Hello Neil,<br><br>Thank you for your email.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2008/5/2 Neil Coetzer <<a href="mailto:ncoetzer@halsteds.co.zw">ncoetzer@halsteds.co.zw</a>>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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Hi again Ronald,<br>
<br>
Some valid points.<br>
<br>
Firstly, when you talk of people "joining" Ubuntu Zimbabwe, are you referring to the LoCo Team or just the community as a whole? Can you elaborate a little on what 'value' you think people should get from membership? </div>
</blockquote><div><br>I am referring to both, the LoCo team and Community as a whole. The reason why most people are not moving to Ubuntu or any other Linux distro is the perceived lack of support, community members should be able to get decent community support in a reasonable amount of time. You find out that Linux (Ubuntu) <br>
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0. Mission - Yes, I agree.<br>
1. Vision - Once again, agreed.<br>
2. Organisation - Team Structure - In some cases LoCo Teams operate fine without any formal structure/leadership, and in other cases formal structures have been established. I don't particularly mind either way myself, but this would have to be decided on by the LoCo Team as a whole and we would need opinions from all the members as to whether or not they feel a formal structure is necessary at this point, and if so, to what extent.</div>
</blockquote><div><br>I agree, but we need to come up with some communication plan and have every team member aware of his or her duties and responsibilities. I suggest LoCo team members should indicate and clearly state their commitments to the group. I call upon every member to indicate on the projects page what he or she is capable and willing to do for the group.<br>
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3. Ground Rules/Constitution - You might want to take a look at these, which already apply to our community, as part of the worldwide Ubuntu Community.<br>
This Code of Conduct applies to everyone in any Ubuntu Community: <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct" target="_blank">http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct</a> <br>
The Leadership Code of Conduct applies to anyone in a leadership position, which includes all LoCo Team Members: <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/community/leadership-conduct" target="_blank">http://www.ubuntu.com/community/leadership-conduct</a> </div>
</blockquote><div><br>Noted, these should be fine on their own. <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><br>
4. Registering as a non-profit organisation would definitely be a good thing and is something we have discussed briefly before but never acted on. Do you know how to go about this? Registering with CSZ could also be a good plan.</div>
</blockquote><div><br>I will have to find out. As for the Computer Society of Zimbabwe, we have to apply for Institutiaonal Membership (I have to find out the requirements and costs). We need to closely work with HLUG and ZOSS if they are willing.<br>
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5. I agree that we need to have a structure in place to handle the sourcing of funds and handling of donations, etc. I would suggest however that we wait until the country stabilizes a little more before making any decisions. Should we decide to open our own bank account, the last thing we need is to discover that the signatories have suddenly emigrated to the UK :) However, I must be honest and say that I would be strongly opposed to any form of membership subs as I don't feel this would conform to the ideals of Ubuntu. Membership must be free for all, remembering that there is no lower or upper age limit for membership and any lack of finances for an individual should never be an issue where membership of our community/team is concerned. Any funds that come in must be in the form of donations, or as a result of any fund raising projects that we might run. As a compromise, we could perhaps have a voluntary subscription for those members who are willing and able to pay it, but at the end of the day it would basically be a donation.</div>
</blockquote><div><br>If we are to wait for "perfect' conditions we might never sow, there is no better time than now to start moving. For us to be able to open a bank account we need to be Registered (not really), a constitution, proof of residence for signatories ...<br>
<br>Agreed on the membership subs, I suggest we have different classes of membership as follows: 0) Student 1) Proffesional 3) Corporate Institutional 4) Honorary - I propose that Yo! Africa become the first Honorary corporate member (we should also market Yo!Africa products and services during our activities, on our site, mailing lists) We need to try and bring as many corporates to become corporate/instituational members then we leverage on their existing resources - office space, IT Hardware, People skills..... I agree to the idea of donations, these been public funds they need to be accounted for and that will give us some credibility, I propose that we put up structures on how these and other issues (meetings, activities, roadshows) are handled.<br>
<br>We might also fund raise by providing commercial support, training, customisation, installation services.... We come up with a commercial venture and all members who provide the service will get a small fee<br><br><br>
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Web site:<br>
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As far as I know Yo!Africa uses Joomla as a default (Kalpesh, please confirm), and in my opinion Joomla is the best to use so this would probably suit us well. Raymond and I did work on a site last year and most of the graphics and layout were completed, with only the content left to do. However, both of us have recently changed jobs and moved to Harare (him from Kwekwe, me from Masvingo) so have not had much time lately to continue working on it. At the time, we designed a standard site (without using any content management systems). I'm at home until Monday but will make a plan next week to let everyone see the "look" for the site that we had come up with. What I would suggest, if everyone approves the "look" of the site, is that we then apply that look to a custom Joomla template. Since the site was designed with css, we could just transfer those style sheets to the Joomla template. I have only messed around a little with customising Joomla templates, so if anyone else is more confident in this area I would most willingly hand it over.</div>
</blockquote><div><br>Do we really need to get "everyone'' to approve the look? Lets get something up and running, then make improvements later. <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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Off the top of my head, I would say the main priorities for the site are as follows:
<ul>
<li>To provide links to Ubuntu resources for Zimbabweans, including local repository information, local downloads of Ubuntu iso's, the Zimbabwe Ubuntu forum, mailing list and LoCo Team pages (which could be relocated from the wiki to the local site, once it's up and running).
</li><li>To provide information and further links relating to open source. I did e-mail ZOSS last year in connection with some sort of affiliation and interlinking of sites, but to date have not received a response.
</li><li>To provide notice for any upcoming/planned events in Zim.
</li><li>To provide updates on Zimbabwean projects (such as the Freedom Toaster).
</li><li>In the future it might be an option to have our forum hosted locally with the site, but I think we're still too small for this. At present with the forum being hosted along with all the other Ubuntu forums, we can benefit from the exposure and experience of Ubuntu users worldwide, whereas a local forum would only be read by the relatively few Zimbabwean users.
</li></ul></div></blockquote><div><br>I would suggest a news section, and a community blog (anyone willing to write articles for the blog?) <br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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We have received approval from Canonical to register the domain <a href="http://www.ubuntu.org.zw" target="_blank">www.ubuntu.org.zw</a> and I have requested this to be done through Yo!Africa but have not received feedback yet. Kalpesh, can we liaise on this? As a side note, I did notice that somebody has registered the domain <a href="http://www.ubuntu.co.zw" target="_blank">www.ubuntu.co.zw</a> which has nothing to do with Ubuntu Linux - I'm not sure if we have any grounds to complain regarding copyright infringement under Zimbabwean law? Probably not. Does anyone know?</div>
</blockquote><div><br>ZISPA has decided to make it very difficult to register a local domain name, they came up with unnecessary requirements (such as proof of residence, passport size photo and copy of ID for who ever is going to sign the Terms and Conditions). One can only register a domain through an ISP and most ISP will only register your domain if you get a broadband package (Luckily Yo!Africa is on our side, I have registered a couple of domains with Helen, the service was exceptional)<br>
<br><a href="http://www.ubuntu.co.zw">www.ubuntu.co.zw</a> is not yet live, I will try by all means to find out who owns the domain name, the best option we have is to buy the domian from the owner.<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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Ronald thanks again for your input and enthusiasm. I must admit that I have been a bit lax following my move up here, but I'm fairly well settled now so we definitely need to get the ball rolling again. I think we should definitely organise a team meeting if possible at some point soon.<br>
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Regards,<br>
Neil<div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"><br>
<br>
<br>
On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 18:55 +0200, ronald munjoma wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote type="CITE"><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
<font color="#000000">Hello,</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">I am sure you should be sick and tired of my emails by now (my apologies, I had to go through the mailing list, this is my last email today, I will summarize everything I have to say here - based on your previous emails and my thought, think of it as digest)</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">I am a member of HLUG and ZOSS (founding member in both cases) to be honest with you I have not derived much value frommy membership (I also feel that I have not added much value to the other members). The two organizations are "dead" when it comes to activities, mailing list posts, forums, meetings, installfests....</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">When people join Zimbabwe Ubuntu they expect to derive so value from their membership, please make sure that these people get something back and at the same time let us allow them to add some value to us (networ-effect). That been said we should come up with a compelling value proposition (Whats In It For Me) for prospective members.</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">I strongly feel we nedd to formalise the group, right now we are just but a bunch of individuals posting on the net. Yes open source projects, groups are self organising, self controlling, self ... I strongly feel we need to come up and agree on the following;</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">0. Mission</font><br>
<font color="#000000">1. Vision</font><br>
<font color="#000000">2. Organisation - Team structure - postions, titles, duties and responsibilities, expectation</font><br>
<font color="#000000">3. Ground rules/Constitution</font><br>
<font color="#000000">4. Register the group as a Non Profit Organisation, register with the computer society (I dont see any value for members, but it gives us credibility with whoever we would like to work with)</font><br>
<font color="#000000">5. setup a board of trustee - funding ahs to be sourced, membership subs have to paid to run the group - we need people to hold us accountable.</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">(some might feel this is too eraly for this and our numbers are still small, we need to get these in place so as to grow, I suggest we have an interim committee in place, whose main responsibility is to put the above listed items in place - the list is not exhaustive)</font><br>
<br>
<b><font color="#000000">Freedom Toaster</font></b><br>
<font color="#000000">Some two years ago efforts were made to bring in one from SA for use during the LInux Expo, we were told the machine was huge. I feel we can make a simple CD/DVD duplicator and turn it into a Freedom Toaster. Any ideas are welcome. When we had a Suse installfest we asked people to bring in blank CD/DVDs which we burnt for free, we also did the same at the Linux Expo. If we are going to host an installfest we can also use PXE boot.</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">I have been using APTonCD with a friend to keep our boxes up to date, we can also distribute APTonCDs for updates.</font><br>
<br>
<b><font color="#000000">Website</font></b><br>
<font color="#000000">Which type of hosting package did Yo! donate? If it supports php, mysql, we will make use of Open Source content management solutions, Joomla, drupal, Xoops... the choice is unlimited. I am prepared to work on this, I will need help with the graphics design and content.</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">I feel we can make good use of the Wiki pages for now, they need some updating, which I am prepared to do as well, please suggest the content that you will like to see on the wiki site.</font><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<font color="#000000">-- </font><br>
<font color="#000000">Ronald Munjoma</font><br>
<font color="#000000">IT & Business Consultant</font><br>
<font color="#000000">Act Business Solutions</font><br>
<br>
<font color="#000000"><a href="mailto:ronaldm@actbusinesssolutions.com" target="_blank">ronaldm@actbusinesssolutions.com</a></font><br>
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