NOTES: IPC Regular Monthly Meeting
Wednesday, August 5, 1998    6:15 - 7:30 pm
City of Davis Computer Lab, 600 A Street


At this evening's meeting we had some provocative discussion 
about several issues important to the IPC (and therefore important 
to DCN). We did not resolve them all but made some decisions 
without intendeding them to be precedent setting.

1.     The issue of providing DCN resources on an ongoing basis 
was resolved at least for now by the decision to allowing projects 
to be presented for reapproval annually.  While it was agreed that 
we expect projects approved by the IPC to need only a jump start 
before they become independent it was also agreed that in order 
to maintain a high level of content variety and quality DCN needs 
the option of 
    a) allowing for semi-permanent sponsorship of projects and 
    b) allowing for some valued content to remain accessible on DCN's 
        web servers as part of "DCN content" even after the authors
        have moved on to other pursuits.

       The IPC currently has no specific guidelines (only the intelligent, 
good sense of its committee members and precedents set in the past) 
to assist in such decisions. 

2.      The issue of whether the IPC should contribute DCN's resources 
to entities (groups or individuals) that receive financial gain as a 
result of the DCN's largesse was not resolved. This issue does not 
question the existence of commercialism (ie financial gain through 
advertising services or goods) on the DCN web. What it does question 
is under what circumstances should the IPC give away its scarce 
resources in order that another entity can benefit financially. If this 
is an appropriate thing to do - what prudent and fair restraints should 
the IPC practice? (that's rhetorical at this point.)
        The matter that brought this issue to the table was the presence 
of the Amazon.com link on the Printed Matter site. It was decided to 
approve the Printed Matter project's web space (the account itself is 
not under the purvue of the IPC, it exists at the discretion of the 
Executive Director) for a third (?) year. The project will be submitted 
to the IPC for reapproval on or before July 31, 1999. 

Thanks to those present this evening for a lively discussion despite the heat.

Humbly submitted - RAH (Chair)