Re: [school-core] Proposal for the Reorganization of Schoolforge

[David Bucknell <david@members.iteachnet.org>]

It was a poorly phrased idea, sent before it was ready. Sorry. Thanks, Roger.
You're right on what I was proposing. Regarding why, I will think more on that.
I thought I gave it a try, but obviously not one that was convincing. The main
thing is to give the project a life beyond that of our current interest and to
ensure a broad reach. Roger, Doug, Felipe, Les and friends support seul-edu.
Matt supports Blue Linux. Hilaire and Bruno and the list goes on. Who supports
them? Well, perhaps they don't want support, I don't know. They and the rest of
you deserve it anyway. So do those who set up their local Schoolforge groups. 

These are not meant to make money. Honestly, I'd just love to see a project that
lived on supporting the one thing I really care about: the dream of universal
education -- worldwide. Because that's the only hopeful plan I can think of.
That's why I can't seem to find anything interesting other than education.

Regarding how much? I thought of Harry's foundation because that's the real
point: to ensure that the projects do not have short, undependable life-spans.
Also, enough to run a site or two and do what the free software foundation does
for free software: host projects, orgs, individuals who support our goals with
the kind of work etc-edu does, among other things. Organizing tools and training
to be shared among many deserving schools, supporting programmers and teachers
who do the right thing ....

Don't quote me. These thoughts are as poorly phrased as the original idea. 

David
 Quoting Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>:

> On Tue, Jul 08, 2003 at 12:21:58AM -0500, Michael Viron wrote:
> > 2.  You mention services and so forth, but the server providing most
> > (albeit not all) resources for Schoolforge is the primary SEUL server. 
> Are
> > we saying that member organizations that currently have arrangements with
> > SEUL for free hosting would be cut off?
> 
> Seul is different from schoolforge. Projects that seul wants to host
> (including schoolforge itself) won't be affected by this. We'll still
> continue to offer hosting to worthwhile projects.
> 
> It's worth noting that I think David is proposing that the money be
> handled solely by one of the legally recognized non-profits, such as OSEF.
> (There's no reason for schoolforge itself to get into the business
> or accepting, receiving, or keeping money, because it's got no legal
> recognition.)
> 
> David wrote:
> > >I think we could have various levels of membership as the first step
> toward
> > >raising money. 
> > >Free individual membership,
> > >Full individual (paid) membership (some low fee with a few services such
> as a
> > >login, Web space and mail)
> > >Free org. membership (for deserving cases)
> > >Various levels of org. membership depending on the services they
> request.
> 
> I think David isn't trying to come up with ways of blackmailing people
> into providing money. Rather, he wants to provide incentives (rewards)
> for providing money. It may well be that trying to provide an ISP-like
> service (webpages, mail etc) in exchange for money is more hassle
> than help, and just accepting donations (or some other reward system,
> like publicity or the ability to direct the donations) works a lot
> better. There's lots to learn as this progresses.
> 
> Figuring out where the money's going to come from is a critical step in
> the plan, of course, along with getting a better answer for "why do we
> need it and how exactly will the money get converted efficiently into
> better free software/education?" It's probably not worth building a big
> infrastructure until these questions are more thoroughly explored. How
> much money are we talking anyway?
> 
> --Roger
> 
> 


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