Gentoo Archives: gentoo-nfp

From: Matthew Summers <matthew.summers@××××××××××××.com>
To: gentoo-nfp@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-nfp] [Fwd: Response to Grant Goodyear
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2008 06:06:48
Message-Id: 47943606.60402@liquidustech.com
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4 Greetings,
5
6 First, I wish to state that I am a long time Gentoo user and over the
7 past several years I have been nothing but happy with Gentoo. It is
8 my opinion that Gentoo is the greatest of all GNU/Linux distributions,
9 and I want to extend my most hearty gratitude to the entire Gentoo
10 community, to the developers, to the users,to everyone involved, both
11 in the past and in the present, for all of the effort over the years.
12 It has been monumental. Many thanks.
13
14 I now own a small development company & we use Gentoo (Hardened-amd64)
15 on our development & production servers. What's more I happen to deal
16 largely in the non-profit, foundation, and grant world. It is with
17 regard to this particular aspect of my expertise that I wish to inform
18 the various governmental bodies of Gentoo that there is a vast ocean
19 of possibilities, and funding, available to non-profits &
20 foundations. This to perhaps inspire new thinking about the role of
21 Gentoo and the Gentoo community in the world at large.
22
23
24 I am of the opinion that Gentoo should not contract the SFC to manage
25 the Foundation for the following reasons.
26
27 - -With responsible governance there is no real need to be under the
28 umbrella of another larger organization. -The SFC may or may not have
29 the funding, capacity, or longevity to handle as large an organization
30 as Gentoo.
31 - -The SFC will surely take some Gentoo generated funding away from
32 Gentoo to cover administrative costs, etc, that, given responsible
33 governence, could be used for the greater benefit of Gentoo and the
34 Gentoo community.
35
36 There are significant amounts of money available to NPOs, like Gentoo,
37 from Federal grant programs to the more mundane private charitable
38 donations. In general, these funding opportunities require program
39 development and partnerships with other organizations and institutions
40 such as community based non-profits and universities. The real beauty
41 of these opportunities is that it fosters a relationship between our
42 Gentoo community and the larger public, be it on a smaller local level
43 with other community-based non-profits or on a larger scale with multi
44 university research partnerships, etc. One of the many benefits of
45 this type of interaction is that funding can be allocated for many
46 different activities, for example, provisions for administrative
47 costs, new equipment, training programs, salaries, incentives for
48 developers, and a premium experience for users. Therefore, with this
49 kind of funding, Gentoo can help its own community members while also
50 assisting others. Which, in my opinion, is one of the strongest
51 characteristics of the Gentoo community, helping others. This is
52 demonstrated on IRC, in the forums, and in the email lists every day.
53 Why would we need to belong to a larger organization to do these
54 things? Why do we need an organization, like the SFC, to "manage"
55 Gentoo. Perhaps we ought simply solicit them for /pro bono/ legal
56 assistance in emergency situations.
57
58
59 I am of the opinion that Gentoo should welcome the return of Daniel
60 Robbins, but in a somewhat more limited sense than his recent offer.
61
62 Mr. Robbins is obviously an extremely intelligent and dedicated
63 individual that seems to really care about the health of Gentoo. In
64 addition, Mr. Robbins has a large amount of experience in the larger
65 world of business and software development. Thus it seems reasonable
66 to posit that he may indeed have some very good ideas regarding the
67 direction of Gentoo. I, for one, welcome a transparent roadmap that I
68 would have the opportunity to review and comment on. Prior to starting
69 a business I was rather happy to simply remain on the fringe of the
70 Gentoo community. My main interest was in using the meta-distro to
71 accomplish some very specific research related work as well as use on
72 my personal machines. However, now that I rely on Gentoo from a
73 business perspective I find myself much more interested in and
74 concerned about the general direction of Gentoo. Thus, a more
75 transparent governance would put my mind at ease and provide a means
76 for greater communication with Gentoo's developers.
77
78
79 What follows are some suggestions.
80
81 Consider the use of university internship programs for projects like
82 documentation (technical writing students) & The GMN (journalism
83 students). These programs are a requirement to graduate for many
84 university students. With that, many companies and other
85 organizations offer resume-building experience in their field in the
86 form of these unpaid interships. I'm sure many of you have had the
87 pleasure of an unpaid internship. The Gentoo Foundation can leverage
88 its status as a well known GNU/Linux distribution and a legitimate
89 global organization to attract the leading universities around the
90 world. What I mean to say is that people pay attention to Gentoo and
91 there exists a certain level of expectation of quality from the larger
92 tech world. To really floor the critics, solicit a few English
93 departments at some highly respected university to collaborate with a
94 team of developers and users to create and maintain documentation and
95 write a regular news letter. I know a few good writers and if you give
96 them the right information to start with then answer any questions
97 they have along the way you get really nice work. What writer
98 wouldn't like to have their name on really well written, and heavily
99 viewed pages? Talk about an attention grabber.
100
101 Further, consider using internship programs to assist with the
102 management and governance of the Gentoo Foundation itself. There are
103 many university programs that focus on non-profit and foundation
104 management. Create programs that give opportunities to these students
105 to participate in the day to day business of the Gentoo Foundation.
106 They can act in supporting roles for the trustees and counsel members
107 and other various committees. Hey, its worth university credit to the
108 student and its free to Gentoo.
109
110
111 Consider the implementation of a Gentoo Patron program, such that
112 companies and other organizations have an opportunity to support the
113 Foundation, be it financially or with volunteers. In return, offer
114 some Patron Profile Page to give the donors some visibility. Further,
115 as a small business owner I have to say, its sometimes very tough to
116 locally procure for employment a good developer, administrator, or
117 otherwise one that knows their way around Gentoo or GNU/Linux for that
118 matter. I imagine that other companies have similar issues. Thus some
119 way for companies and organization to be exposed to the larger Gentoo
120 community would be a significant return on any investment.
121
122 Consider a partnership with a larger organization, like Google, to
123 extend the users experience in novel ways. One example would be the
124 use of some social networking tools to aid the Gentoo community in
125 collaborations on code, documentation, etc.
126
127
128 In closing, I want to offer thanks for a job well done. It has taken
129 the dedication of many individuals to get Gentoo to where it is today.
130 This spirit is not gone. Thus, we look toward a bright future. If
131 anyone wishes to contact me for any reason please do so, I would be
132 pleased to answer any questions. If I can provide any futher
133 information or assistance, please don't hesitate to ask.
134
135 Best Regards,
136 Matthew Summers
137
138
139
140 - --
141 Matthew W. Summers
142
143 Chief Executive Officer & Systems Engineer
144 Liquidus Tech, LLC
145 309 N. Jefferson Ave. Suite 378
146 Springfield, MO 65806
147 (417) 894-2607
148 matthew.summers@××××××××××××.com
149 www.liquidustech.com
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