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.

Agenda

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1. Software Team

   1. Issue 1502: Adapt the UI at CAcert.org to deal with the "keygen" feature having been removed in browsers (Some of this will be met with 1551 )

   2. Issue 1482: Limit validity period of new HTTPS certificates to one year

   3. Issue 1444: PHP - Brian

   4. Issue 1417: Keygen / new CSR software - Bernhard

2. Organisation Assurance
   1. How to relance OrgA? (Guy)
3. Grant applications

   1. Protopype Fund https://prototypefund.de/en/ (mail to SW Board only)

      1. The Prototype Fund is a project of the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). This is for residents of Germany only. We could create a group of people that work on a project for CAcert (with all support of the others in the background). It runs for two more years, every 6 month.
      2. Infra does not see any acute need at the moment, and does not have the capacity to provide qualified support.
      3. There are some ideas for software, but in infra's view there is still a lot of conceptual and preparatory work missing. What Infra could imagine is financing people to carry out a requirements analysis and write a requirements and test specification. This could then be used as a basis for a new implementation of the CAcert software (WebDB, Signer and perhaps other things like CATS). But these are just a few ideas of JanDD and he cannot currently recommend any people who would be suitable for this. Potential candidates would have to deal intensively with the existing software on the one hand and with the underlying policies on the other, and would have to identify a lot of missing information, ask for it and make assumptions for discussion. This requires very good analytical and communication skills and a high level of stamina.

1. Blockchain

   1. see here: https://wiki.cacert.org/Brain/CAcertInc/Committee/MeetingAgendasAndMinutes/2018-03-01/ideas#Blockchain (waiting for answer from IanG)

Minutes Committee meeting - 2024-02-07

2.1 Trusted Third Party assurer

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.

2.2 OpenID - Brian not present

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.

2.3 ERPNext

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.

2.4 Big Mail

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.

2.5 Paypal

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.

2.6 Class 1 / Class 3 root certificates

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.

2.7 Elephant in the room: does CAcert still have the capacity to carry on its operations?

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.

Question Time

Date of the next meeting

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

Motions