'd want them on fliers. I think it would be helpful to broadcast *how we want to get specific communities connected*. - eg; give a microgrant to alameda? more energy/funds into next byoi workshop? tension between people who feel confident wrt being node owners and those who can't even afford an internet connection and need more support along the way
    • ben: think one of the things jorrit was curious about was to what extent do our goals prioritize such communities
  • mai: need to refine scope
    • others: projects & communication seem most important
      • grant: scope: not technical at all, fundraising difficult, focus on projects
        • sierk: fine with that, but maybe schedule a breakout re: fundraising for next tuesday's meeting.
  • Plan
    • Identify three important projects, centered on getting bandwidth, building out the backbone in specific neighborhoods, etc.
    • Projects should inform our messaging and outreach
    • Matching people to tasks/subprojects and dedicated timelines - have at least 3 people per target area so it doesn't fall on any one person
    • Clarify how BYOI office hours fold into the projects. How do we best align that time for outreach and training with our larger goals and projects?
    • Regarding other communities - just holding workshops at other spaces (e.g. LOLspace) could be at least as impactful and in line with our outreach goals as mounting/connecting there.
    • grant: microgrants beyond funding equipment / workshops for nodes, finding way to fund/employ people
      • ben: labor laws. being employer tricky. empowering people and providing resources good!
      • jeremy: scope
        • mai:
    • Reconcile allocation of time, energy, and infra with goals by first reaching out to other communities (as described above) and then allocating physical resources to support communities that are organizing.
      • i.e. provide workshops at other spaces with folks who live there, then act based on their needs

Last Meeting Notes

  • link to previous meeting minutes

End of Meeting

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