discuss: Thread: the tldp foundation

> Hi again,
> 
> A while ago I've asked Guylhem about this, but my
> message must have gotten 
> lost in his spam.  I wanted to know, if people want
> to give money to teh 
> TLDP, how can they best arrange this?
> 
> Tille.

While its remarkable that tldp has managed to survive
as an informal group of volunteers for a long time a
foundation can be formed to better deal with these
kinds of things

benefits
1)clear leadership and direction
2)can be assigned copyrights
3)can recieve funds
4)organise things more easily
5)contacts can be established in a better way 

what do you guys think?

regards
Rahul

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/

ibiblio (via UNC) does receive and hold some funds for tldp. we have not 
yet spent any of these funds and report them regularly to the tldp staff. 
over the years, there has been much discussion about incorporating tldp as 
a 501(c)3 not-for-profit tax-exempt corporation (in the US). i've looked 
into this several times and it's fallen out of discussion each time. it 
may be that we need a separate foundation just to deal with funds (ala 
gutenberg.net).
send your checks to:
ibiblio.org
campus box 3456
UNC
chapel hill, nc 27599-3456
USA

make them payable to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a 
note that the funds are for the Linux Documenation Project.

On Wed, 5 May 2004, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

+
+> Hi again,
+> 
+> A while ago I've asked Guylhem about this, but my
+> message must have gotten 
+> lost in his spam.  I wanted to know, if people want
+> to give money to teh 
+> TLDP, how can they best arrange this?
+> 
+> Tille.
+
+While its remarkable that tldp has managed to survive
+as an informal group of volunteers for a long time a
+foundation can be formed to better deal with these
+kinds of things
+
+benefits
+1)clear leadership and direction
+2)can be assigned copyrights
+3)can recieve funds
+4)organise things more easily
+5)contacts can be established in a better way 
+
+what do you guys think?
+
+regards
+Rahul
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/
+
+______________________
+http://lists.tldp.org/
+

==========================================================================
                             Paul Jones
 "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray
                    http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/
  ####@####.####   voice: (919) 962-7600     fax: (919) 962-8071
===========================================================================

Hi

 --- Paul Jones ####@####.#### wrote: >
ibiblio (via UNC) does receive and hold some funds
> for tldp. we have not 
> yet spent any of these funds and report them
> regularly to the tldp staff. 
> over the years, there has been much discussion about
> incorporating tldp as 
> a 501(c)3 not-for-profit tax-exempt corporation (in
> the US). i've looked 
> into this several times and it's fallen out of
> discussion each time. it 
> may be that we need a separate foundation just to
> deal with funds (ala 
> gutenberg.net).
> send your checks to:
> ibiblio.org
> campus box 3456
> UNC
> chapel hill, nc 27599-3456
> USA


For the time being its good to have this information
available publicly in the website. I was specifically
talking about something along the lines of mozilla or
gnome foundation

how difficult is that?

regards
Rahul


________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/

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On Wed, 5 May 2004, Rahul Sundaram wrote:

> For the time being its good to have this information
> available publicly in the website. I was specifically
> talking about something along the lines of mozilla or
> gnome foundation
> 
> how difficult is that?

It seems like a Pandora's box to me - hence probably the silence around 
this proposal...

We'd need an administrative structure that none of us is used to, I guess.  
Who'll want to do the paperwork?  Talking about clear responsabilities as 
you did, there would be one person who gets all the shit, wouldn't it?

As Paul points out, we don't need the money, appearantly.  So what would 
we do with it?  I fear there would be no end to the discussions about such 
topics.

Tille.

- -- 

My Penguin, my freedom.		http://tille.soti.org

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Rahul Sundaram escribió:

>>Hi again,
>>
>>A while ago I've asked Guylhem about this, but my
>>message must have gotten 
>>lost in his spam.  I wanted to know, if people want
>>to give money to teh 
>>TLDP, how can they best arrange this?
>>
>>Tille.
>>    
>>
>
>While its remarkable that tldp has managed to survive
>as an informal group of volunteers for a long time a
>foundation can be formed to better deal with these
>kinds of things
>
>benefits
>1)clear leadership and direction
>2)can be assigned copyrights
>3)can recieve funds
>4)organise things more easily
>5)contacts can be established in a better way 
>
>what do you guys think?
>
>regards
>Rahul
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/
>
>______________________
>http://lists.tldp.org/
>
>
>  
>
That's OK but with a condition: no pay money to see the How tos and 
another documents. Free for everybody in the web. This can be the main 
principle.

Regards.

Rahul Sundaram wrote:

[...]


> While its remarkable that tldp has managed to survive
> as an informal group of volunteers for a long time a
> foundation can be formed to better deal with these
> kinds of things


I cannot quite see how a foundation works better or differently
than these mailing lists, could you elaborate?

> benefits
> 1)clear leadership and direction


We already have a leader but I would like to see more on
what directions are in the plans and the vision for TLDP
(without Dilbert styled marketing speak of course). This
too should be possible to communicate on a mailing list.

> 2)can be assigned copyrights


Is that really necessary?

> 3)can recieve funds
> 4)organise things more easily


Could you elaborate more on what needs to be organised?

> 5)contacts can be established in a better way 


Such as?

> what do you guys think?


I would like to know more on what you have in mind.

My own view is that we should improve our services to
our users by keeping in mind exactly who they are and
what they want, specifically:

  o end users, readers
   - better structure (*)
   - better navigation between documents (*)
   - possibly more formats for reading (*)
   - more complete collection of documents
     - adding auxilliary documents
     - more brocures (*)
     - more overview documents
     - adding in existing documents from elsewhere
  o authors and new authors
   - better tools
     - improve templates (*)
     - better generators (*)
   - continue improving documentation
   - recruit new authors
  o publishers, packagers
   - make tools to make selection and compilation easy (*)
   - improve contacts with these (*)
   - get fresher TLDP contents in more distributions
  o editors, reviewers
   - continue improving documentation and process
   - workflow management
   - recruit more people
  o other items
   - more coverage of TLDP
   - more announcements (*)

Do note: I am not trying to oust current leader.
rather I am trying to realise what I believe are needed
improvements by suggestions, prototyping and getting
things started, as marked with asterix above. Regrettably
I have not had the sufficient amount of time to follow up
on initial work and proposals but have had great help from
Emma Jane Hogbin and others in a number of cases.

As an additional teaser I can tell you that I believe I
have succeeded in getting professional help in structuring
documents in the form of someone doing a Master grade project
in Librarian Sciences for us.

I believe we can accomplish all this without a foundation.
We still need to think more on where we are going and how
we want to do it.

Regards,
    Stein Gjoen

--- Stein Gjoen ####@####.#### wrote: > Rahul
Sundaram wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> 
> > While its remarkable that tldp has managed to
> survive
> > as an informal group of volunteers for a long time
> a
> > foundation can be formed to better deal with these
> > kinds of things
> 
> 
> I cannot quite see how a foundation works better or
> differently
> than these mailing lists, could you elaborate?


sure. take a look at the mozilla foundation and gnome
foundation for examples of this. while random
volunteers can get together and discuss things,
sometimes decisions will have to taken promptly and
decisively. We get struck on various things. who gets
to decide whether a document should be accepted into
the collection, removed, acceptable licenes,
formulating new policies and making sure that various
things we discuss do not get dropped out. for example
the css related changes to the website was discussed
extensively and remember the web counters thingy
everyone was interested in but just never happened?.
maybe having a foundation would help?


> 
> > benefits
> > 1)clear leadership and direction
> 
> 
> We already have a leader but I would like to see
> more on
> what directions are in the plans and the vision for
> TLDP
> (without Dilbert styled marketing speak of course).
> This
> too should be possible to communicate on a mailing
> list.

sure we have a leader but i believe we need more
people and close knit team who can decisively do
things on behalf of tldp . for example) promoting LDP
or getting sponsorships.

> 
> > 2)can be assigned copyrights
> 
> 
> Is that really necessary?


Not completely but it can beneficial. I know quite a
few people like to assign copyrights and not worry
about licensing and stuff. It can be useful for
various scenarios. I am sure pretty sure searching the
archives would show some interesting things.

> 
> > 3)can recieve funds
> > 4)organise things more easily
> 
> 
> Could you elaborate more on what needs to be
> organised?

see above. we need to make sure we dont drop out
various ideas and follow up on things we discuss and
take a decision on whether this is acceptable or not
and if not why/

> 
> > 5)contacts can be established in a better way 
> 
> 
> Such as?

Suppose that you want to get sponsorship for a certain
event. say a yearly LDP meet or say some authors would
like to recieve renumeration for their work or get
their work published as a book and would like tldp to
help them. how do you go about doing this now?. A
foundation is better equipped to do that.

> 
> > what do you guys think?
> 
> 
> I would like to know more on what you have in mind.
> 
> My own view is that we should improve our services
> to
> our users by keeping in mind exactly who they are
> and
> what they want, specifically:
> 
>   o end users, readers
>    - better structure (*)
>    - better navigation between documents (*)
>    - possibly more formats for reading (*)
>    - more complete collection of documents
>      - adding auxilliary documents
>      - more brocures (*)
>      - more overview documents
>      - adding in existing documents from elsewhere
>   o authors and new authors
>    - better tools
>      - improve templates (*)
>      - better generators (*)
>    - continue improving documentation
>    - recruit new authors
>   o publishers, packagers
>    - make tools to make selection and compilation
> easy (*)
>    - improve contacts with these (*)
>    - get fresher TLDP contents in more distributions
>   o editors, reviewers
>    - continue improving documentation and process
>    - workflow management
>    - recruit more people
>   o other items
>    - more coverage of TLDP
>    - more announcements (*)
> 
> Do note: I am not trying to oust current leader.
> rather I am trying to realise what I believe are
> needed
> improvements by suggestions, prototyping and getting
> things started, as marked with asterix above.
> Regrettably
> I have not had the sufficient amount of time to
> follow up
> on initial work and proposals but have had great
> help from
> Emma Jane Hogbin and others in a number of cases.
> ..............


Sure. So does  Tabatha, Greg,  Machtelt Garrels, David
and innumerous authors and volunteers who have done
excellent work in the past and continue to do so.

.............
> I believe we can accomplish all this without a
> foundation.
> We still need to think more on where we are going
> and how
> we want to do it.
> 

We sure need author, more documents, less outdated
stuff and all that and yes it can be accomplished
without a foundation but I believe that having one
would be very helpful but I dont know how hard it is
or whether others consider it an improvement worth the
effort. 

regards
Rahul Sundaram

________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/

Rahul Sundaram wrote:

> --- Stein Gjoen ####@####.#### wrote: > Rahul
> Sundaram wrote:
> 
>>[...]
>>
>>
>>
>>>While its remarkable that tldp has managed to
>>>survive
>>>as an informal group of volunteers for a long time
>>>a
>>>foundation can be formed to better deal with these
>>>kinds of things
>>
>>I cannot quite see how a foundation works better or
>>differently
>>than these mailing lists, could you elaborate?
> 
> sure. take a look at the mozilla foundation and gnome
> foundation for examples of this. while random
> volunteers can get together and discuss things,
> sometimes decisions will have to taken promptly and


Considering many of us here have been around for
many years now I cannot just dismiss this forum.
Nor do I see how a foundation speeds things up.
You would in any case need bylaws and processes that
gives powers to a group to make decisions and even
that is no guarantee. Debian to take an example has
lots of constitutions and processes but keeps on
postponing th enext release.

> decisively. We get struck on various things. who gets
> to decide whether a document should be accepted into
> the collection, removed, acceptable licenes,
> formulating new policies and making sure that various
> things we discuss do not get dropped out. for example
> the css related changes to the website was discussed
> extensively and remember the web counters thingy
> everyone was interested in but just never happened?.
> maybe having a foundation would help?


As you point out we do make decisions but carrying them
out quickly requires more people than we actually have.

>>>benefits
>>>1)clear leadership and direction
>>>
>>
>>We already have a leader but I would like to see
>>more on
>>what directions are in the plans and the vision for
>>TLDP
>>(without Dilbert styled marketing speak of course).
>>This
>>too should be possible to communicate on a mailing
>>list.
>>
> 
> sure we have a leader but i believe we need more
> people and close knit team who can decisively do
> things on behalf of tldp . for example) promoting LDP
> or getting sponsorships.


We can definitely agree on the need to get more people.
That is alos the hard part.

>>>2)can be assigned copyrights
>>
>>Is that really necessary?
> 
> Not completely but it can beneficial. I know quite a
> few people like to assign copyrights and not worry
> about licensing and stuff. It can be useful for
> various scenarios. I am sure pretty sure searching the
> archives would show some interesting things.


I cannot remember such scenario having ever appeared
so I would be interested to see what you can find.

>>>3)can recieve funds
>>>4)organise things more easily
>>
>>Could you elaborate more on what needs to be
>>organised?
>>
> 
> see above. we need to make sure we dont drop out
> various ideas and follow up on things we discuss and
> take a decision on whether this is acceptable or not
> and if not why/


Currently I use an inbox to make sure nothing is lost.
A workflow system has been proposed to streamline that
so there still is not organisational an issue here.

>>>5)contacts can be established in a better way 
>>
>>Such as?
> 
> Suppose that you want to get sponsorship for a certain
> event. say a yearly LDP meet or say some authors would
> like to recieve renumeration for their work or get
> their work published as a book and would like tldp to
> help them. how do you go about doing this now?. A
> foundation is better equipped to do that.


We already have some funds but there is a big threshold
before spending any. Also we have contacts with a few
companies that have sponsored us. While carefully not
dismissing you views I am just not entirely convinced.

>>>what do you guys think?
>>
>>I would like to know more on what you have in mind.
>>
>>My own view is that we should improve our services
>>to
>>our users by keeping in mind exactly who they are
>>and
>>what they want, specifically:
>>
>>  o end users, readers
>>   - better structure (*)
>>   - better navigation between documents (*)
>>   - possibly more formats for reading (*)
>>   - more complete collection of documents
>>     - adding auxilliary documents
>>     - more brocures (*)
>>     - more overview documents
>>     - adding in existing documents from elsewhere
>>  o authors and new authors
>>   - better tools
>>     - improve templates (*)
>>     - better generators (*)
>>   - continue improving documentation
>>   - recruit new authors
>>  o publishers, packagers
>>   - make tools to make selection and compilation
>>easy (*)
>>   - improve contacts with these (*)
>>   - get fresher TLDP contents in more distributions
>>  o editors, reviewers
>>   - continue improving documentation and process
>>   - workflow management
>>   - recruit more people
>>  o other items
>>   - more coverage of TLDP
>>   - more announcements (*)


Time to add some more:
   o publisity material
    - press kit
    - up to date statistics ready for background material
    - info material for TLDP stands
    - TLDP business cards (Poet had some prototyped once)


>>Do note: I am not trying to oust current leader.
>>rather I am trying to realise what I believe are
>>needed
>>improvements by suggestions, prototyping and getting
>>things started, as marked with asterix above.
>>Regrettably
>>I have not had the sufficient amount of time to
>>follow up
>>on initial work and proposals but have had great
>>help from
>>Emma Jane Hogbin and others in a number of cases.
>>..............
> 
> Sure. So does  Tabatha, Greg,  Machtelt Garrels, David
> and innumerous authors and volunteers who have done
> excellent work in the past and continue to do so.


Indeed; I am not detracting from anyone's hard work.

> .............
> 
>>I believe we can accomplish all this without a
>>foundation.
>>We still need to think more on where we are going
>>and how
>>we want to do it.
>>
>>
> 
> We sure need author, more documents, less outdated
> stuff and all that and yes it can be accomplished
> without a foundation but I believe that having one
> would be very helpful but I dont know how hard it is
> or whether others consider it an improvement worth the
> effort. 

That is the question.

We should not underestimate the work required to set up
a foundation and also running it.


Regards,
    Stein Gjoen