A very heart-warming letter from America. Perhaps another reason why FSFIndia should seriously clinch the deal for having a presence at the Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad in early Jan. Thank you Karl! FN PS: I'm copying this to the Free Software Forum-India network. PPS: Karl Pena was put in touch with us by RMS.
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Karl wrote:
Hi Frederick,
I'm in the process of incorporating a nonprofit with which to facilitate this program. I am have been taking the bull by the horns with the legal requisites, start-up funds, and paperwork, and learning a lot about how to establish a corporation. Many parts of this are good, but it takes a long time. And the work to be done does not pause.
In the meantime, eagerly awaiting for the incorporation to manifest itself ASAP, I am working independently in DC, serving nonprofits by migrating them from proprietary to Free Software infrastructures. This is the the center of our mission.
Through my humble weekly accomplishments, I am learning a lot and finding a tremendous amount of support, inspiration, and viable business methodology for the nonprofit organization endeavor.
We do need help, in many areas. Can you talk to me about your skillset? Of course you have mentioned you are a journalist, but do you tout a plethora of technology kung-fu as well? Special areas of interest (besides what I might assume from visiting bytesforall.org)? Would you be willing to assist in writing up case-studies of progress and accomplishments with clients/NGOs?
I think we will need literature or 'whitepapers' along the lines of case-studies to show other nonprofits and NGO's what we have done with prior organizations: costs-saved, infrastructure added, user-happiness, ethical value, et cetera.
What information can I give you? Can we take things from here forward, tell me what sort of action items you suggest and are interested in, and I'll see if/how we can fit them into our mission?
In the long run, what the nonprofit structure in DC accomplishes should transmittable via a rocksolid case-study to be spread acround the USA, and transcontinentally within months or years, depending on how well volunteers and colleagues can assist in the mission. (The language and literature will have to be exciting, and open, not too critical overall, but if we have several sections, like in a newsletter, we could certainly have a 'critics corner' where the more radical, grassroots ideas are appropriately verbalized.) In general the literature should not be too cutting and mudslinging about anyone, nor should it toot its own horn, of course. Sorry if that idea was too basic or obvious. No offense meant by my brainstorming and oversimplifying.
The work of migrating nonprofits to Free Software has already begun...
I look forward to your hearing your thoughts. -Karl
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html
On Wed, 27 Nov 2002, Frederick Noronha wrote:
I'd really like to help this going... FN
On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Karl wrote:
Hi RMS, and Frederick, and Sunil, Niranjan,
Thanks for writing to me about your interest. Your journalistic contributions, and a global level of collaborations and connections, as you have mentioned below, might be a great asset to our group. At the very least we ought to stay in touch and ping each other about things.
Let's dialogue together, and make notes of our insights.
I'd like to hear a little about what Sunil does, who he advocates to, if you'd tell me about it.
-Karl
On Sun, 1 Sep 2002, Frederick Noronha wrote:
Hi RMS, Karl: I'd love to help NGU in any way. Please keep in mind though that I'm a journalist and acutely lack techie skills. My friend in Bangalore, Sunil Abraham, is shaping up into a very articulate campaigner for NGOs taking to GNU/Linux. I think people like him will have a crucial role to play in linking these two never-intersecting parallel lines -- the NGO world and the Free Software movement, which have such close perspectives and goals. Niranjan Rajani is a Finland-based researcher of Pakistani origin; he's working on a study to see the contribution of GNU/Linux to development worldwide. FN RMS: Thanks for raising the critical (from a Third World perspective) issue of affordability in your OneWorld meet. I know those guys in India... doing interesting work. How about pushing things with UNDP/Unesco? They're both interested in Free Software....
On Sat, 31 Aug 2002, Richard Stallman wrote:
Regarding NGOs, I have understood that GNU is launching a program/campaign called NGU which is said to be directed at NGOs,Not exactly. I encouraged Karl Pena to start NGU, but it is an independent activity, not part of the GNU Project. The GNU Project is the project to develop GNU, the operating system.
Are you interested in helping to work on NGU? It looks like you are. How about if you write to karl@tux.org and offer to work with him?