Re: [ilugd] ILUGD (society) as a funding umbrella for FOSS development
On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Andrew Lynn 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. Quite true, Accept every fact stated above. > (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. > LUG comprises of people and we are seeing a huge shift in younger generation in methods of colabration over internet, The web is no longer forums , lists or irc. Leveraging Social media tools with LUG discussions may be a nice idea IMO > 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. Hmm, If i am not wrong ILUGD as a society can't be/shouldn't be involved in commercial transactions and understandings. Correct me if i am wrong ! > (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. > Credibility is a huge issues, In crowdsourced model it's very difficult for people to be acccountable. > 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. > The modular way Sarai fellowships are working can be a nice example in this case , IMO > I would like to suggest an OSDD model for community participation: We have 4 > roles - loosely based on the credit card systems. Everyone joins as a blue > card. You can work on a project with a supervisor. Based on commit rights > and contributions, you are promoted to a silver card, which allows you to > supervise projects for which infrastructure is available. Further promotion > - again merit based - moves you to a gold card, which allows you to bid for > funding to execute projects. The platinum cards are responsible for getting > in the major funding. > Sounds good !, But the practical issue that we may see can be:- 1) The main issue is lack of participation or initiation by people , People are happy to create noise , Come chat etc. There is no real participation. They are just too afraid to try out. 2) Can we provide enough brand name and recognition to the coders to get them motivated for projects ? My 2 cents > > Andrew Lynn > [1] See http://www.cofundos.org/ > -- > Freed.in : Freedom in technology and software > ___ > 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/ > ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linu
Re: [ilugd] ILUGD (society) as a funding umbrella for FOSS development
dear andrew, [snip] your proposal for ilug-d is worthy of a thoughtful discussion, and delivers a wham worthy of the name of your former rock band. on the one hand, LUGs find meaning and context only if they belong to a specific organization, which is usually a college, or a commercial software company, or a govt psu or any other type of organization. in such LUGs, everyone has a specific or a more-focussed approach to their purpose for FOSS-adoption, and everyone comes from a similar background separated by a few degrees. on the other, general city-wide or town-wide LUGs are becoming quaint and almost completely redundant, thanks to more meaningful and vertical online and offline communities, and newer kinds of channels (forums, blogs, wikis, search-engines, unconferences, etc). despite all this, some salient facts remain: 01. the adoption of FOSS worldwide is increasing, not decreasing. 02. FOSS is impacting other disciplines. 03. some IT companies, like IBM, Google, HP, Sun, Oracle, and others, have created business-models around FOSS that generate billions of dollars in revenues for them. 04. similarly, several smaller companies and startups have created business-models that generate millions of dollars in revenues. perhaps what you do need to understand, are the different kinds of business-models that have succeeded. keep a sharp eye out for those which have active participation from the community. for example: google adheres to the terms of the GPL, offers various web-services built over FOSS, and ploughs in several million dollars into the community to fund community-based development of FOSS projects, all through their Google summer of code projects. The business models of Sun, IBM, Intel, RedHat, differ. Yet each has some community-participation as well. the osdd project needs to devise a viable community-participation model, that rewards the community for its sweatware somehow. osdd is somewhat unprecedented, and comes with a lot of govt funding. so this demands outofbox thinking. Special discounted life-insurance, and medical-insurance policies from the govt, for OSDD developers? priority access with reduced rates to blood banks for foss developers who contribute? academic-scholarship grants: get a free college education if you contribute to osdd or foss projects? etc. these types of incentives can be set, though they may demand some bureaucratic wrangling with time. immediate, short-term ideas need to be explored: 01. hire developers in a PSU or agency approved for govt-software-development. route projects there. 02. run incubator projects in academia, where startups cut their teeth working for osdd. pay govt-recognized academia for these incubator projects. 03. get microsoft to step-in, convince all the powers-that-be that opensource drug discovery is a bad idea, reincarnate it as sharedsource drug discovery (ssdd) or s2d2. let microsoft pitch and win an exclusive and probably locked-in deal for developing under one of their fsf-approved shared-source licenses, let them hire the same set of developers from the community, pay them a paltry sum, and let microsoft walk away with a crown jewel of a project, funded by india, developed by hired indians, and pwned by microsoft. okay. now that i've mentioned microsoft, hopefully that would rally everyone to suddenly get motivated and passionate about osdd to find a solution for development. else, who knows, osdd > ssdd may just create pills too bitter to swallow. oh! the irony of anti-viral opensource microsoft medicines, under the ssdd project. regards niyam ___ 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/
Re: [ilugd] ILUGD (society) as a funding umbrella for FOSS development
On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 12:13 AM, Anupam Jain wrote: > On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Andrew Lynn 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 >> >> (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. The "ILUGD which is separate from the list" is actually not mutually exclusive of the list - in reality a subset of the list. It has the advantage of being a registered society, which therefore has a legal structure that can deal with finances. We do not need to start a new organisation. Merely add a function to the existing. I do see the need for this structure, and could defend/build the merits further. However, the major demerit - from my initial conversation with Gora/Kishore/etc - is that there is insufficient interest/time/ support from the community in this structure. Basically the question "Who is going to do it?" remains unanswered. Andrew ___ 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/
Re: [ilugd] ILUGD (society) as a funding umbrella for FOSS development
On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 8:23 PM, Andrew Lynn 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/
[ilugd] ILUGD (society) as a funding umbrella for FOSS development
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. I would like to suggest an OSDD model for community participation: We have 4 roles - loosely based on the credit card systems. Everyone joins as a blue card. You can work on a project with a supervisor. Based on commit rights and contributions, you are promoted to a silver card, which allows you to supervise projects for which infrastructure is available. Further promotion - again merit based - moves you to a gold card, which allows you to bid for funding to execute projects. The platinum cards are responsible for getting in the major funding. Open for discussion. Andrew Lynn [1] See http://www.cofundos.org/ -- Freed.in : Freedom in technology and software ___ 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/
