Just a minor point, you might be wise to mention that this centre is in Christchurch New Zealand.
This is a great idea and I hope it does well, but maybe some sort of yearly membership fee might be in order? I am more likely to want to pay a yearly subscription type of arrangement than a monthly fee. Also some mechanism for attracting teachers by offering free memberships for people who are prepared to only be teachers? Maybe cheap courses when they want to be taught? On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 09:44, David Kirk wrote: > Hi all, > > I have made a basic web site for the Open Source Technology Centre. It > is hosted on my web server in the office on a 128Kbps connection. Check > it out and let me know what you think. > > http://ostc.dyndns.org > > It still needs some work, but you get the basic idea. > > At the meeting last night, some people asked if they could be paid to > teach courses at the OSTC. Initially I said that I had no problem with > people negotiating an extra fee with the course participants. > > I have had a think about it and I have decided it is a bad idea. The > idea of the OSTC is that it is a Knowledge Sharing community. The fees > that members will be paying is not for the information that is > exchanged, but to cover the costs of the facilities. > > I want the OSTC to run just like the rest of the Open Source community. > Take Linux for example: Thousands of people have spent millions of > hours developing code that you run on your machine for free. They don't > ask for any compensation, they do it for the good of the Open Source > Community. > > Other people contribute by offering support on lists like this one. I > haven't seen anyone asking for compensation for any of the support they > have offered on any of these lists. > > I am not a programmer, and I don't contribute to this list much, so I > want to contribute in another way. The OSTC is my contribution to the > Open Source Community. > > I would make exceptions for courses that run over several sessions, like > a beginners course for linux, or a course in a programming or scripting > language, etc. > > I do like the idea of giving some sort of recognition to those who > donate their time and expertise. I intend to add a list of trainers and > courses they have taught to the contributions page of the web site. I > will probably also put a feedback section on the forum (when I get it > installed). > > Please let me know your thoughts on this. > > > Later > > David Kirk -- Zane Gilmore, Analyst / Programmer Information Services Section, Information Technology Dept, University of Canterbury - Te Whare Waananga o Waitaha Private Bag 4800, Christchurch New Zealand Phone +64-3-364 2987 extn 7895
