On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Andrew Lynn <lynn.and...@gmail.com> wrote: > This is to seed discussion on a proposal to add a function to the ILUGD > society: That of a funding umbrella for community FOSS based development > > Background: (Personal opinion) > (1) The FOSS community is made up of a relatively large number of FOSS users > and a smaller number of FOSS developers. Most are active users and > evangelists in the late teens-early twenties, before largely moving into > jobs where they are lost to the creative use of FOSS in building their > careers. A lucky few join FOSS-supportive organisations (e.g Yahoo, Google) > which encourage their use of FOSS and pay them sufficiently to build a > career. The remaining enthusiasts work largely as hermits in self-run > smaller organisations or as individuals. Their opportunities for creative > use of their FOSS skills are limited due to lack of financial support in > India. Many service the SME/NGO vertical, based on personal contacts. The > services are largely system administration and content management. As > individuals, they lack the organisational structure to bid for larger > projects. Community based development projects lack the accountability > required to deliver results. > (2) The LUG as a space for a physical face-to-face meeting has long been > redundant with increased use of collaboratories based on internet > technologies. LUG meetings now have sparse attendance. The LUG needs to > redefine its role. > > Post Freed.in/2009, we have discussed a few models in which an organisation > could serve as an umbrella to funnel projects to community development. > (1) Serve as a message board and match-making role > The list presently allows commercial offerings to be made. (This could be > more formal such as e.g. [1]) While the list works sufficiently well for > outsourcing minor components of projects by organisations that control the > project's funding, this does not work for government funded projects which > do not permit solicitation. > (2) A FOSS based organisation that has developed a corporate structure and > business model to employ community participants in relevant projects would > be ideal. I am not aware of any such organisation, and if these exist they > are not relevant in govt. bids. Most organisations also work with a closed > group of employees, and do not allow space for skill and project-based > employment. > > I propose that ILUGD takes on this role. There have to be some changes in > its structure for this to happen: A shift from a volunteer based management > to a secretariat which would be required for responding to RFPs and project > management, as well as some system of managing accountability. > "Employees" are not permanent but work on a project based on skills, and we > could tap skills through moonlighting as well.
Steering clear of commenting on the merits/demerits of your idea, I would like to suggest that we let the LUG be what it is, which is structureless and amorphous. It should evolve on its own, without any "intelligent" definition or design. However, starting a separate organisation with a well defined goal and support from LUG members, may be a good idea. Unless of course, you were referring to that "ILUGD which is separate from this list", in which case I eat my words and reserve my opinion. -- Anupam _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
