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Committee Meeting 2024-02-01 19:00 UTC
The meeting will take place at 19:00 UTC at https://meet.jit.si/cacert If you do not have audio channel, you may try in the IRC channel #board-meeting on the CAcert IRC network. Feel free to add a business item within the acceptance period of 48 hours or your question to the board below. Non-committee members: the committee may choose to convert any business proposed as a question in the questions section.
Chair asks whether cacert-board-private or cacert-board maillist or Threema chat or Telegram group includes any items that need to be disclosed to Members. Accept minutes from 4. Jan 2024 "I move to accept the minutes of the committee meeting of 4th of Jan 2024." Dissolution of CACert Inc (Association), (by FG) Start thinking about planning when to do things about new roots, so we are prepared several years in advance, as no certs should have a end-date after any root certificates. Also take a look at the old Escrow article. https://wiki.cacert.org/Roots/EscrowAndRecovery How is it going with implementing LetsEncrypt certificates on public facing services, instead of keeping them behind CAcert's "unknown" certificates? Remote Assurance ( Creation of remote assurance sub committee (RASC) on the hold until Eva is available for the policy. Secretary got in touch with Eva on Oct. 12. BGC for Gero: Interview happened (by Ted&Etienne), committee is waiting for the report (has to be sent by Gero). BGC for Brian: who (no board member in BGC team! (Egal/JanDD) Brian has to re-contact the two checkers at 01 sept 2023. BGC for Peter is initiated. (date searching; Interview by Ted&Egal) BGC for Matthias are initiated. (date searching started in August 2022) BGC for Sascha are initiated. (language: en or de) Questions from CAcert.org community members can be added until beginning of committee meeting! As well questions can be asked at "Question Time", without added question here. Would it be possible to make an Interim Measure? I have prepared the text of proposals. added by Aleš Kastner "Question One." added by Your Name Comment: Replace "Question One" by your Question and add your name 1. Closing To remember: Goals 2021/2022 (propositions by board 2020/2021) - Each goal needs a responsible person on the board who keeps an eye on it and reports regularly, keeps in touch with the responsible people. obsolete / started / waiting for available time delivering the OpenID Connect integration, for which CAcert is funded by the RIPE NCC. expand background check remote assurance, if accepted by the community; simplify the certificate creation (this enables the start of various projects from the pipeline) New CSR software support SecureU (find an active board member for them in Germany) Person Board-Private Committee Archive Wiki Nextcloud Brian Etienne Admin FrédéricD Admin FrédéricG Kim Michael Wacław ? Aleš 1. Tasks assigned to Board Members and others Person Task Deadline Other People Involved Notes Brian Contact QA/QC Volunteers 10 January 2022 Gero Treuner, Peter Nunn, others? To begin work, they do not need ABC. Brian bla 2022 xxx xx. Brian bla 2022 xxx xx. Protopype Fund https://prototypefund.de/en/ (mail to SW Board only) see here: https://wiki.cacert.org/Brain/CAcertInc/Committee/MeetingAgendasAndMinutes/2018-03-01/ideas#Blockchain (waiting for answer from IanG)
Members of the Committee: Present, by alphabetical order Aleš Kastner Étienne Ruedin - Secretary Frédéric Dumas Frédéric Grither - Treasurer Kim Nilsson - Vice president Absent or silent, by alphabetical order Brian McCullough - President Members of the CAcert community and other guests Having been active during the meeting, by alphabetical order none
From November 2023 to March 2024 inclusive, committee meetings will be held at 19:00 UTC. Chair Kim opens the meeting at 19:10 UTCs. Kim and Frederic D. invite everyone to join the livepad on Nextcloud for collaborative note-taking of our minutes. The minutes of the meeting of 2024-01-04 are submitted to the members of the committee for approval. Etienne moves to accept the minutes of the committee meeting of 4th of Jan 2024. Frédéric D. seconds the motion. Result of the vote: Aye: 4 Naye: 0 Abstain: 1 The minutes of the 4th of January meeting are accepted.
Etienne moves to accept the updated list of Trusted Third Party assurers: "I move that board appoin Andreas P. A, Raoul Xavier B, Brian McC, Peter Y and Kim N as TTP assurer". Frédéric G. seconds the motion. Result of the vote: Aye: 5 Naye: 0 Abstain: 0 The decision to adopt the five names as Trusted Third Party assurers is accepted. A few days ago, at a preparatory meeting for today's committee meeting, Frédéric G. and Frédéric D. noted that CAcert was unable to continue any software development. The halt to all development on OpenID is not Brian's responsibility. It can be explained by the association's inability to work together on a permanent basis, and by the now almost total attrition of human resources. Frédéric D. explains that he is not prejudging any future decision on whether or not to keep CAcert in business, even though his personal opinion is in favour of discontinuing operations. This is why Frédéric D. has continued work on the test deployment of the ERPNext application for CAcert, in the unlikely event that the association decides to continue its activities. Frédéric D. has resumed work on deploying ERPNext on a virtual server temporarily rented from Digital Ocean. If the decision was taken to continue CAcert's activities, this test deployment in an LXC container would then be used to deploy the definitive instance of ERPNext on CAcert's own infrastructure. In the event that ERPNext is never deployed on CAcert's infrastructure, Frédéric G. recommends using Dolibar in SaaS mode, to enable it to carry out CAcert's closing accounting. It was also agreed that Frédéric Grither would be given administrator rights to CAcert's NextCloud application, to enable him to restructure the hierarchy of shared folders and make the financial archives he is in the process of compiling available to those concerned. As soon as Frédéric G has created a folder for the bank, the secretary can start filing the bank documents. Dirk and Etienne have discussed the draft and will speak to each other on the phone this week. A beta version will then be sent to the Committee for consultation. Frédéric G. reports the current situation. PayPal keeps causing trouble, freezing our assets. Frédéric G. doit pouvoir dérouler une conversation à distance depuis l'adresse courriel paypal+swiss@cacert.org. Étienne will talk to Dirk to see how it can be implemented. Kim explains that re-signing root certificates requires compliance with a large number of requirements, some of which are impossible to achieve with the small team of remaining CAcert volunteers. Many points could be amended or lightened. CAcert's guiding documents should be reworked within its Policy Group. However, the Policiy Group has not seen any activity, and Kim notes that he has never had any contact with anyone claiming to be a member of this Policy Group. Etienne explains briefly: "The Policy Group is effectively the parliament of the CAcert community. There are no elections, but everyone who is interested signs up. As long as nobody starts a discussion, nobody will give an answer. In short, the Policy Group is a very efficient institution with short decision-making paths. He encourages Kim to submit proposals or drafts for discussion. 1 - The number of our volunteers has fallen steadily in recent years. The army of assurers has evaporated, and hardly anyone is willing to carry out the operations required to certify personal identities using the "web of trust" any more. 2 - The latest breakdown of our critical infrastructure, which lasted several months, has had a negative impact on CAcert's reputation among recent users. 3 - We are no longer able to develop the software needed for the association; we are unable to move towards a new OpenID service. 4 - Our purpose is no longer in the public interest. 5 - Frédéric D. comes to the conclusion that it is our operating methods themselves, our organisational culture, that is preventing us from achieving improvements and developments, however small. The past few years have shown that we don't have the means to change this culture, we don't have the means to be more flexible, to adopt a more efficient collaborative approach. This is due to the very nature of the association. Kim disagrees with Frédéric D on a number of points: Let's Encrypt owns the market for free web/server certificates. CAcert has no business wasting time with that . Free S/MIME email certificates from a somewhat central provider is where CAcert is unique . Aleš has no argument for stop. But if CAcert would continue it have to change in something. More flexibility would hopefully increase if the CPS is made less restricted. It is what Ted, Dirk and Jan are referring to whenever they say they can't do certain things. He has some hope in that out there are number of users still willing to cooperate. Aleš will not does we do a rematurely funeral. Kim agrees: We shouldn't bury the body before it's dead. Instead a SGM, he asks if we can call an early AGM. Frédéric G. moves that the Committee decides to hold a general meeting in the first half of 2024 to decide whether or not to close down Cacert's activities, as well as a timetable and the steps to be taken to achieve this. Kim seconds the motion. Result of the vote: Aye: 4 Naye: 0 Abstain: 1 The motion is adopted.
No further questions were raised.
Chair Kim closes the meeting at 21:17 UTC. Following the tradition or the first Thursday of the month, the next meeting will be held on Thursday March 7th, 2024 at 19:00 UTC
https://motion.cacert.org/motions/m20231207.1 (Constitution) https://motion.cacert.org/motions/m20231207.2 (Minutes November meeting) https://motion.cacert.org/motions/m20231207.3 (Minutes Elephant meeting)
Who Status Action Minutemaker wip prepare Agenda and Minutes for the next meeting Brian Software meeting every 2 month Secretary bank accounts, contact with treasurer Agenda
Signs that appear in the agenda
Formulated motion on your topic. It will be put to the vote. Adjustments may be made before the vote. A motion must be submitted for resolutions!
Information for your attention. Does not need to be explained or discussed at the meeting. Purpose: Everyone is up to date. (max. 10 seconds) Discussion topic with or with no decision.
TTP Assurer Nominations
see liste of candidates: https://wiki.cacert.org/TTP/TTPadmins#TTP_Assurers_.28active.29
"I move that board appoint xxxx as TTP assurer."
issue: alpha or beta version available
who: Brian, +?
what help needed:
next step: (do we know someone who could get a hand to be asked directly?)
issue: install, following plan
who: Frédéric G, Etienne
what help needed:
next step: Frédéric will propose a tool for accounting and members list
issue: review and sending
who: Etienne, Dirk
what help needed: none
next step: review under way, (last discussion Jan 31; next conference call, Feb 1st after meeting)
issue: keep in mind; organisational improvements
who: Frédéric D, +?
what help needed:
next step:
issue: get the money (when, the 180 days are over?) (ClawbackAction)
who: Frédéric G, Etienne, +?
what help needed:
next step: (last steps: conference call FG, FD, ER on Jan 28; hand over all documents MR to FG Jan 31)
issue: singer issues: repair or change the policy
who: Missing care taker, +?
what help needed:
next step:
There are known issues with the signer. Some which need to be fixed and some that should not be fixed, as they aren't in line with how certificates should be used today (processes which have been incorrect for many years). Unfortunately, there are some old rules in CAcert documentation, specifically in the CPS, which seem to prohibit the necessary changes and improvements to the certificate creation and signing process. This means that the CPS, and perhaps other documentation needs to be rewritten, and some will require acceptance of the Policy group. A new version of documents need to be created and proposed, and when they are accepted, the necessary work on more correct processes can begin. A first draft has been created, and shared among Board and a few other active members.
See also proposition from Aleš at the minutes of January https://wiki.cacert.org/Brain/CAcertInc/Committee/MeetingAgendasAndMinutes/2024-01-04
Reasons in favour: ...
Reasons against: Community agreement, ...
"Users Requests, summarized." added by Aleš a) need for a distant assurance (no assurers, no TTP possibility in their country); b) need for the write access to our Wiki.
Issue 1417: Keygen / new CSR software - Bernhard Minutes Committee meeting - 2024-02-07
Participants
1 Opening
2 Business
2.1 Trusted Third Party assurer Question Time
Closing
Motions
Actions