StormMIST Charter

This document is Copyrighted © 1996 by wmiler@nyx.cs.du.edu and by the wizards of StormMIST.
The StormMIST Charter
8 June 1996 Update 

0. Introduction
---------------

  This document, having been updated and approved by the administration
of StormMIST, defines the history, goals and purposes of StormMIST.  It
is organized in this fashion: 

  1. Mission Statement
  2. History
  3. Theme
  4. Administrative Hierarchy
  5. Bylaws
  6. References

1. Mission Statement
--------------------
StormMIST is chartered as an experimental research and development system, 
designed to allow an avatar to explore virtual worlds in three 
dimensions. It is in a continual state of development, and as such is not 
open to the general public.

2. History
----------
StormMIST was founded under the name of StormMUSE, with Augestflex, 
itsme, and Vampire as it's founding directors. StormMUSE then in turn 
became StormMYST during the fall or early winter of 1995, and briefly was 
chartered as a recreational gaming system. In the spring of 1996, 
StormMYST was converted to the StormMIST server code. At this time, we 
decided to offically charter StormMIST as an advanced research and 
development system which in time will include three dimensional graphics, 
and sound capablities.

3. Theme
--------
There is currently no theme to StormMIST, other than code research and 
development.

4. Administrative Hierarchy
---------------------------
The administration of StormMIST is organized as follows:

A board of four directors, each with ultimate responsiblity concerning their 
chosen area, and additionally empowered to uphold the statements made 
within this document shall to the best of their ability, ensure that 
StormMIST follows all rules and regulations as may be imposed by resource 
providers, government bodies, and any additional rules upon which the 
Board of Directors agree to. Only existing directors may choose 
replacements to the board of directors.

The currently active directors are: Vampire, Psyche, and Augestflex.

Additionally, the Board of Directors, at their discretion, have the right 
to appoint assistants under them, who shall have limited authority.

5. Bylaws
---------
1) General Code Guidelines
  a) All code must be approved by the Director in charge of Code 
     Development before entry into the StormMIST source code.
  b) All modifications should be thoroughly tested, by the principle 
     programmer.
2) Major changes
  a) Major changes are any of the following:
    1) Anything that involves changing the database format.
    2) Any deletions or modifications in method of use of commands.

    3) Any case where it isn't obvious how the user interface should 
       work, or the addition of additional powers.
  b) Upon making a major change:
    1) All changes must be approved by the Director of Code Development, 
       and by the Board of Directors.
    2) If the change involves a database format change, a backup of the 
       database before the change was produced, must be made.
3) Minor Changes
  a) Minor changes are anything that's not a major change.
  b) All minor changes to the MIST source code must be approved by the 
     Director in charge of Code Development.
4) Emergency code changes
  a) Emergency code changes may be made by any programmer which the 
     Director of Code Development has given approval.
  b) Emergency code changes are defined as the following:
    1) Any changes required to maintain security of the server, or resources
    2) Any changes required to prevent the server from crashing.
  c) Upon completion of the emergency code change, a letter must be sent 
     to all directors stating what code was changed, by whom, and for what 
     reason. The Director of Code Development must then check the code 
     fix to ensure that there are no conflicts with existing code.

6. References
-------------
This document was modeled after the MicroMUSE charter, which can be found 
at: ftp://ftp.musenet.org/ or gopher://gopher.musenet.org/

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