This is the recent traffic on the #SPF-council IRC channel on irc.pobox.com. Anyone may join the channel, but only council members can talk.

If you do not have access to IRC, you may view the recent traffic at: http://www.schlitt.net/spf/spf-council/now/irc_log.html.

This log can be can be viewed at: http://www.schlitt.net/spf/spf-council/2006/02/12_irc_log.html.

IRC nicknames:
JulianJulian Mehnle
MarkKMark Kramer (asarian-host.net)
SDGathmanStuart Gathman
shewMark Shewmaker
willixWilliam Leibzon
 
freesideMeng Weng Wong
gconnorGreg Connor
grumpyWayne Schlitt

--- Tue Feb 7 22:12:46 UTC 2006 ---
22:12<Julian>Damn.
22:32<shew>?
22:40<Julian>I just got my internet connection restored.
22:44<Julian>...still recovering from the outage.
22:52<shew>Ahh.
--- Sat Feb 11 22:00:11 UTC 2006 ---
22:00<Julian>Hrrm.
22:00<Julian>Let's wait 30min tops.
22:00<shew>Ok.
22:11<SDGathman>I'm here.
22:12<Julian>William and Mark K. aren't, though.
22:23<Julian>hi willix, we're waiting for Mark K.
22:24<willix>I'll wait - I'm little late as it is already too
22:24<shew>Do we have his phone number?
22:26<Julian>Yes, we do, but I'm not sure we should use it for that purpose.
22:26<Julian>I was hoping he'd read his mail in time for the meeting, but perhaps he is out of the town.
22:27<willix>if we have 4 people we can have meeting anyway
22:30<Julian>Yes, we could.
22:30<shew>I'm fine with both having a meeting and with delaying.
22:31<shew>Or rather with doing either thing, just not both. :-)
22:31<Julian>Ok, what do the others think?
22:33<Julian>SDGathman?
22:33<SDGathman>As long as we're not voting on critical things like appeal, I don't think Mark will mind.
22:34<shew>(I should note that even if we don't have an official meeting or actual resolutions and such, we could use the time here in irc to discuss ideas.
22:34<shew>)
22:34<Julian>Ok, let's do that.
22:35<SDGathman>I am working on submitting a comment to groklaw.net about the appeal. It is a similar topic to the ODF fracas which they are currently covering.
22:36<Julian>Any last minute additions to the agenda?
22:37<SDGathman>New website.
22:37<shew>Since agenda item #2 allows for suggestions on what should be on our general agenda, I think that by definition we don't need any additions beforehand. :-)
22:37<Julian>SDGathman: Is that a sub-item to item #2?
22:38<SDGathman>Yes
22:38<Julian>Ok.
22:38<Julian>1. Regular reports at council meetings (or on the council mailing list)?
22:38<Julian>I think the regular meetings can serve as reporting and brief brainstorming or open discussion sessions.
22:39<Julian>Therefore I think that it would be good to have reports from all council members at the start of every regular meeting. Comments?
22:39<Julian>s/(all council members)/$1 who have something noteworthy to report/
22:40<shew>As long as it doesn't...drag on, I think that's an excellent idea.
22:41<Julian>Any opposed to that idea?
22:41<willix>That is fine. Just don't count on too many reports every time
22:41<shew>Perhaps the Chair could adjust the timing as would make sense from meeting-to-meeting, possibly deferring continued discussion to the end of the agenda items if it starts going more than 5 min or something like that..
22:41<willix>BTW - I have an event later this day. I can be here no longer then one hour
22:42<shew>(Hey, that's a good example of something that should be mentioned at the beginning of a meeting. :-) )
22:42<SDGathman>I had another nice response from my SPF evangelism via DSN.
22:42<willix>Also I think we missed having chair officialy open the meeting
22:42<Julian>I'm mostly thinking of interesting tidbits that don't justify an entire mailing list post on their own.
22:42<Julian>SDGathman: DSN? What's that?
22:43<Julian>willix: Re officially opening the meeting: Well, I said "Ok, let's do that". ;-)
22:43<SDGathman>Delivery Status Notification - MFROM == <>
22:43<Julian>Oh, that. :-)
22:44<Julian>Nice to hear that people are actually open to your messages.
22:44<Julian>Ok, nobody objected to the idea of having reports at the beginning of meetings, so let's do it that way in the future.
22:44<shew>This is already going quicker than the last two meetings. :-)
22:45<Julian>Does anyone else have something noteworthy to report?
22:45<willix>Do we want resolution on it or is it just procedural matter for council meetings?
22:45<shew>I suggest it be considered a procedural, recognized-as-commonsense thing.
22:45<Julian>willix: I don't think we need a resolution for that. It's a matter of setting up the agendas. I'll just include an item "Reports" from now on.
22:45<willix>ok
22:45<Julian>Does anyone else have something noteworthy to report?
22:46<shew>Not here.
22:46<willix>I'm working on reputation system as plugin to spmassasin
22:46<Julian>Interesting. Does it use SPF?
22:46<willix>Part 4 will include SPF
22:46<Julian>...and: does it use other authentication systems, too?
22:47<Julian>like DKIM or so?
22:47<SDGathman>I'm running the GOSSiP reputation system on pymilter. It uses SPF to track domains instead of IPs.
22:47<willix>Way in the future.
22:48<Julian>I think we could set up a collection of SPF-related projects like yours on the website.
22:48<Julian>Reputation is the next big thing, I guess.
22:48<Julian>Ok, no further reports for now I assume.
22:48<Julian>Let's move on.
22:48<Julian>2. Try to agree on a basic common agenda for the next few months.
22:49<willix>Part 1 is reputation database of incoming ips, Part 2 is reputation of ip blocks, Part 3 is reputation of mail servers by name (whenever authenticated by EHLO SPF or when EHLO name fully matched to incoming ip address by dns), Part4 is reputation of domains
22:49<Julian>We probably won't have the time to discuss agenda item #2 at length right now, so do we want to do that on the council mailing list?
22:49<willix>I'll make a call for volunteers later next week and describe it more then
22:50<SDGathman>I have been thinking about documentation problem areas.
22:50<Julian>(willix: Sounds interesting. We need to research reputation.)
22:50<Julian>SDGathman: Please explain.
22:50<SDGathman>E.g. common mistakes recipient make when checking SPF
22:51<Julian>A BCP document of sorts?
22:51<Julian>Or more of a FAQ?
22:51<SDGathman>Yes.
22:51<Julian>Koen has been working on the FAQ on the new website.
22:51<SDGathman>Not so much a FAQ, because the people making the mistakes don't know they have a question.
22:51<willix>General FAQ on SPF is actually needed too
22:52<SDGathman>More of a "don't try to check SPF until you are sure you aren't doing any of these dumb things".
22:52<Julian>Koen has been working on the FAQ on the new website. With a bit more work, it can replace the FAQ on the old website soon, I think.
22:52<willix>I think 2 years ago somebody had this page (not on pobox)
22:52<Julian>I was recently pointed to http://homepages.tesco.net./~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/smtp-spf-is-harmful.html again. I think we could use a counter-document for that soon.
22:53<Julian>Most of JdBP's stuff is mere FUD.
22:53<SDGathman>A FAQ would be, "My email get SPF fail when I send it from random ISPs using my laptop. Why?"
22:53<Julian>Yeah...
22:54<SDGathman>Or, "When I send company mail from my home computer, it gets blocked."
22:54<willix>We need not have counterargument for every fud document. Something general as part of faq will be enough
22:54<SDGathman>SPF needs SMTP AUTH much more widely used before it is transparent to end users.
22:55<Julian>willix: The problem is that some FUD docs are widely circulated. The JdBP doc is one of them.
22:55<Julian>It's even linked from Wikipedia's SPF article.
22:55<willix>that particular one is know because of wikipedia if I'm not mistaken
22:55<willix>we typed together.
22:55<Julian>Yeah. If we had a focused counter-document, we could link to it from WP, too.
22:55<shew>Then the new.openspf.org website needs a website-todo section..
22:55<willix>The point being when we have FAQ, we'd like it to wikipedia too
22:56<SDGathman>I checked Wikipedia SPF article for accurace a year ago. We should check it regularly.
22:56<Julian>shew: Re todo section: The Sitemap page has fulfilled that function so far, but you're right, we could use a more extensive todo list.
22:57<Julian>Anyway, I suggest we discuss the "what to do next" thing on the council list as we don't have a lot of time now. I do have one meta suggestion, though...
22:57<Julian>I think a number of things that "should to be done next" will crop up in our discussion.
22:58<Julian>We should probably assign a "shepherd" to each of those things so we don't lose track.
22:58<willix>We need to discuss general road ahead for SPF
22:59<Julian>I.e. I would be overseeing "foo" and "bar", William would be overseeing "zip" and "baz", etc.
22:59<willix>general - more then just particular items for website, etc
22:59<shew>To catch up on items so far:
22:59<Julian>willix: Yes, but you said you didn't have the time to discuss things extensively right now.
22:59<shew>I have:
22:59<shew>1. Updating general-FAQ 1.5 common-mistakes section of FAQ
22:59<shew>2. Response to http://homepages.tesco.net./~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/smtp-spf-is-harmful.html
22:59<shew>3. Website-todo
22:59<shew>Were there other specific items so far?
23:00<SDGathman>Implementation errors harm the reputation of SPF. Many of the FUD arguments amount to "when people implement it wrong, legit mail gets blocked".
23:00<willix>Unfortunetly I don't. So this means it'd be on next council agenda
23:00<Julian>willix: I am proposing that we continue collecting items on spf-council.
23:00<Julian>(the mailing list, that is)
23:01<Julian>shew: There are quote a few. I think it will be important to create a good test suite. Wayne can probably shepherd that.
23:01<Julian>(or do it himself, even)
23:01<Julian>Also we should start working on SPFv2.1/v3.
23:02<Julian>Anyway, let's compile that list on the spf-council list, ok?
23:02<shew>Julian: Do you have a suggestion for a URL on new.openspf.org, to list these suggestions? (Either website-oriented or general todo?)
23:02<Julian>General todo: I'd suggest creating a "Project Agenda" page.
23:03<Julian>Website todo: "Website Todo" page or something.
23:04<Julian>I actually proposed to set up a project agenda last year already, unfortunately I haven't found the time to do it, and nobody else did it either.
23:04<shew>The reason to bring this up is that one of us could go on and create either page right now.
23:04<Julian>True. Do you want to take on the job, shew?
23:04<shew>I'll go on and put up a "Project Agenda" one, including the website stuff inside.
23:05<shew>Breaking it out later.
23:05<Julian>Ok, great!
23:05<Julian>So, any other meta issues with regard to "2. Try to agree on a basic common agenda for the next few months"?
23:06<willix>this is still open item basicly
23:06<Julian>What do you mean?
23:07<willix>And I do think for good discussion of it we need all 5 of us
23:07<willix>The actual common agenda is open item
23:07<Julian>Yes, agreed.
23:07<Julian>That's why I asked for _meta_ issues.
23:08<shew>I think updating that moving new.openspf.org to the main site is one of the more important near-term tasks, apart from appeal-related things.
23:08<Julian>Such as, _how_ to we compile that common agenda?
23:08<Julian>Any further comments before we move on to item #3?
23:09<Julian>If so, type ... quickly (hi Wayne!).
23:09<shew>http://new.openspf.org/auth/Project_Agenda
23:09<shew>http://new.openspf.org/Project_Agenda
23:10<shew>Just the basics there, just to get things started.
23:10<Julian>I propose that you maintain two lists, one where the items are already prioritized (#-style list), and one where they aren't (*-style list).
23:11<Julian>The reason being that we need to _agree_ on a priority order.
23:11<Julian>Ok. Any further comments before we move on to item #3? If so, type ... quickly.
23:12<shew>Thinking..
23:12<shew>I am suggesting that folks add to this list themselves..
23:12<Julian>To the unordered (*-style) one, that is.
23:12<shew>I was not suggesting that the website be used to argue for an ordered list.
23:13<shew>(changing to * style)
23:13<Julian>Ok.
23:13<shew>My main comment though here is that I think moving to the new.openspf.org site is very important,
23:13<shew>if we don't end up actually setting a date to the turnover, then we won't actually do it for at least 6 months..
23:14<Julian>So, if anyone has ideas what the project needs to do next, please feel free to add it to <http://new.openspf.org/Project_Agenda>.
23:14<shew>So I would suggest adding making-a-date to the next meeting agenda.
23:14<Julian>shew: True, but switching the site requires workforce, and this is a scarce resource.
23:15<Julian>Agenda item request noted.
23:15<shew>Thanks. Then I'm done for #1,#2.
23:15<Julian>Then let's move on.
23:15<Julian>3. Announcing the election of the new council and its common agenda (to spf-announce/as a press release)?
23:15<willix>I'll try to work on draft text tomorrow or Monday
23:16<Julian>Obviously we cannot announce our common agenda yet. But we could announce the election outcome through spf-announce or in a PR, or both. Do we want to do that before we've set an agenda?
23:16<shew>Cool.
23:16<willix>I think going beyond spf-announce is not really necessary
23:16<Julian>Ok. Do we want to announce to spf-announce in the first place?
23:16<Julian>Wayne would probably advise against it.
23:17<willix>Why?
23:17<willix>What is so bad about announcing outcome of elections on spf-announce?
23:17<Julian>Wayne always preferred to send only _material_ news to spf-announce, not organizational ones, because no one was interested in the latter according to him. He could be right.
23:18<Julian>Personally, I'm not sure.
23:18<willix>I disagree. Elections happen once/year and I think this is important enough to announce
23:18<Julian>Yeah, we did announce the election when it was about to start, after all.
23:19<shew>I also disagree. I would suggest an announcement for the election results and an announcement for the appeal.
23:19<SDGathman>It is material news that there is still an official body representing the community. Don't need to go into details about bylaws and such.
23:19<Julian>But we also have to note that only 35 people participated in the election, while >4k are subscribed to spf-announce.
23:20<Julian>Anyway, I think we should wait until we have agreed on a basic common agenda, and then include that in the announcement of the election outcome. That way, the announcement has more substance.
23:21<shew>Okay. I don't feel strongy on this point--I'm fine with waiting.
23:21<shew>strongly
23:21<willix>I'll prepare text anyway and we can decide then
23:22<Julian>Ok. Any further comments on this item?
23:22<Julian>If so, type ... quickly.
23:23<Julian>Alright, next item:
23:23<Julian>4. Announcing the IAB appeal (to spf-announce/as a press release)?
23:23<Julian>Do we want to announce that we appealed to the IAB?
23:23<willix>I'm actually not sure that announcing IAB appeal is really necessary
23:24<SDGathman>I would like to announce on groklaw.net as an OT under the latest ODF article. Any objections?
23:24<Julian>Not me.
23:25<shew>None here.
23:25<Julian>Personally, I think we should wait for the official IAB response and then see if an announcement is warranted.
23:25<willix>Point to IAB page - its good one
23:25<willix>Yes, that is what I think as well.
23:26<Julian>BTW, I added a news item about the IAB appeal to http://new.openspf.org and http://new.openspf.org/News today.
23:26<SDGathman>I'll post my comment to spf-council before submitting.
23:26<Julian>SDGathman: k
23:26<willix>There would need to be somekind of announcements anyway - if IAB appeal is uncessfull, the SPF draft will be published as RFC
23:26<willix>If it is successfull it maybe delayed a little (maybe not) and this needs to be explained
23:27<Julian>True. Having an RFC number would definitely be worth an announcement!
23:27<Julian>Any further comments on "4. Announcing the IAB appeal (to spf-announce/as a press release)?"?
23:28<shew>I would prefer an announcement on spf-announce about the appeal.
23:28<Julian>shew: At this time?
23:28<shew>I would think so. It is a newsworthy item, and it really was a fairly big decision to make.
23:29<Julian>An announcement at this time could backfire if the appeal gets rejected.
23:29<Julian>(just an idea)
23:29<shew>If an announcement is made to spf-announce, it would have to mention the new elections though, which gets into your sticky little-of-substance issue of posting spurious annoucnements.
23:29<shew>Do you think it could lead to the appeal being more likely to be rejected?
23:30<Julian>Yeah. But we could always announce the IAB appeal later, after we announced the election outcome and common agenda (or even in the same message).
23:30<SDGathman>If the appeal has not been officially accepted yet, should I hold off on groklaw?
23:30<shew>It's been officially accepted.
23:31<shew>I'd lean toward an annoucement, but I'm fine either way really.
23:31<shew>No complaints if you don't want to announce.
23:31<SDGathman>Ok, what is the opposite of "rejected"?
23:31<shew>you==consensus.
23:32<Julian>SDGathman: "allowed"?
23:32<Julian>"decided in favor of"?
23:32<SDGathman>So, the appeal has been accepted, but the "court" hasn't agreed to hear the case yet?
23:32<shew>Side note: I've added the Project Agenda ( http://new.openspf.org/auth/Project_Agenda ) to the sitemap, with a suggestion that "Those who have write access to this page should feel free to add items to the above list."
23:33<Julian>shew: Uh, be careful. I think only council members should add to that list. As such, I'd remove that note.
23:33<shew>I would like to discuss that if I may. (I don't want to annoy being out-of-order though.)
23:34<Julian>There are a few non-council and non-webmaster (formally) people who do have write access.
23:34<Julian>shew: Go ahead.
23:35<Julian>Typing? Type ... to let the others know.
23:36<shew>For a list of general-todo, just general tasks-to-be-done, I would think that anyone who has write access should be able to figure what things need to be done. In the same way that someone with write access might edit a FAQ even though they're not on the council, someone with write access should (IMHO) be able to add in that we need a faq item to discuss X, without council approval. However, a section for a decided-upon agenda shou
23:36<shew>ld not be edited by non-council folks, imho. (There is no such section at the moment for a decided-upon agenda--just the generic todos.)
23:36<shew>(sorry)
23:37<Julian>Sounds reasonable. Let's create an (empty, for now) section for the decided-upon agenda later, ok?
23:37<willix>ok
23:37<shew>I actually had it on the page, and only removed it because it looked silly being empty for the moment. :-)
23:38<shew>So I can add it back in empty, or we can added it filled-in once we decide on agenda priorities..
23:38<shew>(I didn't mean rudeness by "silly" btw.)
23:39<Julian>I'm all for creating structure, even if it's just a prototype. That's why I type code in a breadth-first manner ("if () { }", then fill in the () and {} parts, etc.). ;-)
23:39<shew>I will add it in then.
23:39<shew>Thank you for the discussion-time.
23:40<Julian>Alright, I think there's nothing left to discuss for "4. Announcing the IAB appeal (to spf-announce/as a press release)?". Type ... quickly if you think otherwise.
23:41<SDGathman>Did we decide to annouce or not?
23:41<shew>(I prefer an announcement, but I'm fine either way--I will not complain if it's delayed.)
23:41<Julian>I think we did not decide whether to announce or not. No one made a motion to the effect of announcing the appeal at this time, either.
23:42<SDGathman>Should I comment on groklaw?
23:42<Julian>Anyone can make a motion at any time.
23:42<SDGathman>Or will that adversly affect the appeal?
23:42<Julian>SDGathman: Do you want council approval on that?
23:42<Julian>SDGathman: I don't think it will adversely affect the appeal if you don't phrase it without care.
23:43<SDGathman>Yes, because I am not astute on these political consequences.
23:43<willix>Go ahead and comment, you don't official announcement from SPF about it. Just point to IAB page and let people read from there
23:43<Julian>Like "hey people, we appealed to the IAB and we really hope they will intervene wrt this MS bullshit" or something. That might be counterproductive. ;-)
23:43<willix>If you want to send draft of what you want to put on groaklaw to spf-council or spf-discuss, that would be good
23:44<SDGathman>ok
23:44<Julian>Exactly, willix. If you want to speak on behalf of the project or council, you need (somewhat) explicit approval. Otherwise, you don't.
23:45<Julian>You can always speak as an individual of course.
23:45<Julian>(but in that case it might be good to make that clear)
23:46<Julian>shew: So, do you want to make a motion to announce the appeal now (or at some other specific time)?
23:47<shew>Quite honestly I'm fine either way. I don't care to sway things in either direction.
23:47<Julian>I think we should wait at least until we can announce the council election and common agenda.
23:47<shew>I lean toward announcement but that's about it. I'm content to let things lay for the moment.
23:48<Julian>Ok, so can we conclude item "4. Announcing the IAB appeal (to spf-announce/as a press release)?" then?
23:48<SDGathman>yes
23:49<shew>Yes.
23:49<Julian>Fine. This was the last agenda item. Does anyone have any other important item to discuss?
23:50<shew>None here.
23:50<Julian>Doesn't seem to be the case.
23:50<Julian>Ok, motion: adjourn the meeting.
23:51<willix>seconded
23:51<Julian>Votes?
23:51<SDGathman>18:51u yes
23:51<willix>18:51u: yes
23:51<shew>18:51u yes
23:51<Julian>It's 23:51 UTC. ;-)
23:51<Julian>2351u: yes
23:51<shew>23:51u yes
23:51<shew>:-)
23:51<Julian>I take that as an unanimous yes.
23:52<willix>2351u: yes
23:52<SDGathman>23:51U YES
23:52<Julian>So ordered. The meeting is adjourned. Thanks, gentlemen
23:52<Julian>!
23:53<willix>\q

This report was generated at Sun Feb 12 00:00:00 UTC 2006.